THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. JUAN DIMAYUGA, DEFENDANT AND APPELLANT.

This
appeal has been brought to reverse a judgment of the Court of First
Instance of the City of Manila, finding the appellant, Juan Dimayuga,
guilty of the offense of homicide and sentencing him to undergo
imprisonment for fourteen years, eight months and one day, reclusion temporal,
with the accessories prescribed by law, requiring him to indemnify the
heirs of the deceased, Enrique K. Laygo, in the amount of P2,000, and
requiring him to pay the costs.

The appellant, Juan
Dimayuga, is a native of the Province of Batangas, and at the time with
which we are here concerned, he held the position of secretary to his
brother, Jose Dimayuga, representative in the Philippine Legislature
for Batangas. Enrique K. Laygo, the victim of the homicide, was also
originally from the Province of Batangas, but lived in Manila at the
time of his death, being an employee in the Philippine National
Library. The appellant, at this time, lodged with Valeriano Luz and
wife, Rosario Dimayuga, at 232 Lardizabal Street, Manila, Rosario being
a sister of the appellant. Enrique K. Laygo was married and had his
home on Calixto Dy-Yco Street. Both the appellant and Laygo came from
Lipa and belonged to families that are well known. In addition to this,
Laygo had married a niece of the wife of Valeriano Luz, and the two
families were in very friendly relations. Laygo worked in the National
Library, on the ground floor of the Legislative Building, while the
appellant had a desk in the office of his brother on the next floor
above. In addition to his employment in the National Library, Laygo was
a regular contributor to El Debate, a Spanish daily published in the City of Manila.

On the afternoon of July 27, 1932, La Vanguardia,
another Spanish daily published in Manila, contained an article having
a mild slur on the appellant’s brother, Representative Jose Dimayuga.
The next morning El Debate also had an article, written by
Enrique K. Laygo, in which reference was made to certain
representatives who were referred to as the committee on silence (comite del silencio),
for the reason that they were seldom heard. The articles above
mentioned appear to have stirred the feelings of the appellant, who at
first assumed that Laygo was responsible for both, but upon inquiry he
found that the article in La Vanguardia had been written by
another. On the forenoon of the same day, July 28, the appellant, with
feelings aroused against Laygo, went to the latter’s office in the
National Library, but finding Laygo out, he left word with an employee
of the Library to inform Laygo upon arrival that the appellant wanted
to see him. But Laygo did not come in that morning, and the appellant
returned in the afternoon, finding that Laygo was still out. Shortly
before 4 o’clock in the afternoon Laygo arrived and, after spending
some time in the Filipiniana Division of the Library, he returned to
his desk where he remained until after 4, when he left.

With
respect to the activities of Laygo during the greater part of the day,
it appears that he had been called that morning to the convent Comunidad de San Francisco to confer about an article that had appeared in El Debate
on July 26, 1932. A sister of Laygo, named Asuncion Maria, belonged to
this convent, and it was she and another sister of the order, Maria
Lina, who had telephoned to Laygo that morning to come to the convent.
The article to which reference is made contained some misstatements of
fact relative to the duties imposed upon the Philippine novitiates in
the convent, and the sisters desired that these errors should be
corrected.

Laygo spent an hour from 11 to 12 in conference
with the sisters, and went away, promising to send a reporter to get
the data which he needed to rectify the published article. Laygo,
however, was unable to send a reporter that afternoon, and he
accordingly himself returned to the convent at about 3 o’clock, leaving
at about 3.30 p. m.

Arriving at his office he stayed around
for a while and left after 4 p. m., in company with a friend named
Aligada. They proceeded in an automobile to the residence of Valeriano
Luz, on Lardizabal Street, where Laygo alighted. In all probability, as
the trial judge suggests, Laygo went to this place because he had been
informed that Juan Dimayuga, wished to see him, and of course the home
of Valeriano Luz, kinsman of his wife, was a place well known to him.
Certainly there is nothing in the record which would lead one to think
that Laygo entertained any ill-will against the appellant.

The inmates of the Luz home appear to have been out that afternoon. The appellant apparently arrived first in a carromata,
and the deceased came up about the same time in an automobile. A few
minutes later Dr. Ramon Macasaet arrived in his car with Mrs. Luz
(Rosario Dimayuga).

The house at 232 Lardizabal Street is
entered from the side and the main door is reached through an alley.
Immediately upon entering the house, one finds himself in the dining
room, with a bedroom to the right and the sala on the left. Directly
across the dining room from the main entrance are two rooms, occupied
at the time of which we are speaking by the appellant and his brother.

The evidence relating to the tragedy which soon followed is not very
clear. But it appears that when Dr. Macasaet brought Mrs. Luz home,
Laygo was standing at the gate leading into the alley. At this time he
was leaning against one side of the gate and quietly talking to the
appellant with a smile on his face. When Mrs. Luz alighted she passed
into the house and entered her room on the right. Her husband,
Valeriano Luz, who had also arrived about the same time, passed through
the dining room on his way to the bathroom, which is adjacent to the
kitchen on the right. Laygo meanwhile entered and, placing his raincoat
on the back of a chair in front of the dining table, he seated himself
momentarily in a chair near the entrance. The appellant, however,
passed across the dining room and, entering his bedroom, took a
revolver from the drawer of a table and dropped it into his pocket.

In a few minutes shots rang out and the lifeless body of Laygo was
stretched upon the floor of the sala immediately in front of a sofa.
Two bullets from the revolver had entered his body, inflicting two
fatal wounds which produced immediate death. The bullet which first
struck entered the right side of the chest in the first intercostal
space. It perforated the mediastinum, aorta, and left lung, and made
its way through the body, finding its lodgment in the posterior left
sixth intercostal space. Here the bullet stopped without making exit
from the body. The course of the bullet was obliquely across the body
with a downward range, showing to a certainty that the hand of the
person holding the revolver was perceptibly elevated above the level of
the victim. This shot was followed by another which entered the left
side of the top of the head, and after passing through the cranium,
emerged from the left side of the back of the head. The course pursued
by this bullet indicates in all probability that the victim had fallen
forward towards his assailant from the effects of the first shot, thus
making it possible for the second bullet to enter the top of the head.
As the body of the victim came to rest on the floor, he evidently
turned on his back, as the body was found with the face up. The fingers
of the hand, it may be noted, were relaxed, though not completely open,
showing no signs, of such contraction as would doubtless have resulted
from any notable muscular tension.

When two secret service
men arrived, they found Valeriano Luz standing outside near the main
door. Proceeding into the house they found the dead body of Laygo where
it had fallen, lying in the sala, which is immediately adjacent to the
dining room and on its left. Returning to the dining room, the officers
found that Rosario Dimayuga had now appeared, and upon inquiry for the
person who had fired the shots, Valeriano Luz called to the appellant
and the latter came out from his room. In response to inquiries, the
appellant said that he had fired the shots, and the detective took into
his hands the revolver which the appellant drew from the right-hand
pocket of his trousers. From said revolver the detective removed four
empty shells and one cartridge of the caliber 32 which ha4 not been
discharged. One of the bullets which had not hit the deceased was found
embedded in the floor.

By way of defense an attempt has
been made to prove that the appellant shot the deceased as an act of
necessary self-defense; but the proof in support of this contention
consists mostly of uncorroborated statements of the appellant, which
are so evidently artificial that little weight can be attributed to
them. At about 6 o’clock on the afternoon of the day when the homicide
was committed, the appellant stated to detective Jambalos that while he
was paying the driver of the carromata that brought him home, Laygo
arrived in a garage car and, after getting off the car, pursued him
with an open knife into the house, and that the appellant’s sister
caught Laygo and held him, while the appellant went to his room to get
a revolver. At 8 o’clock on the same night, in the police station, he
told detective Quintos the same story of Laygo alighting from a garage
car and pursuing him into the house, brandishing a knife. But this
crude fabrication was not repeated in the testimony of the appellant
given in court. He here presented an entirely different story to the
effect that Laygo, upon arriving at the door of 232 Lardizabal Street,
invited the appellant to go with him in his car, upbraiding him for not
having kept an appointment to fight on that afternoon. The appellant
declined, saying that he wanted to rest, and the two went up into the
dining room where Valeriano Luz, Mrs. Luz, and a visitor were present.
After a few moments the visitor left. Laygo meanwhile was talking to
the individuals present. Laygo explained to Mr. Luz that he wanted to
see the appellant. After those present had dispersed, leaving Laygo and
the appellant alone in the dining room or sala, Laygo began
activities. First, he caught the appellant by the right arm, and as the
appellant succeeded in freeing himself, he saw that Laygo held in his
hand a big fan-knife. At the same time the latter said to the appellant
“Your time has come” (Ya es tu hora). Laygo then began to
chase the appellant around in the room and the appellant ran into his
bedroom. Here he collided with a small table containing a drawer in
which he had only that morning placed his brother’s pistol. Seizing
this weapon, he passed into the sala where he was confronted with the
spectre of Laygo, with a big knife in his hand. After a few words of
caution from the appellant, which were disregarded by Laygo, the
appellant fired a shot at the floor to scare him. Laygo nevertheless
continued to advance, and the appellant fired the fatal shots.

The artificial character of this narrative is too evident to require
comment. No witness has been introduced to corroborate the appellant
with respect to the commotion in the house which must have been caused
by movements such as those described by the appellant; and we believe
that his story as to what occurred in the house just before he fired
those shots is as fictitious as his account of being chased into the
house by Laygo with an open knife.

This brings us to the
point where it is necessary to describe another incident. After the
officers, Jambalos and Mutoc, had arrived at the scene of the tragedy,
the former instructed Mutoc to look around in the sala for the knife
which the deceased was supposed to have used. At first no knife was
discovered and Jambalos told Mutoc to continue his search. In a moment
a large fan-knife was found about seven inches from the right hand of
the dead body in the place where it had previously escaped observation
from being under the sofa. The finding of this knife near the right
hand of the person slain appears to have made but slight impression on
the trial judge. The reason probably is that the appellant was in the
house for some time before the arrival of the officers, and it would
have been easy for the knife to have been placed in that position by
the appellant’s intervention. It is true that the presence of the knife
is consistent with the appellant’s first tale about his having been run
into the house by the deceased, with knife in hand, and also with his
later story that he was chased around in the room in the same way. But
the carrying of such a weapon was not habitual with the deceased, and
if he had used a knife with aggressive gestures towards the appellant
in the room, it would have been unnatural for him to have persisted in
the attack when he saw the appellant armed with a revolver.

The testimony of the appellant is stuffed with statements as to what
the appellant had done and had said to him under circumstances that
have not permitted of corroboration. He claims, for instance, that
Laygo came up to his brother’s office in the Legislative Building at
about 3 p. m. An interview resulted in which Laygo showed an aggressive
attitude and challenged the appellant to a fight. The appellant replied
that he did not want to fight, and Laygo retorted, “Your day will
come.” This portentous interview was broken off upon the arrival of
some one who knocked at the door. Later in the afternoon Laygo
telephoned him to come down to his office at 4 p. m. where they might
finish their conversation. The appellant agreed, and 4 o’clock was
appointed as the time of meeting, but upon cooling off, the appellant
decided that he would not go there, and he took a carromata
to his home instead. The improbability of this interview and of any
such telephone message as suggested by the appellant is obvious, when
we remember that at the time when the appellant supposes Laygo to have
been in his brother’s office in the Legislative Building, Laygo was on
his friendly mission to the sisters of the Comunidad de San Francisco, as already stated.

It is impossible to point to any motive that could have prompted the
appellant to this deed if he had been a person of ordinary temperament,
but the reason that prompted him to this deed is not
difficult to find. In the first place, he had understood from Laygo’s
own lips that the latter was being urged by friends in the Province of
Batangas to become a candidate for the House of Representatives in the
next Legislature. The appellant saw in him, therefore, a possible
competitor of his brother for political honors. This, coupled with the
anger which had been aroused in the appellant by an article which the
deceased had published in a paper that morning, supplied all the motive
necessary to move the appellant. Such appears to have been the view of
the trial judge, and we are of the opinion that he was not in error.

What has been said is enough to reveal the vital and determinative
facts relative to this homicide, and it is unnecessary to expand this
opinion by dealing with collateral and undeterminative matters.

But under Act No. 4103, the judgment will be modified by sentencing the
appellant to imprisonment for a period running from eight years and one
day, prision mayor, to fourteen years, eight months and one day, reclusion temporal. So ordered, with costs against the appellant.^[1]

Avanceña, C. J., Abad Santos, Hull, and Vickers, JJ., concur.

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^[1] Modified by resolution of December 15, 1933.