THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. EUGENIO TOLEDO AND SISENANDO HOLGADO, DEFENDANTS. EUGENIO TOLEDO, APPELLANT.

This is an appeal taken by Eugenio Toledo from a judgment of
the Court of First Instance of Mindoro, finding him guilty of the crime of
homicide, and sentencing him therefor to imprisonment for fourteen years, eight
months, and one day, reclusion temporal, with the corresponding
accessory penalties, indemnity, and costs.

Sisenando Holgado and Filomeno Morales had had disputes about
the occupation of certain land situated in the municipality of Pinamalayan,
Province of Mindoro. On the morning of June 15, 1927, the two men happened to
meet. The argument was renewed, and they agreed to fight. They did engage in a
bolo duel with a fatal result for Filomeno Morales, who was killed almost
instantly. Sisenando Holgado was also seriously wounded but was able to proceed
to a neighboring house. From there Sisenando Holgado was taken to the municipal
building where he made a sworn statement before the municipal president, in
which he declared that only he and Filomeno Morales fought. About one month
later, Sisenando Holgado died from the wounds received in the fight.

The prosecution and the defense alike agree on the facts above
outlined. The disputable point is whether the accused Eugenio Toledo intervened
in the quarrel and dealt a mortal blow to Filomeno Morales. For the prosecution,
there was presented the witness Justina Villanueva, the querida of
Filomeno Morales, who testified to the presence and participation of Eugenio
Toledo. Her testimony was partially corroborated by that of the witness Justina
Llave. On the other hand, the theory for the defense was that Toledo was in
another place when the fight between Morales and Holgado occurred and that his
only participation was on meeting Holgado, who was his landlord or master, in
helping him to a nearby house. To this effect is the testimony of the accused
and of Conrado Holgado, the son of Sisenando Holgado. The defense also relied
upon the affidavit of Sisenando Holgado, Exhibit 1, which was identified by the
municipal president of Pinamalayan.

Counsel de oficio in this court makes the following
assignment of errors:

“I. The lower court erred in not admitting in evidence Exhibit
1.

“II. The lower court erred in not finding that accusedappellant
Eugenio Toledo did not take part in the fight between accused Sisenando Holgado
and deceased Filomeno Morales, resulting in the death of the latter.

“III. The lower court erred in not giving accused-appellant
Eugenio Toledo the benefit of a reasonable doubt.” Exhibit 1 above-mentioned in
assignment of error No. 1, made originally in Tagalog, in translation reads as
follows:

“AFFIDAVIT

“I, Sisenando Holgado, married, of legal age, and resident of
this municipality of Pinamalayan, Province of Mindoro, P. I., after being sworn
in accordance with law, state the following:

“My additional homestead situated in Calingag was cleaned by me
and is at present planted with palay (rice), on which I also plant hemp, but the
hemp planted by my workers is frequently uprooted by Filomeno Morales who claims
that said land is his, whereas when I was cleaning said land nobody objected to
it, but now that it is already cleaned, Filomeno Morales says that one-half of
the land occupied by me is his; for this reason I decided to see Filomeno
Morales about this matter and when I talked to him this morning1 (Wednesday) at
about nine o’clock, at the hemp plantation of Victorio Saudan situated in
Calingag, he told me that if I should plant there anything he would cut my neck,
and to this I answered that if he was going to cut my neck we would fight and
thereupon he stabbed me with a penknife and then I slashed at him; after this we
separated, and I went to Dalmacio Manlisic’s house. When we fought, there was
nobody present.

“Question by president: When you went to the house of Dalmacio
Manlisic, did you not meet anybody before reaching said house?

“Answer: I met one of my workers named Eugenio Toledo, who
accompanied me to the house of Dalmacio Manlisic.

“Question by president: How do you know that the hemp you
planted on your land above-mentioned was frequently uprooted by Filomeno
Morales?

“Answer: Because he said so to my worker named Eulogio
Supleo.

“Question by president: Do you have anything more to say about
the incident?

“Answer: No more.

“In testimony of all that I stated above, I signed this
document in the presence of two witnesses and then swore to it in the presence
of the municipal president here at Pinamalayan, Mindoro, this June fifteenth,
nineteen hundred twenty-seven.

HIS
“SISENANDO HOLGADO
Mark

“In the presence of:

(Sgd.) “ILLEGIBLE
“HILARION NIEVA

“Signed and sworn to before me, this June fifteenth, 1927.

(Sgd.) “ILLEGIBLE
“Municipal
President“

The discussion of the case in court has revealed three
different points of view among the members participating, all leading to the
same result of acquittal. Under such circumstances, it is, of course, difficult
for the writer of the opinion to do entire justice to those theories which do
not conform to his own. However, an effort will be made to present the various
opinions, leaving it for any individual member to enlarge upon the same, if he
so desires.

I

The Chief Justice and Mr. Justice Villamor would disregard
entirely the first assignment of error and would, therefore, refrain from all
discussion relative to the admissibility of Exhibit 1. Confining themselves
exclusively to an analysis of the evidence other than Exhibit 1, they find that
Eugenio Toledo has not been proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The
contradictions in the testimony for the prosecution pointed out by the trial
judge do not impress these members of the court so seriously. In reality, there
being but one witness for the prosecution who, on account of her relations with
Filomeno Morales, and the land troubles, might be expected to exaggerate, and
there being on the contrary exculpatory evidence for the defense, even without
Exhibit 1, the Government has not made out its case. Consequently, on the
testimonial facts, these members vote for acquittal.

II

The second view is that for which Messrs. Justices Komualdez
and Villa-Real are responsible, and is that Exhibit 1 should have been admitted
in evidence as a part of the res gestae, and that giving it effect, in
relation with the other evidence, the accused has not been proved guilty. What
has heretofore been said with reference to the state of the record need not here
be repeated. It only remains to be stated that Exhibit 1 was made by Sisenando
Holgado on the same morning that the fight occurred andwithout the interval of
sufficient time for reflection. The declaration of Sisenando Holgado fulfilled
the test of the facts talking through the party and not the party talking about
the facts. There was such a correlation between the statement and the fact of
which it forms part as strongly tends to negative the suggestion of fabrication
or a suspicion of afterthought. The nature and circumstances of the statement do
not disclose intrinsic evidence of premeditation as revealed in a long,
coherent, closely connected story. The modern tendency is toward the extension
of the rule admitting spontaneous declarations to meet the needs of justice when
other evidence of the same fact cannot be procured. (22 C. J., pp. 461 et
seq.; U. S. vs. David [1903], 3 Phil., 128.)

The third opinion in court is that held by Messrs. Justices
Street, Malcolm, and Ostrand, who would resolve the first assignment of error by
holding that the court erred in not admitting Exhibit 1 as the statement of a
fact against penal interest. Had Exhibit 1 been received, it is believed that
its influence would have been felt by the trial court. Without Exhibit 1, the
appellate court is bound by the appreciation of the evidence made in the trial
court, and could, with little propriety, set aside the findings made by a
learned trial judge. The case calls for an examination of the right of the
courts to receive in evidence documents of the character of Exhibit 1.

Hearsay evidence, with a few well recognized exceptions, it has
been said on high authority, is excluded by courts in the United States that
adhere to the principles of the common law. One universally recognized exception
concerns the admission of dying declarations. Another exception permits the
reception, under certain circumstances, of declarations of third parties made
contrary to their own pecuniary or proprietary interest. But the general rule is
stated to be that the declarations of a person other than accused confessing or
tending to show that he committed the crime are not competent for accused on
account of the hearsay doctrine.

Professor Wigmore, one of the greatest living authorities on
the law of evidence, has attempted to demonstrate the false premises on which
the arbitrary limitation to the hearsay rule rests. He shows that the limitation
is inconsistent with the language originally employed in stating the principle
and is unjustified on grounds of policy. Professor Wigmore in turn has been
answered by no less a body than the Supreme Court of Mississippi in the case of
Brown vs. State of Mississippi ([1910], 37 L. R. A., New Series, 345). The
editor of the Mississippi case in L. R. A., however, comes to the support of
Professor Wigmore saying the unanimity of the decisions “is as complete as the
shock which they give the general sense of justice.” The question has likewise
in recent years gained attention by the Supreme Court of the United States in
the case of Donnelly vs. United States ([1913], 228 U. S., 243). There it was
held that the court below properly excluded hearsay evidence relating to the
confession of a third party, then deceased, of guilt of the crime with which
defendant was charged. Mr. Justice Pitney, delivering the opinion of the court,
said: “In this country there is a great and practically unanimous wei’ght of
authority in the state courts against admitting evidence of confessions of third
parties, made out of court, and tending to exonerate the accused.” Mr. Justice
Van Devanter concurred in the result while Mr. Justice Holmes, with whom
concurred Mr. Justice Lurton and Mr. Justice Hughes, dissented. Mr. Justice
Holmes said:

“* * * The rules of evidence in the main are based on
experience, logic, and common sense, less hampered by history than some parts of
the substantive law. There is no decision by this court against the
admissibility of such a confession; the English cases since the separation of
the two countries do not bind us; the exception to the hearsay rule in the case
of declarations against interest is well known; no other statement is so much
against interest as a confession of murder; it is far more calculated to
convince than dying declarations, which would be let in to hang a man (Mattox
vs. United States, 146 U. S., 140; 36 Law. ed., 917; 13 Sup. Ct. Rep., 50); and
when we surround the accused with so many safeguards, some of which seem to me
excessive; I think we ought to give him the benefit of a fact that, if proved,
commonly would have such weight. The history of the law and the arguments
against the English doctrine are so well and fully stated by Mr. Wigmore that
there is no need to set them forth at greater length. (2 Wigmore, Evidence,
pars. 1476, 1477.)”

In the Philippine jurisdiction, we have never felt bound to
follow blindly the principles of the common law. A re-examination of some of
those principles discloses anomalies.

A dying declaration is admitted of necessity in order, as the
Supreme Court of Mississippi states, “to reach those manslayers who perpetrate
their crimes when there are no other eyewitnesses.” But the person accused of a
crime, under the same principle of necessity, is not permitted to free himself
by offering in evidence the admission of another under oath that this other
committed the crime. Again admissions are receivable against either a pecuniary
or a proprietary interest, but not against a penal interest. We fail to see why
it can be believed that a man will be presumed to tell the truth in the one
instance but will not be presumed to tell the truth in the other instance. Again
the exhibit would have been admitted against its maker at his trial, if he had
not died. But the document is held inadmissible to exonerate another. Yet the
truth of the exhibit is not different in the first case than in the second.

A study of the authorities discloses that even if given
application they are not here controlling. Most of them do not concern the
confessions of declarants shown to be deceased. Practically all of them give as
the principal reason for denying the admission of a confession of a third person
that he committed the crime with which the accused is charged, that it was not
made under oath. Here the declarant is deceased and his statements were made
under oath. They also read in such a way as to ring with the truth. When
Sisenando Holgado declared “When we fought, there was nobody present,” it was at
the end of just such a rambling statement as a wounded man would be expected to
make. When Sisenando Holgado declared “I met one of my workers named Eugenio
Toledo, who accompanied me to the house of Dalmacio Manlisic,” he did so in
response to a question by the municipal president. Exhibit 1 should have been
received not as conclusive evidence of innocence, but as evidence to be taken
into consideration in connection with the other proven facts.

We cannot bring this decision to a conclusion without quoting
the well considered language of Professor Wigmore on the subject, the pertinent
part of a decision coming from a court which has gained respect particularly in
criminal cases, and an editorial note. Professor Wigmore has said:

“PAR. 1476. History of the Exception; Statement of Fact
against Penal Interest, excluded; Confessions of Crime by a Third
Person.—It is today commonly said, and has been expressly laid down by many
judges, that the interest prejudiced by the facts stated must be either a
pecuniary or a proprietary interest, and not a penal interest. What ground
in authority there is for this limitation may be found by examining the history
of the exception at large.

“The exception appears to have taken its rise chiefly in two
separate rivulets of rulings, starting independently as a matter of practice,
but afterwards united as parts of a general principle. * * *

“These lines of precedent proceeded independently till about
the beginning of the 1800s, when a unity of principle for some of them came
gradually to be perceived and argued for. This unity lay in the circumstance
that all such statements, in that they concerned matters prejudicial to the
declarant’s self-interest, were fairly trustworthy and might therefore (if he
were deceased) be treated as forming an exception to the hearsay rule.

“This broad principle made its way slowly. There was some
uncertainty about its scope; but it was an uncertainty in the direction of
breadth; for it was sometimes put in the broad form that any statement by a
person ‘having no interest to deceive’ would be admissible. This broad form
never came to prevail (post, par. 1576). But acceptance was gained,
after two decades, for the principle that all declarations of facts against
interest (by deceased persons) were to be received. What is to be noted,
then, is that from 1800 to about 1830 this was fully understood as the broad
scope of the principle. It was thus stated without other qualifications; and
frequent passages show the development of the principle to this point.

“But in 1844, in a case in the House of Lords, not strongly
argued and not considered by the judges in the light of the precedents, a
backward step was taken and an arbitrary limit put upon the rule. It was held to
exclude the statement of a fact subjecting the declarant to a criminal
liability, and to be confined to statements of facts against either
pecuniary or proprietary interest. Thenceforward this rule was accepted in
England; although it was plainly a novelty at the time of its inception; for in
several rulings up to that time such statements had been received.

“The same attitude has been taken by most American courts,
excluding confessions of a crime, or other statements of facts against penal
interest, made by third persons; although there is not wanting authority in
favor of admitting such statements.

“PAR. 1477. Same: Policy of this Limitation.—It is
plain enough that this limitation, besides being a fairly modern novelty, is
inconsistent with the broad language originally employed in stating the reason
and principle of the present exception (ante, pars. 1457, 1476) as well
as with the settled principle upon which confessions are received
(ante, par. 1475).

“But, furthermore, it cannot be justified on grounds of policy.
The only plausible reason of policy that has ever been advanced for such a
limitation is the possibility of procuring fabricated testimony to such an
admission if oral. This is the ancient rusty weapon that has always been drawn
to oppose any reform in the rules of evidence, viz., the argument of
danger of abuse. This would be a good argument against admitting any witnesses
at all, for it is notorious that some witnesses will lie and that it is
difficult to avoid being deceived by their lies. The truth is that any rule
which hampers an honest man in exonerating himself is a bad rule, even if it
also hampers a villain in falsely passing for an innocent.

“The only practical consequences of this unreasoning limitation
are shocking to the sense of justice; for, in its commonest application, it
requires, in a criminal trial, the rejection of a confession, however well
authenticated, of a person deceased or insane or fled from the jurisdiction (and
therefore quite unavailable) who has avowed himself to be the true culprit. The
absurdity and wrong of rejecting indiscriminately all such evidence is
patent.

“The rulings already in our books cannot be thought to involve
a settled and universal acceptance of this limitation. In the first place, in
almost all of the rulings the declarant was not shown to be deceased or
otherwise unavailable as a witness, and therefore the declaration would have
been inadmissible in any view of the present exception (ante, par.
1456). Secondly, in some of the rulings (for example, in North Carolina) the
independent doctrine (ante, pars. 139-141) was applicable that, in
order to prove the accused’s non-commission of the offense by showing commission
by another person, not merely one casual piece of evidence suffices but a ‘prima
facie’ case resting on several concurring pieces of evidence must be made out.
Finally, most of the early rulings had in view, not the present exception to the
hearsay rule, but the doctrine of admissions (ante, pars. 1076, 1079)
that the admissions of one who is not a co-conspirator cannot affect others
jointly charged.

“It is therefore not too late to retrace our steps, and to
discard this barbarous doctrine, which would refuse to let an innocent accused
vindicate himself even by producing to the tribunal a perfectly authenticated
written confession, made on the very gallows, by the true culprit now beyond the
reach of justice. Those who watched (in 1899) with self-righteous indignation
the course of proceedings in Captain Dreyfus’ trial should remember that, if
that trial had occurred in our own courts, the spectacle would have been no less
shameful if we, following our own supposed precedents, had refused to admit what
the French court never for a moment hesitated to admit,—the authenticated
confession of the escaped Major Esterhazy, avowing himself the guilty author of
the treason there charged.” (3 Wigmore on Evidence, 2d ed., secs. 1476,
1477.)

In the case of Pace vs. State ([1911], Court of Criminal
Appeals of Texas, 135 Southwestern, 379), the appellant offered to prove in the
trial court by the witness Byron Kyle that on Saturday morning following the
killing of the deceased on the previous Sunday he had a conversation with Dick
Cain, one of the parties to the homicide, in which Dick Cain admitted that he
killed the deceased. The court ruled:

“* * * Wherever the state seeks to fasten criminality upon the
party on trial, the accused had a right to meet and rebut any testimony which
may be offered against him in any legitimate way. If Cain had been upon trial,
his confession to the witness Kyle would have been admissible beyond any shadow
of doubt, and would have been strong evidence to go before the jury. The state
would have been seeking to introduce this and with great earnestness, and
correctly so. If appellant could prove that another party or others committed
the homicide, it might prove his innocence, and would be strong evidence to go
before the jury in his favor. Any legitimate fact or circumstance which would
meet or tend to meet the state’s case and break the force of criminative facts
introduced against the accused is always admissible. Appellant’s contention was
that he did not kill the deceased, but that Cain did. The state’s theory was
that appellant shot the deceased, and Cain did not shoot him. Under the rules of
evidence this testimony was clearly inadmissible.”

We would like finally to turn attention to what was said by the
editor of L. R. A. in his note in volume 37 hereinbefore referred to,
viz.:

“The purpose of all evidence is to get at the truth. The reason
for the hearsay rule is that the extrajudicial and unsworn statement of another
is not the best method of serving this purpose. In other words, the great
possibility of the fabrication of falsehoods, and the inability to prove their
untruth, requires that the doors be closed to such evidence. So long therefore
as a declarant is available as a witness, his extrajudicial statement should not
be heard. Where, however, the declarant is dead or has disappeared, his previous
statements out of court, if not inadmissible on other grounds, are the best
evidence. But they are not rendered inadmissible by the mere fact that the
declarant is unavailable,—something else is necessary. One fact which will
satisfy this necessity is that the declaration is or was against the declarant’s
interest, and this is because no sane person will be presumed to tell a
falsehood to his own detriment.

*******

“Again, if, as seems indisputable, the desire to close the door
to falsehood which Cannot be detected dictates the exclusion of such testimony,
the question as to the effect to be given to such a confession is solely one of
weight and credibility. * * *”

Any man outside of a court and unhampered by the pressure of
technical procedure, unreasoned rules of evidence, and cumulative authority,
would say that if a man deliberately acknowledged himself to be the perpetrator
of a crime and exonerated the person charged with the crime, and there was other
evidence indicative of the truthfulness of the statement, the accused man should
not be permitted to go to prison or to the electric chair to expiate a crime he
never committed. Shall Judges trained and experienced in the law display less
discerning common sense than the layman and allow precedent to overcome
truth?

JUDGMENT

For three somewhat divergent reasons, we are all of the opinion
that the defendant-appellant Eugenio Toledo should be given the benefit of the
reasonable doubt which prevails in our minds. Accordingly, the judgment appealed
from will be reversed and the defendant and appellant acquitted, and as it
appears that he is now confined in Bilibid Prison, an order will immediately
issue directing his release, with costs de oficio.

Avanceña, C. J., Street, Villamor, Ostrand, Romualdez,
and Villa-Real, JJ., concur.