G.R. No. 14170. November 23, 1918
THE UNITED STATES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. CATALINO MERCED AND APOLONIA PATRON, DEFENDANTS AND APPELLANTS.
TORRES, J.:
Merced and Apolonia Patron were charged by the provincial fiscal with the crime
of homicide, and after the trial of this cause judgment was rendered on April
29th of the present year whereby Catalino Merced was sentenced to fourteen
years, eight months and one day of reclusion temporal, with allowance of
one-half of the time of preventive imprisonment suffered, to the accessory
penalties, and to pay, jointly and severally with the other defendant, an
indemnity of P1,000 to the heirs of the deceased, and also one-half of the
costs; and Apolonia Patron, to eight years and one day of prision mayor, to the
accessory penalties, to pay the heirs of Pantaleon Arabe, jointly and severally
with the other defendant, the same amount of indemnity fixed for the latter, and
to the payment of the other one-half of the costs. From this judgment
defendants’ counsel appealed.
On the night of March 4th of the present year, Catalino Merced went to the
house of Teodora Sarasin, situated in the barrio of Palimpinon of the town of
Luzuriaga, and, at the invitation of the mistress of the house, sat down to
supper with her; a short while afterwards Apolonia Patron also arrived, and,
fetching some morisqueta or cooked rice from her house nearby, likewise sat down
to supper with the two other persons above-mentioned. After supper Merced and
Patron successively went down from the house, and the former, upon his return to
it and with the permission of its owner, went into the main room thereof to
rest. Apolonia Patron, who returned to the house a short while afterwards, did
likewise, and they both met in said room to lie down to sleep there. Thereupon,
the mistress of the house, Teodora Sarasin, went to bed with her children, and
while asleep was awakened by the noise caused by a struggle waged in the
aforementioned room. Just at that moment Sarasin heard Apolonia say to her (the
latter’s) husband that she (Apolonia) was wounded, and heard the husband reply
to her, saying: “That is what you got.” On account of these happenings, and out
of fear, the owner of the house left it, passing through the kitchen, and on her
return a few moments afterwards to get her children, she found Pantaleon Arabe,
the husband of- Apolonia Patron, stretched out on the mat on which she had been
sleeping; he was bloody and was pressing in his stomach. This witness now found
the light which had previously been put out lit inside the house. When, several
hours afterwards, the justice of the peace proceeded with the investigation of
the crime, he found Arabe’s body on the river bank, near the house of the
deceased. Such was the testimony of Teodora Sarasin.
Upon the examination of Filomena Ago, the defendant Merced’s sister-in-law,
she testified as follows: On the morning of March 2, 1918, two days prior to the
crime, Apolonia Patron went to witness’ house and complained that her husband
Pantaleon Arabe had quarreled with her because he suspected that she was
maintaining relation with Catalino Merced, her brother-in-law. Witness Filomena
replied to her, saying that, in order to avoid such quarreling, she ought not to
have any dealings with Merced. This advice angered the defendant Patron and, at
about 4 o’clock in the afternoon-of that same day, she again went to Ago’s
house; she had a dagger (Exhibit B) in her hand and showed a disposition to
quarrel with witness. Several days afterwards witness found this same dagger on
the floor of Patron’s house, near the bed on which the defendant Merced lay down
on the night of the 4th of March of this year when he returned to the said house
in which he was living as a brother of witness’ husband. When Merced was
questioned as to where he had been wounded, he replied that it was in the house
of Teodora Sarasin, and then witness learned of the occurrence, for it was told
to her while Sarasin was in witness’ store. Ago had seen the dagger, Exhibit B,
bathed in blood, and it was the same one that Apolonia Patron was carrying two
days before when she became angry in witness’ house.
The health officer who examined Pantaleon Arabe’s corpse testified that, as
he had stated in his certificate Exhibit A, the corpse bore a serious wound
between two ribs of the left side; that this wound ran obliquely from the left
part of the shoulder toward the right diaphragm and had been inflicted with a
double-edged dagger.
The defendant Catalino Merced pleaded not guilty. He testified that while he
was resting, in company with Apolonia Patron, in the house of Teodora Sarasin,
where he and Apolonia had eaten their supper at Sarasin’s invitation, Pantaleon
Arabe entered the place and, after telling the defendant to prepare himself
because he, Arabe, was going to kill him, put out the light and gave him several
blows with the bolo, Exhibit B, with which he was provided, inflicting three
wounds in his right leg and one in his right arm; that these wounds were
inflicted while witness was lying on the floor of the house, wherefore he arose
to defend himself and a struggle ensued between them during which he succeeded
in snatching from Arabe’s belt the dagger, Exhibit B, and with it wounded Arabe
in the back, as a result of which wound, he, Arabe, died. The defendant Apolonia
Patron, who also pleaded not guilty, did not testify at the trial.
The facts related above certainly constitute the crime of homicide comprised
within article 404 of the Penal Code. The record does not show that the violent
death of Pantaleon Arabe, as the result of one single serious and mortal wound
in the left side of his back, was attended by any of the qualifying
circumstances enumerated in article 503 of said code, for, at the time of the
struggle, no disinterested eye-witness was present aside from the two defendants
and the owner of the house, which latter person, awakened by the fight waged
between the deceased and his assailant within the main room of the house, was
unable to see and witness what occurred, on account of there being no light in
the house, and learned that one of the fighters was Pantaleon Arabe only
because, on returning to her house, which she had left through fear, to get her
children, she found the deceased, covered with blood, lying stretched out on the
bed where she had laiti, and, from the presence of the deceased in her house,
she deduced the conclusion that the fight had been between the deceased and the
defendant Merced. Furthermore, with respect to the qualification of the crime,
it may be held to have been proven, there being no proof to the contrary, that
the crime committed was only that of homicide, for the reason that the mortal
wound which caused Arabe’s death was a consequence of the struggle engaged in by
the latter and the defendant Merced.
Aside from the fact that there is no proof in support of the statement made
by the defendant Merced to the effect that when Pantaleon Arabe entered the
house in question, he told the defendant to prepare himself for he, Arabe, was
going to kill him, and that immediately thereafter Arabe put out the light and
assaulted him with the weapon which he was carrying, on which account he claims
it became necessary for him, in self-defense, to wound Arabe with the dagger
which he succeeded in snatching from the latter’s belt, this plea is
unsustainable, because it is not true and because, even though it were true and
even if the deceased did succeed in entering the room in which the defendants
Merced and Patron were lying, and did immediately thereupon assault Merced,
giving him several blows with the bolo which he, Arabe, carried, that assault
was natural and lawful, for the reason that it was made by a deceived and
offended husband in order to defend his honor and rights by punishing the
offender of his honor, arid if he had killed his wife and the other defendant,
he would have exercised a lawful right and such acts would have fallen within
the sanction of article 423 of the Penal Code, and not of the article thereof
which penalizes the crime of homicide.
Despite the testimony given by the defendant, it is unquestionable that
Apolonia Patron, the wife of the deceased, was that night in the room in which
Catalino Merced was lying; in fact he finally admitted that, on account of the
illicit relations between himself and this woman, they were in the habit of
keeping trysts and meeting each other on other occasions, and that, on the night
in question, he was in the house where the crime was committed, in company with
his codefendant Patron, for, during the struggle, the owner of the house Teodora
Sarasin heard Patron say to her (Patron’s) husband, the deceased, that she
herself was wounded.
The defendant Merced well knew that, by maintaining unlawful relations with
Apolonia Patron, a married woman, he was performing an unlawful and criminal act
and exposed himself to the vengeance of the offended husband, and that, by the
defendants’ meeting each other in the living room of said house, which was near
the house in which the offended husband was living, he was running the danger of
the latter’s surprising them there, as* in fact it did occur.
As regards the participation which the unfaithful Wife may have had in the
killing of her husband, for she was present during the struggle that ensued
between the deceased and her codefendant, the record does not disclose
conclusive proof that she cooperated with, or aided, Catalino Merced when he
assaulted her husband and inflicted upon him the single mortal wound that
produced his death, for the defendant Catalino Merced himself confessed that he
inflicted this wound upon the deceased with the dagger which he succeeded in
taking from the latter’s belt.
It was not proven who was the real owner of the dagger, Exhibit B, and,
notwithstanding the defendant Merced’s testimony, there is no circumstantial
evidence in the record to show that the weapon belonged to the deceased.
The witness Filomena Ago, a sister-in-law of Catalino Merced, testified that
several days before the crime she had seen this dagger in the hands of Apolonia
Patron, and that on the night of the crime, upon the defendant Merced’s return
to her house where he was living, she saw blood on his clothes, and noticed that
he left the dagger on the floor beside his bed, wherefore she picked it up and
it was afterwards handed to the justice of the peace.
Notwithstanding the testimony just alluded to, it cannot be affirmed that the
dagger belonged to the defendant Patron, because, for the very reason that the
defendant Merced admitted and confessed that he seriously wounded the deceased
with this dagger, it is to be presumed that Merced was its owner, and that he
carried it with him when he went to the house of the crime in agreement with his
codefendant Patron; besides, there is no proof that the latter carried the
dagger that night, and therefore it cannot be asserted that the unfaithful wife
furnished the weapon with which her codefendant Catalino Merced inflicted upon
her husband a serious wound followed by his death. For these reasons it must be
concluded that the record does not show any proof, circumstantial or other, that
Apolonia Patron was at least an accomplice in the commission of the punishable
act of which her husband was the victim. The acquittal of this defendant is all
the more proper in that the complaint did not charge her with having taken any
part as an accomplice in the commission of the crime.
For the foregoing reasons, and no generic extenuating or aggravating
circumstance having attended the execution of the crime, and the first error
assigned to the judgment appealed from being held to have been refuted, said
judgment should be, as it hereby is, affirmed, in so far as it concerns Catalino
Merced, with the proviso, however, that he shall pay P1,000 to the heirs of the
deceased, and one-half of the costs of both instances; and the judgment appealed
from is reversed in respect to Apolonia Patron, who should be, and hereby is,
absolved from this cause. The other one-half of the costs of botty instances
shall be borne de offido. So ordered.
Arellano, C. J., Johnson, Street, Malcolm, and Avanceña,
JJ., concur.