THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. CATALINO RIOARIN, DEFENDANT AND APPELLANT.

This
is an appeal from a judgment of the Court of First Instance of Ilocos
Sur finding the appellant guilty of the crime of homicide and
sentencing him to suffer fourteen years, eight months and one day of reclusion temporal,
with the accessory penalties prescribed by law, to indemnify the family
of the deceased Anacleto Ogalde in the sum of P500, and to pay the
costs.

The crime was committed in the evening of February
24, 1924, at a wedding celebration in the house of one Feliciano
Soliven in the barrio of Sapata, municipality of Candon, Province of
Ilocos Sur. The evidence for the prosecution tends to show that there
was ill feeling between the accused and the deceased Anacleto Ogalde;
that on the occasion in question the two quarreled; and that as a
sequel to the quarrel the accused stabbed the deceased in the left side
of the neck with a pocket knife which resulted in almost immediate
death. After having inflicted the wound and without withdrawing the
knife therefrom, the accused ran away.

The defendant’s
version of the affair is to the effect that the deceased attacked him
with the knife found in the wound; that he, the defendant, endeavored
to escape, but was pursued by the deceased; and that in the course of
the pursuit the deceased fell on his face and, in doing so,
accidentally stabbed himself in the neck. The court below found the
defendant’s story improbable and accepted the testimony of the
witnesses for the prosecution as true. We are of the same opinion and
think the defendant has been proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Under his first assignment of error counsel for the appellant argues
that the court below erred in sustaining the fiscal’s objection to the
admission in evidence of certain affidavits executed before the justice
of the peace in the course of the preliminary investigation of the
case, and tending to show that one Ciriaco Toquero and not the
defendant killed the deceased. The ruling was entirely proper.
Affidavits are sometimes admissible to impeach the testimony of the
affiants given at the trial of the case, but here the affiants did not
testify and the affidavits could therefore not be used for that
purpose. That they under the circumstance were nothing but mere hearsay
and as such clearly inadmissible, is too obvious for argument.

The judgment of the court below is in accordance with the established
facts and with the law and is affirmed with the costs against the
appellant. So ordered.

Avanceña, C. J., Johnson, Street, Malcolm, Villamor, Johns, and Villa-Real, JJ., concur.