THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. SIA BONKIA, DEFENDANT AND APPELLANT.

In or about the month of December, 1932,
the herein appellant named Sia Bonkia or Sia Boon Kee was charged with
murder in the Court of First Instance of Oriental Misamis, but after
due trial he was found guilty only of homicide, not murder, and
consequently sentenced to twelve years and one day of reclusion temporal with
the corresponding accessory penalties, the mitigating circumstance of
lack of intention to cause so grave a wrong as that committed having
been taken into consideration in his favor, and to indemnify the heirs
of the deceased Ang Wan, alias Diana, in the sum of P1,000,
with the costs of the proceedings. He appealed from the said sentence
assigning nine alleged errors as committed by the trial court, all of
which tend to raise the same question, to wit: whether or not he should
have been acquitted of all criminal liability for the death of the said
Ang Wan.

There is no doubt of the fact, because the defense itself admits it, that Ang Wan, alias
Diana, a girl ten or eleven years of age, died in an automobile on her
way from the appellant’s house, where she was employed as a servant, to
the provincial hospital to receive the necessary treatment in order to
revive her from the state of collapse and extreme debility in which she
was found by a doctor a few hours before. Death must have taken place
between 10 and 10.30 o’clock on the night of December 4,1932, at which
time she was removed from the appellant’s house. Dr. Jose F. Marfori,
who visited said girl some hours before her death, testified that it
must have been about 6 o’clock in the afternoon of the said day when he
saw the girl who was then almost speechless, motionless and in so
serious a condition that her pulse was hardly perceptible, a condition
which was very apparent from the extreme pallor of her face. Both
before and after her death, contusions and welts were found not only on
the arms, face, buttock, back and feet but also on different parts of
her body. Exhibit H-I gives a slight idea of the said marks of violence.

The prosecution, by means of its witnesses and other evidence, and
particularly by the testimony of Dionisia Cervantes and that of Drs.
Jose F. Marfori, Joaquin A. Sanchez and Ramon Santos, tried to show
that the said girl’s death was due to maltreatment and severe
punishment which the herein appellant inflicted upon her because on the
morning of December 4,1932, she had hurt his two small children by
pinching one on the nose and pricking the other on one of the
cheekbones with a phonograph needle, whereupon the said appellant
horsewhipped her and later hung her from a pulley fastened to the
ceiling of his room, by means of a rope tied to her wrists, which were
crossed at her back, without stopping to consider her apparent state of
ill health. The defense, on the other hand, tried to establish that the
death of the aforesaid girl Ang Wan, alias Diana, was not due
to the maltreatment and punishment inflicted upon her by the appellant
on the date in question, but to a fall which she had in the bathroom at
about 4 or 5 o’clock that afternoon, hitting her head on the floor or
against the wall, which were made of cement, which fall, in addition to
the fact that she was then suffering from acute nephritis and chronic
bronchopneumonia, caused her collapse from which she never recovered.

In view not only of the marks of violence found on the said girl’s
body but also of the appellant’s own admissions to Dr. Marfori, whom he
had called to treat the girl at about 6 o’clock in the afternoon of the
said day; to the Provincial Commander of the Constabulary at Cagayan,
Oriental Misamis; and to the justice of the peace of the said capital,
all of whom went to the appellant’s house on the night in question,
having been informed of the crime, it may be concluded that at 10
o’clock in the morning of the day in question, the appellant had
flogged the said deceased about 40 or 50 times and later, between 1.30
and 2 o’clock in the afternoon, hung her by means of a rope from a
pulley which he had in his room.

Drs. Ramon Santos and Joaquin A. Sanchez, the physicians who
performed the autopsy on the body of the deceased, expressed the
opinion that the girl’s death was due to collapse from the maltreatment
she had received a few moments or hours before her death; and at the
suggestion of Dr. Jesus A. Nolasco, who was among those present at the
autopsy, specimens of the lungs and kidneys of the deceased were
preserved and personally brought by him to the Bureau of Science of
this city for histological and pathological examination. Inasmuch as
the analysis of the said specimens disclosed that the deceased, in
life, had suffered from acute nephritis and chronic bronchopneumonia,
the appellant is now fully determined to show that the collapse which
resulted in the girl’s death was due to the said two diseases, in
addition to the fall which she had when she slipped in the bathroom of
his house. All the physicians who testified for the prosecution as well
as those who testified for the defense, agree in that the death of the
deceased was due to collapse, but they differ with regard to the cause
of said collapse. Those for the prosecution maintained that such
collapse was due to the maltreatment to which the deceased had been
subjected, while those for the defense, in turn, maintained that it was
due to her bronchopneumonia and acute nephritis.

The contention of the defense that the fall of the deceased, when
she slipped in the bathroom, gave her a shock which also contributed to
the said collapse or to hasten her death, is only based on mere
inferences because, from the mere fact of the fall, it assumes that the
said deceased really hit her head against a wall or on the floor of the
bathroom, when the evidence does not show that such a thing ever
happened. On the contrary, Dionisia Cervantes, the appellant’s servant,
who is not a Chinese as are the said appellant and his witness Shua
Giok who later turned out also to be the appellant’s niece, convinces
this court by her affirmation that the deceased, after her wrists had
been untied by the appellant and had been laid in bed on account of
extreme debility which later overcame her, making some efforts,
succeeded in getting up to go to the bathroom to respond to the call of
nature, but upon arriving there, she fell not because she slipped or
stumbled on any object but because her strength failed her and on that
account she could no more arise and again had to be carried to bed by
Shua Giok, otherwise known as Nana.

The defense tried to destroy the testimony of said Dionisia
Cervantes by calling Nana and the nurse Valentina T. Gatchalian to the
witness stand. This court, however, finds the testimony of the said
witnesses to be partial and therefore their veracity doubtful,
particularly for the following reasons: Shua Giok, according to her own
testimony, is the appellant’s niece and that fact tends to show that
she is naturally interested in defending him; Valentina T. Gatchalian
talked from memory when she stated that between 3 and 5 o’clock in the
afternoon of December 4, 1932, she had seen Dionisia Cervantes
accompanied by the appellant’s wife and children in front of the
puericulture center building of Cagayan, capital of Oriental Misamis,
and later, near the bridge of the said capital, because notwithstanding
the lapse of several months from that date to that on which she
testified, and notwithstanding the fact that she had not noted it down
on any memorandum or in a book, she still remembered said facts in all
their details; Valentina T. Gatchalian stated that, aside from the said
date of December 4,1932, she could not accurately remember any other
date on which she had seen the appellant’s wife or the said witness
Dionisia Cervantes; Valentina T. Gatchalian, as nurse, was in
attendance every time the appellant’s wife gave birth and furthermore
she now and then has been taking care of the children of the said
spouses, and although she stated that she never received payment from
them, such circumstances disclose the fact that there existed between
her and the spouses a relation of sincere friendship which naturally
influenced her in favor of the appellant; Dionisia Cervantes is a
Filipina who, like the deceased Diana, served aa a housegirl in the
appellant’s house on the day in question as well as on that in which
she testified as witness in this case; Dionisia Cervantes had no motive
to testify against her master and it would be unnatural for her to
distort facts to his prejudice when she felt nothing but gratitude
towards him because he had her in his service and was feeding her; Shua
Giok testified that she did not carry Ang Wan or Diana after helping
her to her feet at the bathroom, but her testimony in this sense
deserves no credit on the ground that the fall of the deceased was due
precisely to the fact that she was extremely weak, which fact, in
addition to the testimony of Dionisia Cervantes, proves that after the
deceased had fallen, it was impossible for her to stand up, much less
walk to her bed even if aided by Shua Giok, as the latter claims,
because after she had been taken down and untied from the pulley from
which the appellant had hung her, she became so weak that it was
necessary to lay her down on the appellant’s own bed; and Dionisia
Cervantes categorically affirmed that Shua Giok went to the aid of the
deceased only after the latter had fallen inside the bathroom without
having seen how the fall occurred because, according to the said
witness, she was the only person in the house when the deceased entered
there.

What has been said heretofore, in addition to the fact that before
she was maltreated by the appellant, the deceased Diana, according to
the appellant’s testimony, could still perform her routinary duties of
taking care of the appellant’s children, preparing “basa-basa” or
“lugao” and setting the table, etc., clearly shows that she was not so
ill from nephritis or bronchopneumonia that, even without her
maltreatment with a horsewhip and hanging from a pulley, she would have
collapsed and died as a result thereof. That the deceased was not so
ill when she was maltreated is shown by the fact that, according to the
evidence of the defense, the last time that she was treated by a
physician was in or about March or April, 1932, eight or nine months
before her death. If she was relatively strong on the day she was
maltreated, it is inconceivable how she collapsed so suddenly from her
alleged former illnesses of acute nephritis and chronic
bronchopneumonia. The truth is that she undoubtedly collapsed from the
maltreatment to which she had been subjected, thus aggravating her
aforesaid illnesses. Therefore, it may be stated that the immediate
cause of the collapse, which resulted in her death, was the
maltreatment and the severe punishment which the appellant had
inflicted upon her.

The physicians who testified in this case, three for the
prosecution and two for the defense, engaged in lengthy discussions on
“shock” or collapse, the former claiming that in the case of the
deceased, said shock or collapse was the result of the maltreatment to
which she had been subjected, without denying thereby, however, that a
collapse also may, in some cases, be the result of acute nephritis or
chronic bronchopneumonia, or of both diseases at the same time, while
the latter claimed that in the said case it was the result of the said
diseases. However this may be, or whether the physicians who testified
for the prosecution were right or not, it is a fact which we can
neither overlook nor set aside because it is so inferred from the
testimony of Dionisia Cervantes, who in our opinion deserves credit,
that after the appellant had taken down the deceased from the pulley
and untied her, she felt so weak that it was necessary to lay her down
on no less than the appellant’s own bed, a thing as strange as it is
unusual, it being of common knowledge that ordinarily there exist a
great difference and a wide gap between master and servant; and that it
was when the deceased got up from the said bed to go to the bathroom
that she fell and collapsed and never recovered.

The defense contends that the injection of the deceased with
one-half milligram of strychnine after she had collapsed might have
also been one of the joint causes of her death. In this respect, the
evidence shows that at the request of the appellant, Dr. Marfori, upon
his arrival at the appellant’s house at about six o’clock in the
evening of the day In question, gave the deceased, whom he found
prostrate as above stated, an injection of one-half milligram of
strychnine. The injection produced no reaction whatsoever because from
the time it was administered to her until she was taken to the
hospital, her condition remained the same, without the least change.

The physicians who testified in the case on the advantages and
disadvantages of strychnine in cases of shock, were not in accord, in
the same manner as the authorities cited by them are not in accord,
foremost among them is Da Costa who, in his book “Modern Surgery”, page
292, said:

“Crile has demonstrated experimentally that
strychnine is perfectly futile in pure shock and may actually aggravate
the condition. In collapse it is of some value. We believe this
statement is true clinically. Strychnine goads a heart to increase
action when that organ has not sufficient blood passing into it to
enable it to contract firmly and strongly. The use of strychnine in
shock has been compared by Hare to beating a dying horse to make it
pull.”

This court is of the opinion that the above quotation from Da Costa
is not applicable in this case on the ground that the facts disclose
that the condition of the deceased remained unchanged from the time she
was injected at six o’clock until she was brought to the hospital at
ten or ten-thirty. Said quotation, if applicable at all, would merely
serve to show that the aforesaid injection was simply futile because
the collapse was already hopelessly fatal.

On the other hand, Dr. Sanchez, as well as Dr. Marfori, advocates
the use of the strychnine in moderate quantities (say 1/2 or 1/3 of a
milligram) in cases of collapse, and the former cited in his support
the author Stevens, who, in his Textbook Sixth Edition, 1933, page 37,
said that although strychnine has no direct action on the heart and is
an agent which has a feeble action on blood vessels, the weight of
clinical evidence is in favor of its usefulness, particularly in cases
of general depression or weakness. Dr. Nolasco himself, who testified
for the defense, admitted the existence of authorities who advise and
recommend the use of strychnine. For this reason, the aforesaid
contention of the defense that the strychnine injected into the
deceased in the amount of one-half of a milligram might have been one
of the joint causes of her death cannot and should not be given any
weight.

In view of the foregoing, and inasmuch as under the law any person
committing a felony incurs criminal liability although the wrong done
be different from that which he intended, it necessarily follows that
the appellant is liable for the death of the deceased Ang Wan, alias Diana.

There is no doubt but that the appellant, in inflicting the said
severe and cruel punishment upon the unfortunate girl, had no intention
to cause so grave a wrong as that he committed and such circumstance
should necessarily be taken into consideration to mitigate his
liability, in accordance with the provisions of article 13 of the
Revised Penal Code.

Wherefore, finding that the appealed judgment is in accordance with the law, it is hereby affirmed in toto,
with the costs against the appellant; and in view of the provisions of
Act No. 4103, which establish an indeterminate sentence, the minimum of
the penalty imposed upon the appellant is hereby fixed at 6 years and 1
day of prision mayor, so that his aforesaid penalty will be understood to be from 6 years and 1 day of prision mayor to 12 years and 1 day of reclusion temporal. So ordered.

Street, Malcolm, Villa-Real, Hull, Butte, Imperial, and Goddard, JJ., concur.

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ABAD SANTOS, J.,

The feeling of righteous indignation naturally aroused by the
killing of a young girl under the circumstances revealed in this case,
should not be permitted to deviate us from our duty to administer
justice with even hand. The wrong: perpetrated on the dead girl cannot
be righted by the commission of another wrong. And because I am
convinced that it is an injustice to convict the appellant of voluntary
homicide when the evidence clearly shows that he is guilty only of
involuntary homicide, I am compelled to register my dissent from the
opinion of the majority of the court in this case.

The evidence is clear that the appellant did not have the intention
to cause the death of the girl. His purpose was merely to chastise her
because of her having maltreated his two infant sons. This is the
finding not only of the trial court but also of this court. Thus the
lower court says in its decision:

“Las pruebas demuestran que el acusado castigo
cruelmente a esta nina sirvienta sin haber tenido intention de matarla,
pero esta falta de intencion no le exime de la responsabilidad de la
muerte violenta de esta nina que resulto de tales castigos.” And the
opinion of the majority of this court also says:

“There is
no doubt but that the appellant, in inflicting the said severe and
cruel punishment upon the unfortunate girl, had no intention to cause
so grave a wrong as that he committed and such circumstance should
necessarily be taken into consideration to mitigate his liability, in
accordance with the provisions of article 13 of the Revised Penal Code.”

According to the medical expert who testified for the prosecution,
the physical injuries inflicted on the girl by way of punishment would
have required medical treatment for only ten days, so that the crime
which the appellant can reasonably be presumed to have intended to
commit was that of less serious physical injuries defined in article
265 of the Revised Penal Code and punished with arresto mayor.

The rule is: “If the unlawful act, in the commission or attempted
commission of which death results, is of the grade of crime known as
felony, the slayer will be deemed guilty of murder; whereas if the act
is less heinous than felony, the slayer will be held to have committed
manslaughter. Indeed, the grade of culpable homicide known as
involuntary manslaughter includes all such killings as result
unintentionally from the commission of unlawful nonfelonious acts, or
the negligent performance of acts which are not unlawful per se.
As to what crimes are felonies within the rule that one is guilty of
murder who causes a death in the commission of a felony, the courts are
generally agreed that offenses punishable by imprisonment in the state
prison are felonies.” (13 R. C, L., 846, 847.)

It has been held that an unlawful killing done without any design,
intention, or purpose of killing, but in the commission of some
unlawful act not amounting to a felony, is involuntary manslaughter.
(Adams vs. State, 65 Ind., 565; Bias vs. United States [Ind. Terr.], 53 S. W., 471.)

In United States vs. Meagher (37 Fed., 875), the court
declared that involuntary manslaughter at common law is where death
resulted unintentionally, so far as the defendant was concerned, from
an unlawful act on his part, not amounting to a felony, or from a
lawful act negligently performed.

It has likewise been declared that involuntary manslaughter
includes all those homicides which were below the grade of murder, and
were neither justifiable nor excusable, and which were the accidental
result of some unlawful act, less than a felony, not aimed or directed
against the person slain. (McManus vs. State, 36 Ala., 285.)

“Voluntary and involuntary manslaughter differ from
each other in that in the first the unlawfull killing is voluntary
;—that is, the killing is done by design, or intention, or purposely;
and in the second the unlawful killing is involuntary;—that is without
any design, intention or purpose of killing, but in the commission of
some unlawful act.” (Adams vs. State, 65 Ind., 566.)

Our statutes contain no specific definition of what is known at
common law as involuntary manslaughter, but it is clear that the acts
constituting involuntary manslaughter come within the purview of
article 365, in connection with article 249, of the Revised Penal Code.
Said article 365 provides that any person who, by reckless imprudence,
shall commit any act which, had it been intentional, would constitute a
grave felony, shall suffer the penalty of arresto mayor in its maximum period to prision correccional
in its minimum period; and defines reckless imprudence as consisting
“in voluntarily, but without malice, doing or failing to do an act from
which material damage results by reason of inexcusable lack of
precaution on the part of the person performing or failing to perform
such act, taking into consideration his employment or occupation,
degree of intelligence, physical condition and other circumstances
regarding persons, time and place.”

The provisions of articles 4 and 49 of the Revised Penal Code
should be given reasonable interpretation. They should be interpreted
in connection with the other provisions of the Code and in consonance
with the enlightened principles of criminal law, such as those
enunciated in the cases above cited. Under this view, it seems
reasonable to hold that where death resulted unintentionally, so far as
the defendant was concerned, from an unlawful act on his part, not
amounting to a felony, or from a lawful act negligently performed, the
crime committed is that of homicide by reckless imprudence as defined
and penalized in article 365, in connection with article 249, of the
Revised Penal Code.

In the case at bar, the evidence clearly shows that death resulted
unintentionally, so far as the appellant was concerned, from an
unlawful act on his part, not amounting to a felony. I am, therefore,
of the opinion that he is guilty of homicide by reckless imprudence,
and should be sentenced accordingly.