THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. CORAZON ZAMORA DE CORTEZ, DEFENDANT AND APPELLANT.

Appellant was prosecuted in the Court of
First Instance of Capiz for the crime of murder and, after due trial,
was found guilty only of homicide and sentenced to suffer seventeen
years and four months of reclusion temporal, with the
accessory penalties provided by law, to indemnify the heirs of the
deceased Maria Bigay in the sum of P1,000, and to pay the costs.

Appellant admits having killed Maria Bigay but claims that she
committed the deed because she surprised her in the act of adultery
with her husband, Angel Cortez, in the house of Lucia Celis. Her
testimony in this respect is fully corroborated by that of Lucia Celis.
Appellant’s husband, in his testimony, also admitted that he was
surprised by his wife in the act of adultery with Maria Bigay in Lucia
Celis1 house. While, as a general rule, the testimony of a husband in
favor of his wife should be carefully scrutinized, courts are not
justified in rejecting it entirely as proceeding from a biased source.
In the case at bar, no motive for the killing has been established, and
granting that proof of particular motive for taking the life of a human
being is not indispensable to conviction for homicide, the absence of
such motive is nevertheless important in determining which of two
conflicting theories is more likely to be true.

As declared by this court, in criminal prosecutions, matters of
defense, mitigation, excuse, or justification, must appear by a
preponderance of evidence. (People Embalido, 58 Phil., 152,
154.) We agree with the SolicitorGeneral that the preponderance of
evidence in the present case does not justify appellant’s claim that
she acted in self-defense. If sufficiently indicates, however, that she
killed Maria Bigay under the circumstances mentioned in article 247 of
the Revised Penal Code.

Upon the foregoing premises, appellant is hereby sentenced to suffer six months and one day of destierro, and ordered not to be and remain within the radius of 25 kilometers from the municipality of Pontevedra, Province of Capiz.

Modified as above indicated, the judgment is affirmed with costs de oficio. So ordered.

Street, Hull, Butte, and Diaz, JJ., concur.