THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. PEDRO MARBASA, DEFENDANT AND APPELLANT.

Pedro Marbasa was accused by the provincial fiscal of Occidental Negros of
the crime of homicide under an information alleging:

“That on or about the 8th day of August, 1931, in the municipality of San
Carlos, Province of Occidental Negros, Philippine Islands, the accused herein,
did then and there wilfully, unlawfully and criminally and with intent to kill,
stab with a knife one Santigao Teguelo, thereby inflicting upon said Santiago
Teguelo a wound in the stomach which was necessarily mortal and which caused his
death few hours thereafter. Contrary to law.” The accused pleaded not guilty and
was duly tried:

The evidence introduced by the prosecution discloses: That at about 4 o’clock
in the afternoon of August 12, 1931, prosecution witness Sisenando Inanoria,
while passing in .front of the house of Santiago Teguelo, the deceased, in the
barrio of Malindong, municipality of San Carlos, Occidental Negros, came across
various dogs coming out of the house, quarreling and wrangling over something.
Inanoria peeped into the house and saw the corpse of a dead man. He reported the
matter to the authorities. The next day a so called investigation was had. Those
present were the justice of the peace, the chief of police, the sergeant and
several other policemen, the municipal medical officer, Dr. Rafael Gomez, and
some soldiers of the Constabulary. Dr. Gomez found that the corpse was putrefied
from the neck to the left umbilical region; there was a clot of blood as large
as a saucer on the mat where the corpse was lying, situated a little below the
chest or heart; there were also clots of blood below the mat. The doctor
testified that it was impossible to make an autopsy because there was no more
flesh or muscle from the neck to the abdominal cavity. Likewise, it was
impossible to identify the deceased because there was no more flesh on the face.
The doctor further testified that the blood he found indicated hemorrhage from a
wound. According to him, if the deceased was of a strong constitution and had
been stabbed, it would have been possible for him to walk a distance of five
hundred meters if there was no external hemorrhage.

On cross-examination, the doctor stated that it was hard to tell if there
were wounds on the body, and he did not find any; several parts of the body had
already been separated and scattered about; the face could not be recognized and
there was no trace of blood from the mouth or nose. The deceased wore no clothes
except short pantaloons.

Inasmuch as, according to the physician the coagulated blood found on the
floor indicated hemorrhage from a wound, the authorities proceeded to
investigate. Eduardo Paragua, the sergeant of police, testified that they
gathered all the neighbors in the vicinity and they made inquiries. They were
told that on the afternoon of August 8th there was a clandestine cockfight held
in the market place of Malindong. The old man, Santiago Teguelo, was there.
There was only one match. The winning rooster was owned by Santiago Teguelo, the
deceased, and the losing’ one belonged to the accused (sic). The accused was the
one who tied the knife blades on the legs of the roosters. After the match,
while the accused was detaching the knife blade from the losing rooster, the
deceased told him not to kill the rooster because he wanted to revive it The
accused resented this statement and stuck a penknife into the body of the
rooster and immediately afterwards stabbed the deceased on the left side of the
abdomen.

There were two eye-witnesses to the stabbing who testified, Pastor Onavea and
Teodulo Lavandero. They in the main confirmed the sergeant’s story. Other
eye-witnesses were ready to testify, but the trial judge ruled that, there was
already a “superabundance of proof” of the stabbing,

After the deceased was stabbed, he went home, his left hand holding that part
of his body where he had been wounded.

No quarrel preceded the stabbing, nor did the old man fight back. There were
about fifty people present at the time. They all fled to their houses after the
stabbing. Nobody dared report the matter to the authorities because the accused
threatened to kill them if they did, and he had been watching all of them.

The evidence introduced by the defense was a sweeping denial. It purported to
show that nothing unusual happened irs the cockfight of August 8th; that the old
man’s rooster won and he went home immediately thereafter; that the’e was no
quarrel between him and the accused; that the accused could not have possibly
killed the losing rooster because it was already dead as a result of the wound
it received in the fight; and that the accused did not stab the old man.

Testifying in his own behalf, the accused stated that the losing rooster
belonged to Julian Sillote and not to him; that he did not put up any bet; that
he had no penknife with him on that afternoon; that he went home before the old
man did; and that he had no cause for stabbing the old man.

The accused further claims that what really happened was that prosecution
witnesses Pastor Onavea, Teodulo Lavandero and the accused, together with one
Sillote, were arrested by the authorities for having engaged in illegal
cockfighting. When they were in the municipal jail, however, they were
investigated as to the cause of the death of the deceased. Two of them were
handcuffed and another one was tied to the iron railings of the jail; they were
promised their liberty if they would squeal on the assailant; and in the depth
of the night they decided to point to the accused.

Jose Villatema corroborated the story about the methods used by the police to
obtain information, but the trial judge stated in open court that his testimony
was incredible.

On the evidence thus introduced, the lower court found the accused guilty of
the crime of homicide and, there being no modifying circumstance, sentenced him
to fourteen years, eight months and one day of reclusion temporal, to indemnify
the heirs of the deceased in the sum of P1,000, with the accessory penalties
prescribed by law, and to pay the costs. The accused has appealed from the
foregoing decision and assigns the following errors:

“1. The court a quo grossly erred in taking arbitrarily for granted that the
unidentified cadaver found in the alleged house of Santiago Teguelo was the
corpse of Santiago Teguelo in spite of the fact that no identification was ever
made.

“2. The court a quo likewise erred in holding without any definite findings
by a medical expert that the deceased (whoever he was) died because of a wound
inflicted, although the physician made clear that he could not ascertain any
wound and furthermore notwithstanding the fact that no autopsy was made by the
doctor employed during the investigation and trial.

“3. The court a quo also erred in holding that the accused stabbed with a
knife a certain Santiago Teguelo.

“4. Certainly the court a quo flagrantly erred in finding the accused guilty
of the crime of homicide and in sentencing him to prison for fourteen years,
eight months and one day of reclusion temporal and to indemnify the heirs of the
presumed deceased in the sum of P1,000 with the accessories of the law, and to
pay the costs.”

A study of the evidence of record shows that the record is more remarkable
for what it does not contain than for what it actually contains. Not one word is
in the record, from the officials that went to the premises to investigate the
scene of death, as to the condition of the house, the whereabouts of the
deceased’s property, the location and condition of his clothes that he must have
worn at,the time the alleged stabbing took place, nor does it appear that the
drawers found on the body were stained with blood, which ordinarily they would
have been had the accused been stabbed in the abdomen and walked approximately
600 yards from the scene of the stabbing to his hut.

Although the medical officer testified that the body was too far destroyed to
be identified by him, he was not asked directly to say from his examination of
the body whether it was that of an elderly man, or not. Not one person who saw
the body was asked whether it was the body of Santiago Teguelo, but the
officials at the trial simply assumed that it was.

The only two witnesses for the prosecution that claim to have seen the
accused stab the deceased, according to their own stories, are sorry specimens
of humanity, and neither told the whole truth. Although neighbors of the
deceased, and one of them a pariente, they claim that as soon as the stabbing
took place, they were afraid and ran home, they claim they stayed at home for
four days in fear on account of the threats made by the accused. When and where
these threats were made, and of what nature the threats were, no one of the
participants of the trial were curious to know. If the witnesses ran home as
testified to by them, they arrived home in advance of the deceased and they must
have seen him pass their house on his way to his lonely hut. Due to their claims
that they ran home at cnce and remained there until after the body was found,
they avoid testifying to any details. Certainly their testimony should not be
accepted until after a searching examination in order to test the truth of their
statements, especially so when they picture themselves as men without courage,
without compassion, and without any sense of public duty.

Where the lives and the liberty of the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands
are at stake, in a trial for homicide, such lack of zeal, care, and energy in
producing the facts necessary for the proper understanding of the cause, cannot
be allowed to pass unnoticed.

The testimony of the accused is not so inherently improbable as the testimony
of the witnesses for the prosecution. The prosecution saw fit not to introduce
any witness in rebuttal. From a careful examination of the evidence of record,
this court must hold that the guilt of the accused has not been established
beyond a reasonable doubt.

The judgment appealed from is therefore reversed, and the accused will be set
at liberty with costs de oficio.

Malcolm, Villamor, Villa-Real, Abad Santos, and Vickers, JJ.,
concur.

 

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DISSENTING

 

IMPERIAL, J., with whom concurs OSTRAND, J.,

I agree with the decision of the majority that the prosecution failed to
identify the cadaver found in the afternoon of August 12, 1931, for the simple
reason that it was then putrefied from the neck to the umbilical region; but, in
my opinion, the evidence for the prosecution has successfully established that
said cadaver was of a man of sixty years old, that no other person lived in the
house where said cadaver was found except the deceased offended party and that
he was stabbed with a knife in the abdomen by the defendant on August 8, 1931.
From these circumstances, which have been clearly proven by the testimonies of
Dr. Rafael Gomez and of the eye-witnesses Pastor Onavea and Teodulo Lavandero, I
infer the identity of the appellant as being the author of the crime beyond any
reasonable doubt.

On the other hand, even assuming the insufficiency of evidence as to the
cadaver’s identity, due to the fact that the court below erroneously refused to
hear the witnesses offered by the prosecution for that purpose, still I believe
that instead of acquitting the defendant on the ground of doubt, which is not
reasonable in my opinion, the case should be remanded for a new trial on errors
of law so committed during the hearing. And in this case the appellant could not
successfully invoke “former jeopardy” for through his appeal he voluntarily
waived said constitutional right.

“Where a new trial is granted on motion of defendant, and the verdict and
conviction are set aside, defendant has thereby waived his right and is estopped
to plead the former conviction as a bar to another trial” on the same or a new
indictment.” (16 C. J., 259.)

“In the absence of statute, it has been held generally that on a new trial
being granted a defendant, he cannot be tried again for a higher grade of the
same offense of which he was convicted on the first trial. But some courts have
held exactly the contrary, and that upon a new trial the whole case is open as
if there had been no former trial. In some jurisdictions the question is settled
by constitutional or statutory provisions which specify that the granting of a
new trial places the party accused in the same position as if no trial had been
had.” (16 C. J., 260, 261.)

True it is that in the instant case the appellant did not move for a new
trial, but there is no sound reason to the contrary to remand the case motu
proprio by the appellate court on errors of law committed by the trial court for
the purpose of doing justice.

I conclude, therefore, that the decision appealed from should be affirmed, or
the case remanded to the lower court for new trial. Judgment reversed and
defendant acquitted.