THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. SILVINO VALDEZ, DEFENDANT AND APPELLANT.

This
is an appeal from the Court of First Instance of Nueva Vizcaya, second
judicial district, convicting the appellant of the crime of homicide
and sentencing him to fourteen years, eight months and one day of reclusion temporal
and to indemnify the heirs of the deceased Egmidio Pangilinan in the
sum of P1,000. It was the theory of the defense that Egmidio died from
self-inflicted wounds, and the failure of the trial court so to find is
assigned as error. In view of the evidence submitted by the
prosecution, which we regard as trustworthy, this theory appears to us
to have been manufactured for the occasion and we regard the testimony
in support thereof as false.

As the Attorney-General states,
the assignments of error may be reduced to the following: “That the
trial court erred in convicting the appellant of the crime of homicide
and sentencing him to the penalties imposed in the judgment appealed
from.”

Disregarding the concocted theory and the false
testimony of the appellant and confining ourselves to the evidence of
the prosecution, we are convinced that it was the appellant who stabbed
the deceased, but that he is entitled to an acquittal under article 11,
paragraph 3, of the Revised Penal Code, which exempts from criminal
responsibility one who acts in defense of the person or rights of a
stranger, under the conditions recited in paragraph 1 of said article.

There were four witnesses for the Government, but more important than their testimony is Exhibit D, the ante mortem
declaration of the deceased. The testimony of the witnesses Hilario
Aliac, the municipal police, and Mariano de Fiesta, the municipal
president of Solano, establishes the fact, which we accept, that the
appellant inflicted the wounds which caused the death of Egmidio
Pangilinan fourteen days later. They were not eyewitnesses and their
testimony is confined to circumstances pointing to that fact alone. The
next witness, Hipolito Lazam, was the justice of the peace who took the
ante mortem declaration of the deceased and his testimony is
confined to identifying that instrument. The last witness, Dr. Jose P.
Castro, was the physician who treated Egmidio. His testimony is
confined to the nature and effect of Egmidio’s wounds.

The only direct and the most important evidence introduced by the Government is Exhibit D which is as follows:

“Q. Who wounded you?—A. Apo Valdez.

“Q. What instrument he used to wound you?—A. That one you are holding.
“Q. Are your wounds serious?—A. I feel them serious.

“Q. Will you die with that wound?—A. I think I am going to die.

“Q. Don’t you have any hope to live?—A. I do not have any hope to live.
“Q. What is the reason why you were wounded?—A. Because he was preventing me to stab my wife.
“Q. Why did you stab your wife?—A. Because I went to tell my wife that I would take her away.

“Q. What did your wife reply?—A. She refused.
“Q. What are the other reasons why you stabbed your wife?—A. I went
here to take her away but she refused and when she refused I told her
to make an instrument of our separation before the notary public and
the wife of Valdez replied that even here you can make your separation;
I then said again that I do not like to make it here but before a
notary public.

“Q. What relation has your wife with Valdez?—A. He has no relation.
“Q. Why is it therefore that your wife is living here?—A. We are living
together in this house but as we used to fight very often my wife went
away, and she went to the house of her cousin Jose Nicolas. That when I
went away my wife came back.

“Q. When you stabbed your wife, who were present?—A. The wife of Valdez and no more.
“Q. When Valdez stabbed you, were there other persons who saw you?—A.
There were no other persons except the wife of Valdez.”

It is not contradicted that when Egmidio attacked his wife under the
circumstances stated in the above Exhibit D, the appellant, who is a
barber, was in his shop on the ground floor of the same house engaged
in cutting the hair of a customer, Porfirio Tabilangan. They heard the
screams and cries for help of Egmidio’s wife, Maria Aragon, and the
appellant’s wife, Rosita Otero. The appellant at once ran upstairs
followed by Porfirio. Neither of them was armed. As we reconstruct the
drama, Egmidio was attacking his wife, Maria Aragon, with a dagger when
the appellant entered the room. The wife received five wounds but it is
not clear whether she had received all of these wounds before the
appellant appeared on the scene. The appellant’s wife was in the room
and his children in the next room. The appellant, in the defense of
Maria, struggled with Egmidio for the possession of the dagger, in the
course of which he inflicted the three wounds in question.

The Attorney-General admits that two of the necessary requisites to
justify the act of the defendant and exempt him from criminal
responsibility enumerated in article 11 are present in this case:
namely, that the appellant was not actuated by revenge or resentment or
other illegal motive; and second, that the appellant intervened in the
defense of Maria Aragon and in trying to prevent Egmidio from wounding
or killing his wife; but he suggests that the third element, that of
reasonable necessity for the means employed in order to prevent or
repel the illegal aggression is lacking. We do not concur with the
Attorney-General in this suggestion.

This court stated in the case of United States vs. Batungbacal (37 Phil., 382, 387):

“If,
in order to consider that a defendant acted in lawful defense, it is
sufficient that he had well-founded reasons to believe that, under the
attendant circumstances, the means employed by him to prevent or to
repel the aggression, was necessary, then the defendant in this cause
undoubtedly acted in lawful defense of Hilaria Tianko and his two
children.” In that case the deceased was pursuing the said children
with bolo in hand and with his arm raised as if ready to strike with
his weapon when he was shot dead by the accused. We held that in view
of the imminence of the danger, the act of the defendant could be
considered reasonably necessary to repel or prevent the aggression
because its object was “to render the aggressor harmless”.

In the instant case, considering the suddenness of the disturbance and
the startling and disturbing effect upon the appellant’s mind which
must have resulted from hearing the screams of his wife calling for
help; and coming, as he did without previous knowledge, upon an armed
man engaged in a murderous attack in his own house in the presence of
his wife, he might reasonably have assumed that he had to deal with a
desperate or possibly an insane person who had to be rendered harmless.

We have come to the conclusion that it would be unjust to affirm the
judgment in this case in spite of the fact that we are convinced that
the appellant believed his cause would prosper more if he lied instead
of telling the simple truth about what happened.

The judgment is reversed.

Avanceña, C. J., Street, Ostrand, and Abad Santos, JJ., concur.