THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. FRANCISCO BUSTOS ET AL., DEFENDANTS AND APPELLANTS.

This is an appeal taken by the accused Francisco Bustos and
Antonio Macaspac from the judgment of the Court of First Instance of Rizal
convicting each of them of the crime of homicide, and sentencing Antonio
Macaspac to fourteen years, eight months and one day reclusion
temporal, and Francisco Bustos to twelve years and one day reclusion
temporal, taking into consideration in favor of the latter the mitigating
circumstance of provocation by the deceased; further sentencing both accused to
the accessories of the law, to indemnify, jointly and severally, the heirs of
the deceased in the sum of P1,000, and to pay the costs of the action.

In support of his appeal Antonio Macaspac assigns the following
alleged errors as committed by the lower court in its decision, to wit: (1) The
lower court erred in finding the appellant Antonio Macaspac liable beyond a
reasonable doubt, as coprincipal, for the death of Felipe del Castillo; (2) the
lower court erred in not finding the accused Antonio Macaspac’s alibi
proven.

Francisco Bustos, in turn, in support of his, assigns the
following alleged errors as committed by,the trial court in its decision, to
wit: (1) The lower court erred in basing its decision principally upon the
testimonies of Isabel Encarnacion (a deaf-mute) and Laureana Yumul, and upon the
following findings: “However, immediately after the occurrence, Francisco Bustos
met the Spaniard Juan T. Lechea and told him that Angel del Castillo’s son had
thrown stones at him in his own house. He said nothing of having been assaulted
by Angel del Castillo, Felipe del Castillo and one Delfin. Francisco Bustos made
the same statement to Nicanor Garcia, municipal president of San Pedro Macati,
except that he said that it was old man Castillo, the deceased’s father, who
threw stones at him. The absence of any traces of blood between Francisco
Bustos’s house and the place where the deceased fell, shows that the latter was
wounded in the latter place. The wound below the sternum was necessarily mortal.
We doubt that the deceased could have walked one hundred fifty (150) meters—the
distance between Francisco Bustos’s house and the place where he fell
wounded—and traverse that distance without leaving a trail of blood behind him.”
(Decision, page 4.) (2) The lower court erred in convicting the herein
defendant-appellant Francisco Bustos and sentencing him to twelve years
imprisonment reclusion temporal.

The alleged errors assigned by both of the accused in support
of their respective appeals simmer down to the single proposition that the trial
court erred in finding each of them guilty, beyond any doubt, of the crime with
which they are charged in the information.

The following facts, without contradiction, were proved at the
trial:

On the afternoon of October 24, 1925, while trying to determine
the boundaries of the lands which they respectively occupied on the Guadalupe
Estate, Francisco Bustos and Angel del Castillo became engaged in a dispute,
finally resulting in the former catching the latter by the neck. Attracted by
the cries of the people, Mariano Montemayor and his ward, Antonio Macaspac, ran
to the place of the fight, Antonio Macaspac catching hold of Francisco Bustos,
and Mariano Montemayor of Angel del Castillo, thus separating the combatants.
Mariano Montemayor entertained Angel del Castillo on the street by conversing
with him. Antonio Macaspac took Francisco Bustos to the latter’s house. Laureana
Yumul, Angel del Castillo’s wife, who was also there went to her house, leaving
her husband. On nearing her home, she heard the desperate cries of her deaf-mute
daughter, Soledad Encarnacion, who was under a mango tree gesticulating and
making signs, falling upon her knees and getting up again, without knowing what
to do. Going in the direction pointed out by her daughter, Laureana Yumul came
upon her son Felipe del Castillo stretched out on the ground wounded, expiring a
few moments later. The autopsy performed by Dr. Eugenio Santos disclosed the
following wounds: A sharp wound 7 centimeters long and 4 centimeters deep on the
left arm at the level of the humero-cubital articulation, penetrating the flesh
and two bones; two sharp wounds on the posterior internal surface of the lower
third of the same arm, running obliquely, and penetrating the cubitus and the
radius; and a penetrating wound below the sternum, involving the stomach, and
running obliquely downwards from left to right, 8 centimeters deep. The
physician was of opinion that the last wound was necessarily fatal. (Exhibit B.)
That same night Francisco Bustos presented himself to the municipal president
with a wound on his forehead, stating that he had been stoned by someone. He was
taken to the General Hospital where he was examined and found to have a wound on
his forehead and several bruises on his nose and lips, caused by a blunt
instrument which might have been a stone.

The only question of fact to determine in this appeal is: Who
is or are responsible for the wounds found on Felipe del Castillo’s body, which
caused his death ?

On this point Laureana Yumul testified to the effect that when
she repaired to the place pointed out by her deafmute daughter, she found her
son stretched out on the ground, wounded, and she asked him who had inflicted
the wounds on him; that her son answered: “Mother, go to the municipality and
report this, because Francisco Bustos and Antonio Macaspac have hacked me up;”
that upon hearing this, she shouted for help several times; that after the lapse
of sufficient time for one to finish smoking a cigarette, her son expired; that
some time thereafter, the agents of authority arrived, but her son was already
dead.

The defense impeached the veracity of this witness by means of
the testimony of the municipal president, Nicanor Garcia, and Cristino Basay,
who testified that they were the first to arrive at the place where the deceased
lay and that when Laureana Yumul came up, she asked them what had happened to
her son, and who had killed him.

The court below found Laureana Yumul’s testimony more credible.
Taking into account the circumstances of the case and the number of persons in
the vicinity who must have gone to the place of the occurrence, it is highly
probable that some of the curious ones asked such questions without anyone
taking notice of who they were, due to the excitement of the moment; and when
municipal president Nicanor Garcia and Cristinb Basay testified on this point at
the trial months afterwards, in harking back to the events of the removal of the
body, it may be that in the midst of the confusion of thoughts they got the idea
that it was the deceased’s mother who had asked them such questions. Laureana
Yumul stoutly denies having asked such Questions as are attributed to her.

Aside from the ante-mortem declaration of Felipe del
Castillo, as to who had inflicted the wounds that caused his death, we have the
testimony of Mariano del Castillo, the 8-year-old brother of the deceased, to
the effect that on his return from having pastured his carabaos, he saw his
brother pursued by Francisco Bustos and Antonio Macaspac, the former armed with
a dagger and the latter with a bolo. As he became frightened he’ ran to his
house, where he met his father, Angel del Castillo, to whom he related what he
had seen. When Angel del Castillo had heard his son’s story, he picked up a bolo
and went in search of his son’s aggressors, but did not find them in their
respective homes.

The prosecution also presented Soledad Encarnacion, deaf-mute
daughter of Laureana Yumul, who was interpreted by a teacher from the deaf and
dumb school who had never taught the witness; nor had the latter ever been to
such a school. While it is true that modern pedagogy has made tremendous strides
in the instruction and education of persons so afflicted, even to the extent of
enabling the blind to read by means of the sense of touch, and deafmutes to
receive instruction through conventional signs and objects, nevertheless, with
respect to deaf-mutes, it is necessary that he who is to communicate with them
know the meaning of their signs, either from having had them taught to him, or
from having acquired a knowledge of them through frequent contact with the same.
Without these circumstances, although it is possible to guess part of what
deaf-mutes mean by their signs even without having had much to do with them,
still much of what they wish to say escapes us, and in our eagerness to
understand them, we resort to conjecture. It will be seen how dangerous then is
such a procedure to arrive at the truth, and above all when the life and liberty
of an accused man are at stake. This was shown in the present case, in which
during the course of interpretation, there were times when the interpreter could
not make out what the witness meant by such signs as she uses, and this is due
to the fact that the deaf-mute had never been a pupil of the interpreter, nor
had the latter previously had anything to do with the former, such as would have
given her an opportunity to acquire some knowledge of the meaning of the signs
the deaf-mute used. In view of this, it would not be prudent to admit the
deaf-mute’s testimony as interpreted by the teacher.

The accused Francisco Bustos, testifying in his own behalf,
attempted to prove that after the encounter with Angel del Castillo, and while
he was in his own house, said Angel del Castillo, accompanied by his son Felipe
del Castillo and a certain individual named Delfin, as also his wife Laureana
Yumul, called upon him to come down because he, the said Angel del Castillo,
wanted to kill him; that because he did not accept the challenge, the challenger
and his companions went up into his house; that, in order to defend himself, he
picked up his dagger and with it dealt someone a blow, he knew not whom, having
received a blow with a bolo on his forehead, which left him unconscious on the
ground. By this the accused no doubt meant it to be understood that the one who
received the blow with the dagger was Felipe del Castillo, who was found to have
a deep wound below the sternum, which caused his death. The character of the
wound on the accused Francisco Bustos’s forehead when he presented himself to
the municipal president Nicanor Garcia and his declaration that he had been
stoned by someone, contradicts his own testimony. The blood stains found in his
house do not corroborate his testimony, because if Felipe del Castillo had
received the fatal wound in said accused’s house, he would not have had strength
enough to get to where he was found stretched out, which is 150 meters from said
house, and. besides, there would have been blood stains along the trail. The
said blood stains are not incompatible with the prosecution’s version, since
after having been stoned by Felipe del Castillo, when the latter was pursued by
the accused, Francisco Bustos must have repaired to his house where some of the
drops of blood issuing from his forehead must have fallen.

Francisco Bustos’s declaration, then, far from detracting from
the evidence presented by the prosecution, actually corroborates it.

The accused Antonio Macaspac pleaded an alibi, maintaining that
he was absent from Guadalupe from 6.30 in the evening until 11.30 at night,
having gone to Manila.

Taking into consideration the time when Felipe del Castillo was
found wounded, which must have been shortly before nightfall, it is not
improbable that he might have left for Manila after the assault with the object
of preparing an alibi.

The wounds found on Felipe del Castillo’s body, besides the
stab, show that the assault upon him was made with two kinds of weapons, one
sharp-edged and the other pointed, thus corroborating the deceased’s
ante-mortem declaration and witness Mariano del Castillo’s
testimony.

Therefore, the evidence of the alibi presented by the accused
Antonio Macaspac cannot prevail over the clear and positive proof of the
prosecution concerning his participation in the assault upon Felipe del
Castillo.

The evidence adduced at the trial conclusively establishes the
fact that on the afternoon in question the accused Francisco Bustos and Antonio
Macaspac, on meeting Felipe del Castillo, son of Angel del Castillo with whom
Francisco Bustos had just had a quarrel, and in which Antonio Macaspac had
intervened, the said accused pursued him; that Felipe del Castillo threw a stone
at his pursuers which struck Francisco Bustos wounding him on the forehead; that
the accused continued to pursue their victim until they overtook him, inflicting
several wounds upon him as a result of which he died a few minutes later.

These acts constitute the crime of homicide as defined and
penalized m article 404 of the Penal Code, the herein accused being criminally
liable as principals by direct participation, and the penalty provided by the
law being reclusion temporal to its full extent.

In applying the penalty, no modifying circumstance of criminal
liability can be taken into consideration, because neither can the fact that
there were two aggressors be held to constitute abuse of superior strength,
since the relative physical strength of the aggressors and the assaulted party
does not appear of record; nor can the fact that the deceased stoned Francisco
Bustos be considered a provocation, since it does not clearly appear that the
deceased was the one who started the fight and not the one who was provoked. On
the contrary, it may be inferred from the ante-mortem declaration of
Felipe del Castillo that he took to stoning only upon being pursued by the
accused.

By virtue of the foregoing, the judgment appealed from is
modified, as recommended by the Attorney-General, sentencing the accused
Francisco Bustos to fourteen years, eight months and one day reclusion
temporal, and confirmed in all other respects, with one-half of the costs
against each of the appellants. So ordered.

Johnson, Street, Malcolm, Ostrand, Johns, and
Romualdez JJ., concur.