PEOPLE OP THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. JOSEFINA N. SAMSON, DEFENDANT AND, APPELLANT.

Charged with parricide (case No. 1616) for the death of Jose V.
Samson, who was shot in the morning of 18 October 1954, and illegal
possession of a firearm (case No. 1617), after trial Josefina.N. Samson
was acquitted of the last charge but found guilty of .parricide and
sentenced by the Court of First Instance of Albay to suffer the penalty
of reclusion perpetua, to indemnify the heirs of the deceased in the
sum of P6,000 and to pay the costs.

The defendant has appealed.

The evidence for the prosecution shows that at about 7:00 o’clock in
the morning of 13 October 1954, while standing on the stairway of his
house and facing the street in the municipality of Libon, province of
Albay, Jose V. Samson was shot twice by Josefina N. Samson, who was
behind him holding a carbine (Exhibit A). , After the shooting she went
to the municipal building and reported to the Chief of Police Julian
Cerdefia that she had shot her husband and, requested him (Cerdefia) to
go to her house and see the body. The Chief of Police told the guard to
lock her up inside the jail and he (the Chief of Police) and patrolman
Francisco Fernandez repaired to the house of Jose V. Samson and there
found his body lying on his back at the door of the house. The Chief
‘ of Police found a carbine (Exhibit A) on a table in the dining room
and two empty shells (Exhibit A-3), one behind the body of the deceased
and the other on a table. Dr. Zacarias Edades, the Municipal Health
Officer,: made a. postmortem examination of the deceased and issued a
medical certificate dated 13 October 1954 (Exhibit B), reading as
follows:

To Whom it May Concern :

This is to certify that I made a physical
examination and inves-1 gation on this date at Velasco St., Libon,
Albay, at the residence of Engineer Jose V. .Samson and have the
following” noted:

1. The body of Engineer Jose V. Samson, 42 yrs., .married,
   engineer by profession, resident of this municipality, dumped-at the
   doorsteps of his residence, (recumbent position):
2. No sign of life is evident on him;
3. Hemorrhage. profuse and apparently beginning to clot;
4. Presence
   of a bullet entrance wound at the postero-lateral aspect of the nape of
   the neck near the beginning, of the right shoulder measuring around 4
   milimeters in diameter projecting downwards and inwards passing the
   clavicle left and. coming out about 5 centimeters above and lateral to
   the left nipple. Point of exit “wound measuring around 15 mm. by 20 mm.
   Another wound measuring 22,1 mm-, by 15 mm. at anterior as neck of the
   left forearm about 8′ centimeters craversing through’ the radial and
   nlnar bones (in-between) and coming put the dorsal aspect of same
   forearm about 9 cm. above the wrist, wound- measuring 25 mm. by 27 mln.
5. Presence
   of” a bullet wound entrance at the right inter-scapular region about 10
   em. below the above stated wound measuring about 4 milimeters in
   diameter projecting upwards and coming out at the lateral aspect of the
   lower jaw shattering the lateral portion of the lower mandible. Wound
   measuring 5 em. by 31/2 cm.

In (the) evaluation to (of) the above findings the cause of death is
due to the gunshots inflicted with profuse hemorrhage resulting thereat
(therefrom). It also appears that in the morning of 13 October 1954
while Meliton Sial, a gardener, was cutting grass on the lawn of the
house of the Samsons at Libori, Albay, he heard two shots so he went up
the house and there saw Mrs. Samson near the door of the kitchen
carrying a firearm (Exhibit A) from whom he inquired what was the shot
about and Mrs. Samson replied: “I shot him.”

The evidence for the defense shows that the deceased Jose V. Samson
was cruel and of, violent character and for many years had been
maltreating his wife at the slightest provocation and on several
occasions inflicting upon her physical injuries (Exhibits 12, 12-A, 20
and 21); that the day before 13 October 1954 Jose V. Samson, who was
then the District Engineer of the province of Masbate, arrived in
Legaspi, Albay, and asked his wife and children to join him for lunch
at the Eden Hotel to which he was invited by a friend named Jose Lim;
that she could not join him because on that “very day she had stood as
sponsor at a wedding the luncheon of which was to be held in the same
hotel; that the children joined their father for lunch and after lunch
she and her children went shopping; that she bought underwears
(Exhibits 15, 15-A, 15-B, 15-C) for her husband and Nescafe; that after
shopping she and her children went to the store of Jose Lim where her
husband was and together they went home leaving on their way their
daughter Glenda at the St. Agnes Academy; that after staying a short
while at their house she and her husband left, the latter going to Bato
to call on his brother Jesus V. Samson and she to the ricefields to
look after her share in the palay that was being gathered or reaped;
that both returned home that same evening and ate their supper
together; that while they were taking their supper she told her husband
that she had sold 80 cavanes of palay; that after supper they
retired and slept on the same bed; that the next morning she prepared
breakfast for her husband who was to go hunting; that later he woke up
and began to take his breakfast; that upon tasting the coffee he
suddenly. pulled his wife by the hair and complained of the kind of
coffee she had bought for him; that after a short while her husband
resumed taking his breakfast while she prepared sandwiches for him to
bring along on his hunting trip; that when her husband was about to
leave he asked her some money and she gave him P50; that the deceased
asked for more and she gave him another 150 consisting of two
twenty-peso- bills and one ten-peso bill; that her husband asked for
more money and she gave him P2.00; that this made him angry and he
grabbed her by the arm and twisted it and also by the neck until she
could no longer speak and was thrown against the table; that her
husband in a loud voice told her that “if you don’t, give me money I
will kill you” and that “if you don’t have any money any more you
better work as a maid servant, if not, be a prostitute;” that her
husband took the carbine from the table and holding it by the muzzle
raised it above his right shoulder in an attempt to strike her; that
she side-stepped and grappled with him for the possession of the gun
and in the scuffle the gun went off, the bullet hitting her husband in
the neck; that when she saw the neck of her husband bleeding, she
rushed to the municipal building where she asked Dr. Edades, the
municipal health officer, to attend to her husband and at the same time
informed the Chief of Police of what had happened; that she was placed
under arrest and locked up in the municipal jail; that during her
confinement in the municipal jail she was examined by the Municipal
Health Officer, Dr. Zacarias E. Edades, who found the following:

1. A. linear skin abrasion about 8 mm. near the base of the index finger dorsal aspect;
2. Slight contusion wrist left forearm; no abrasion nor swelling noted;
3. Subjective complaint of pain around the heck but no visible physical
   findings noted; no abrasion, no skin discoloration nor swelling noted
   on examination.

The above findings with no further complication and good treatment
be rendered “will be all vjght within 3-5 dash, • • • (Exhibit 6). –

The re-enactment during the trial of the way the deceased had been
shot made, under the direction of the appellant, appearing in.Exhibits
16, 18, 18-a and 18-b clearly appears not to be normal. It was
difficult, if not welt nigh impossible, for her, who was frail and
shorter in height than her husband,, who was robust and taller (Exhibit
23), to have succeeded in taking hold of the carbine, her right hand
gripping the lower part of the barrel of the gun and the left hand, the
part of the gun near the trigger, for if her husband was to strike her
with the butt of the carbine and she side-stepped, he would not have
continued to hold the carbine in a raised position when the person to
be assaulted already had sidestepped and avoided the attempted or
intended blow upon her. If, as claimed by the appellant, the gun went
off during the scuffle injuring her husband on the nape “projecting
downwards and inwards passing the clavicle left and coming out about 5
centimeters above and. lateral to the left nipple,” a bullet wound
which was fatal, how could the appellant explain the presence or
causing of the wound on the left forearm and. the bullet wound ”at the
right interscapular region about 10 cm. below the above stated wound *
* * projecting upwards and coming out at the lateral aspect of the
lower jaw shattering the lateral portion of the lower mandible?”
Through actual test during the trial it was found that the carbine
(Exhibit A) was not defective and could not fire without pressing the
trigger. The absence of any powder burns at the entrance of the. wounds
found in the body of the deceased is convincing proof that the victim
was shot from a distance- and not with the muzzle of the gun almost
resting on his shoulder or the back of the neck.

The appellant claims that there is no competent evidence that the
victim and the appellant were husband and wife. The claim is without
merit. The testimony of the appellant on direct examination disclosed
several times that she was married to the deceased in both “Church and
civil marriages.” On cross examination, she testified on the exact date
of her marriage to the deceased (4 July 1934) and the place (Pili,
Camarines Sur) where they were married. She did not only’ admit, .that
the deceased was her husband but also brought out the fact that out of
the marriage they had five children and that only three are living,
namely: Glenda, Manuel and Felix. Indeed, there could be no
better.proof of marriage in a. parricide case than the admission by the
accused of the existence of such marriage. More, Ramon M. Velasco,
mayor of Libon, Albay, and uncle of the deceased, testified that when
he saw the appellant in the afternoon of 13 October 1954 at the
municipal jail, she immediately begged for his forgiveness and told him
that she had shot her-husband Pepe (referring to the: deceased) because
the latter had a mistress and she could not bear or suffer it any .
longer.

The appellant contends that the action to enforce civil liability
has been reserved and, therefore, the trial court erred in awarding
civil damages amounting to P6,000 to the heirs of the deceased. In
support of this contention she quotes what the trial court stated
during the hearing of the case, to wit:

COURT:

The court reserves the right of the heirs to prosecute the civil action independently, as soon as a guardian is appointed in that special proceeding; “We will hold this in abeyance until a guardian is appointed by the court who can represent the heirs in this ca^e (p. .19, ts.tf., 19 May 1955).

According to section 1 (a) of Rule 107, the offended party must
reserve his right to institute separately the civil action to enforce
the civil responsibility arising from the offense charged. No one is
authorized to make the reservation except the off ended, party. These
are the minor children of the deceased. No such reservation haying been
made by them or by their duly appointed guardian, the trial court did
well in condemning the appellant to pay her civil liability to the
heirs of the deceased.,

The finding of. the trial court that there had been no evident
premeditation and treachery when the appellant shot her husband should
be sustained. As the uncontradiefed evidence shows that despite several
quarrels and maltreatments she had had with,and received from her
husband, both made up very easily after each and every quarrel. The day  prior to the shooting incident the appellant bought some underwears
for her husband and in the evening of the same day both the appellant
and the deceased had supper together and slept on the same bed. All
these circumstances taken together would inevitably lead to the
conclusion reached by the trial court that the appellant had not
planned beforehand the killing of her husband. If the fact that a few
moments immediately preceding the shooting of the deceased by the
appellant, in that early morning of 13 October 1954, the latter and
the deceased had an altercation regarding the genuineness of the coffee
(Nescafe) that culminated into a hair pulling, but which as usual was
made up as easily as it flared up; and that immediately thereafter the
deceased resumed eating his breakfast while the appellant prepared
sandwiches for him to take along in his hunting trip., as if nothing
had happened at all,—the conclusion is inescapable that the appellant
could have had neither the resolution to kill her husband on that
fateful morning nor the time to meditate or reflect on the criminal act
she would commit. It is, therefore, very clear that the shooting of the
deceased husband by the appellant came about spontaneously from the
unexpected turn of events. It is also very clear that it happened in
the spur of the moment and without any intervening period during which
the appellant could have meditated, reflected and resolved upon the act
she was about to commit, or sufficient time to allow her conscience to
overcome the resolution (if she did ever resolve) to carry out what she
had proposed or decided to do. The adverted circumstances, of course,
preclude the attendance of treachery in the commission of  the crime at
bar.

As there are two mitigating circumstances, that of voluntary
surrender and of having acted upon an impulse so powerful as naturally
to have produced passion Or obfuseation, and there’ is no aggravating
circumstance, the minimum penalty of reclusion perpetua for the crime
committed by the appellant, as provided ‘for in articles 246 and 68 of
the Revised Penal “Code’ imposed by the trial court, is correct.

The judgment appealed from is affirmed, with costs against the appellant.

Bengzon, C. J., Bautista Angelo, Labrador, Concepcion, Reyes, J. B. L., Barrera, Paredes, Dizon, Regala, and Makalintal, JJ., concur.