THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. SEBASTIAN G. SEGURA, DEFENDANT AND APPELLANT.

The defendant appeals from the following
well-considered decision of Judge Conrado Barrios in the Court of First
Instance of Iloilo:

“On the complaint first of Rose S. Segura and later of her daughter Sylvia Segura these proceedings were instituted.

“According to the prosecution, Sebastian G. Segura, married by a Roman
Catholic priest in the church of Saint Francis, Portland, Oregon, U. S.
A., on October 1, 1921, to Rosario Domenica Sandora (Exhibit B), had
with her four children: Sylvia, who was born on July 3, 1922, in
Portland (Exhibit C), Salvador, Estela, and Sebastian, jr., the last
named being seven years of age. These four children have been trained
to dance and sing by their father, Sebastian G. Segura; who exhibited
them in theatrical productions and in public places, in order to
receive as compensation from the spectators the money with which they
supported themselves.

“On May 18, 1932, the spouses
Segura-Sandora arrived in Manila, P. I., and there continued exhibiting
their children in the same manner as they used to do in America. For
the same purpose, they moved to Pasay, Rizal; and on April 7, 1933,
they travelled through the municipalities of Iloilo, Jaro, Pavia, Oton,
Pototan, and Lambunao, of this Province of Iloilo, and through the
municipalities of Capiz and Calivo in the Province of Capiz, to return
again to this Province of Iloilo, traveling through the municipalities
of Maasin, Lambunao, Jaro, and Iloilo. During the last months of last
year, 1933, they lived in the municipality of Lambunao in the house of
Francisco Roncesvalles, godfather of the child Salvador Segura when the
latter was baptized in America.

“On the night of December
9,1933, after supper, Sebastian G. Segura, upon retiring, lay down as
usual in a single bed. He called his daughter Sylvia to lie near him
and scratch his back. Sylvia obeyed him. A little later, Sebastian G.
Segura ordered Sylvia Segura to take off her bloomers, and afterwards
had sexual intercourse with her. His wife saw him in the act of having
sexual intercourse with his daughter. However, she kept silent, through
fear, taking into consideration the cruelty of her husband. This was
not the only incestuous act of the accused with his daughter Sylvia,
inasmuch as he had done the same thing with her in the United States.

“The accused denies having committed the crime imputed to him. He tried
to prove that, long before the night in question, his wife Rose S.
Segura had expressed to him her insistent desire that the family return
to the United States, even if they had to obtain their fare by means of
public charity. The accused did not pay any attention to this
suggestion of his wife because he did not have the funds to defray the
expenses of the trip and was not willing to solicit another’s charity
for that purpose. Rose S. Segura received a letter, Exhibit 1, from one
Seller, a friend of the family, who is in America, proposing to them
that they return there where they would find a better field for their
children’s exhibitions in theaters and public places, with good
financial prospects. The accused, however, was adamant in his
opposition to his wife’s proposals. Whereupon, disappointed in this,
she concocted the plot which culminated in imputing to her husband the
alleged rape committed on the person of his own daughter, with which he
Sebastian G. Segura, is now charged. Rose S. Segura was in the habit of
introducing her finger into the genital organ of her daughter Sylvia
Segura. On the night in question, she performed the said act while her
four children Sylvia, Salvador, Estela, and Sebastian, jr., were
sleeping with her in a double bed, and in the execution thereof, Rose
S. Segura unconsciously touched Salvador and Sebastian, jr., who awoke
and surprised their mother in the act.

“It is conclusively
proved that on December 9,1933, Sylvia Segura had not yet completed the
age of eleven years; and upon being examined at the beginning of the
year by Dr. Blancaflor, it was discovered that her hymen had been
ruptured a long time previous thereto, which rupture might have been
due to different causes, among them in the introduction of a man’s
penis, according to the doctor.

“The court has heard and
carefully observed all the witnesses who testified during the trial;
and in weighing their testimony has found that the witnesses, Rose S.
Segura and Sylvia Segura, have testified in so natural and simple a
manner as to leave no room for doubt with respect to their credibility
and sincerity. The excuse of the accused, that this charge is the
result of a scheme formed by his wife upon being thwarted in her desire
to return to America, does not constitute a sufficient motive for his
wife, who, according to the accused himself, is loving and resigned to
the extent of having followed him to the Philippines, suffering
privations in life because the said accused does not have and never did
have dependable means of support, for which reason both husband and
wife had to cooperate in the dancing and singing exhibitions of their
children who were under age, to impute to him the commission of so
horrible a crime as that of rape on the person of his own daughter, if
such accusation were not justified. Neither can it be conceived that
Sylvia Segura, a child less than twelve years of age, would have
sufficient cause to make such a charge against her father, the herein
accused, if it were not true that the latter really cohabited with her
on the night in question and also prior to that occasion. The sincerity
and simplicity of Sylvia Segura’s testimony convinces the court that
nothing but the truth of the facts came from her lips, while testifying
as a witness for the prosecution.

‘The children
Salvador Segura and Sebastian Segura, jr., who testified in favor of
their father, do not merit entire credit from this court, because it
was noted that they related the facts under a certain extraneous
influence which showed that they were not telling the truth. It was
noted that these children testified with the idea impressed on their
minds that they should state that they did not like their mother
because she used to teach them bad things and that, on the contrary,
they were fond of their father because he was good to them; and it was
for this reason, that from time to time in the course of their
testimony and without being asked about it, they repeated the same
expression that they did not like their mother and that they were fond
of their father for the reasons above stated.

“Wherefore, the court finds that it is conclusively proved that the
accused Sebastian G. Segura is guilty of the crime of rape, and
applying the provisions of Act No. 4103, hereby sentences him to suffer
the penalty of eight years and one day of prision mayor to fourteen years, eight months and one day of reclusion temporal, with
the corresponding accessory penalties, to indemnify the offended party
in the sum of five hundred pesos, and to pay the costs. So ordered.”

In support of their assignments of error that the lower court erred
in finding the defendant guilty of the crime of rape beyond a
reasonable doubt and in condemning him, appellant’s attorneys alleged:
(1) That the evidence for the prosecution concerning the supposed rape
is unnatural and unworthy of belief; (2) that this case is very
suspicious; (3) that the complaining mother had a grudge against the
accused; (4) that the evidence introduced to prove sexual intercourse
was essentially based on mere conclusions and suspicions; (5) that the
declarations of the two sons of the accused were not given due credit
by the lower court.

We admit the apparent reasonableness of the first contention of the
appellant. Under ordinary conditions it would be unnatural for a mother
not to make an outcry on discovering her husband in carnal intercourse
with his own daughter, but in the present case the conduct of the
mother of the offended girl is to be judge in the light of her
situation. She was far from her home and friends in the United States.
She had no one to appeal to. At the time of the incident in question
she and her husband and children were staying in the house of one of
his friends. The husband had no employment. The family had to subsist
upon the children’s meager and uncertain earnings from vaudeville
performances as they wandered from place to place. The accused was
cruel and domineering and easily angered. He had beat his wife in the
United States and again in Jaro shortly before the incident in
question. The unfortunate woman was helpless. When asked to explain why
she did not intervene when she saw what the accused was doing to his
daughter, she testified that she was overcome by fear; that she felt a
throbbing in her heart and could not utter a word, but beat her breast
(Yo tenia tanto miedo; yo recibi una sacudida en el corazon y no puedo
decir ni una palabra. Me golpeaba el pecho.) These circumstances
satisfactorily account for her apparently unnatural conduct.

In the second place the attorneys for the appellant contend that
this case is very suspicious. Great stress is laid upon the fact that
although the offense was committed on December 9, 1933, the complaint
was not filed until January 5, 1934, or nearly a month later. The
evidence shows, however, that the crime was committed, not in the
provincial capital, but in the municipality of Lambunao; that three
days later, after pondering on what she should do, defendant’s wife
wrote to Bishop McCloskey in Iloilo about the matter. On January 3,
1934, when the family had returned to Jaro, the wife of the defendant,
taking advantage of the fact that he had gone to Iloilo with the three
younger children, went to see Bishop McCloskey, who told her that he
had sent her letter to Fiscal Blanco, and advised her to see the fiscal
immediately. She followed the advice of the bishop. After the fiscal
had investigated the facts of the case, the first complaint was sworn
to by defendant’s wife before Judge Paredes and filed on January 4,
1934. The amended complaint signed by the offended girl, was filed on
January 12th. The letter written by the defendant’s wife to Bishop
McCloskey was not produced at the trial, but we cannot agree with the
argument of appellant’s attorneys that since it was not produced it did
not exist. Defendant’s attorneys did not ask for it during the trial.

The next contention of the appellant is that his wife had a grudge
against him because he would not accede to her wish to return to the
United States. This is a mere surmise wholly unjustified by the
evidence. It is stated in appellant’s brief that for inexplicable
reasons defendant’s wife desires to go back to the United States to
join one Seller, an impresario, from whom she had received a letter in
the early part of December, 1933; that she wishes to remove the
children from the custody and influence of the accused father in order
that she may take them back to the United States to be educated there;
that she wants to leave the Philippine Islands even at the cost of her
husband’s liberty and imprisonment. There is nothing in the record to
sustain these statements. It is true that defendant’s wife received a
letter from Seller, who appears to be a friend of the family,
suggesting that they return to the United States where they would have
better prospects of gain in their vaudeville performances. It is
contended that the charges against the defendant are false; that they
are merely the culmination of a plot of Rose S. Segura to get rid of
her husband; that the offended girl was merely the tool of her mother’s
avarice. Such contentions rest upon the uncorroborated testimony of the
accused, and were rightly rejected by the trial judge.

The fourth argument advanced by the attorneys for the appellant is
that the evidence introduced to prove the alleged sexual intercourse
was essentially based on mere conclusions and suspicions. This
contention, like the preceding ones, is not sustained by the record.
Both the offended girl and her mother described in detail the
commission of the act complained of. Their testimony was carefully
weighed by the trial judge, and no good reason has been adduced for
disturbing his findings.

Sylvia Segura, the offended girl, was examined by Dr. Cornelio T.
Blancaflor on January 9, 1934. He found that her hymen had been
ruptured long prior thereto, and that the vaginal opening when dilated
would admit an object an inch in diameter. He could not state with
certainty the cause of the rupture. The attorneys for the appellant
state in their brief that they can only surmise the cause, but the
defendant attempted to prove that his wife was accustomed to jab her
finger at night into her daughter’s vagina. In our opinion such a
contention is not only false, but is evidence of the depravity of the
accused.

The attorneys for the appellant emphasize in capital letters the
fact that according to the record Rose S. Segura in referring to her
conversation with the accused on December 27th stated that she
indicated to him her suspicions. It is argued therefrom that she did
not see any act of carnal intercourse, and merely suspected that the
accused had committed the offense imputed to him. In the first place we
doubt if the idea of the witness is accurately expressed by the word
“sospechas”. It is apparent from the context that in her conversation
with her husband on that date she gave him to understand that she knew
what had taken place on the night of December 9th. This construction of
what she intended to say is made clear by her testimony appearing on
page 46 of the record where she said that her husband beat her when she
accused him on having had carnal intercourse with Sylvia. Her testimony
is as follows:

“P.	Desde que ustedes llegaron a Iloilo,¿ ha sido usted alguna vez maltratada por su marido?	—	R.	Si, por un par de veces y en los Estados Unidos tambien.
“P.	¿Y donde fue la primera vez?	—	R.	Aqui mientras viviamos alii en la casa de su primo en Jaro.
“P.	¿Y la segunda vez?	—	R.	Alia por el diciembre de 1927 cuando yo le acuse que habia tenido acceso carnal con Sylvia.
“P.	¿Se puso el furioso y despue’s le pegd a usted?	—	R.	Si, senor.
“P.	¿Eso despues de haber usted presentado la querella?	—	R.	Si, senor, despues de acusarle yo personalmente a el.”

As to the last contention urged by the attorneys for the appellant
the trial judge’s reasons for not crediting the testimony of the
defendant’s two small boys are fully stated in the decision, and a
review of the evidence in our opinion sustains his findings.

In the case at bar the offended girl is a daughter of the accused,
and because of the nature of the crime, this relationship is an
aggravating circumstance in accordance with article 15 of the Revised
Penal Code.

The lower court sentenced the defendant to suffer an indeterminate sentence from eight years and one day of prision mayor to fourteen years, eight months, and one day of reclusion temporal. The Solicitor-General recommends an indeterminate sentence from twelve years of prision mayor to twenty years of reclusion temporal.
We agree with the Solicitor-General as to the minimum penalty to be
imposed, and taking into consideration the aggravating circumstance of
relationship, condemn the defendant to suffer an indeterminate sentence
of not less than twelve years of prision mayor and not more than seventeen years, four months, and one day of reclusion temporal As thus modified, the decision appealed from is affirmed, with the costs against the appellant.

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

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DIAZ, J.,

I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion. Rose S. Segura’s
testimony, upon which the said opinion is mainly based, is so
improbable that it seems to be absolutely unacceptable. The said
witness, giving her version of what she claims to have seen, testified
as follows:

“At about nine o’clock in the evening, we had gone
to bed, I with my three youngest children and Sylvia with her father,
scratching his back. * * * I tried to sleep and after about fifteen
minutes or so, I opened my eyes and happened to look in the direction
of my husband’s bed and noticed that he had his back turned to me, that
is, he was lying with his back towards me and that Sylvia was likewise
lying on her side facing him. I then knew that he was having sexual
intercourse with his daughter Sylvia. I kept quiet and said nothing
then, knowing how cruel my husband is. I chose to remain silent because
had I accused him of such act, I do not know what he might have done to
me. After the sexual intercourse, he took his handkerchief and let the
substance from his organ flow into it. He then got up on his knees,
reached for the urinal with one hand, urinated into it, returned it to
its place, and then took a bottle of alcohol and wet Sylvia’s hand with
it. Afterwards he placed Sylvia on the side of the bed where she was to
sleep.”

Rose S. Segura admitted having done nothing upon witnessing the act
which she imputes to the accused, not so much as rebuking him for it,
or even letting him know that she was awake, for the purpose of making
him desist from consummating the said act, either by getting up in
order to take a glass of water, or feign to respond to the call of
nature, or by making any other noise or movement that might have the
same result.

According to the said witness, the act imputed to the accused was
committed at about nine o’clock on the evening of December 9,1933. It
is strange that she did nothing until after so many days had elapsed.
It is unbelievable that a wife, much less a mother, could remain so
passive in the face of so heinous an act as that which Rose S. Segura
imputes to her husband, and which was committed scarcely two feet from
her. Her own instinct of a wife and a mother would have suggested to
her some of the above stated means of frustrating the act complained
of. Her failure to frustrate it implies that the accused did not really
commit ft; and she herself certainly made it understood by her
testimony when she declared that it was after nineteen days had already
elapsed that she expressed her suspicions to the accused, in the manner
stated in the following portion of her testimony, to wit:

“The day before our departure for Maasin, that is,
on December 27th, I made known my suspicions to my husband and he
called his two sons and asked them something. He likewise called aside
our two daughters and later told me that I was prone to thinking
foolish things and attempted to catch me by the neck with his two
hands.”

Furthermore, taking into consideration the relative position of the
accused and the girl Sylvia with respect to her, it was not possible
for the said witness to see what she claims to have seen; and she did
not file her complaint nor reveal her suspicions to other persons until
about a month or so after the commission of the act. All these are
unnatural inasmuch as under the circumstances, a wife, more so a
mother, becomes furious and strikes instantly in defense of her child
and never hesitates, because the situation affords no time for
hesitancy, it being unbelievable that Rose S. Segura was continuously
under the influence of fear of the accused, because she would have
found protection everywhere, if not with the authorities, at least
among her neighbors and the kind people of whom there are a great many.

All of these facts and circumstances, in addition to Rose S.
Segura’s earnest desire to return to the States with her children at
the invitation of a friend named Seller, show, in my opinion, that her
entire testimony against the accused is but a much exaggerated
statement of her suspicions.

Neither does Sylvia’s testimony, whether taken independently or in
connection with that of her mother Rose S. Segura, satisfactorily prove
the guilt of the accused. Comparing the daughter’s testimony with that
of the mother, it is very obvious that one is practically a repetition
of the other, thus rendering such evidence still more suspicious.
Evidently the mother exercises a greater influence over the daughter
than does the father, and it is not strange that she should testify in
the manner her mother wanted her to testify.

I am of the opinion that the accused is entitled to the benefit of
a reasonable doubt and for this reason I vote for his acquittal.

AVANCENIA, C. J.:

I concur.

ABAD SANTOS, J.:

I concur in the dissenting opinion of Justice Diaz.

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IMPERIAL, J.,

I concur in the dissenting opinion of Justice Diaz, but I believe,
further, that the defendant is entitled to acquittal for lack of
sufficient, convincing and reliable evidence. The judgment of
conviction is mainly, not to say exclusively, based upon the
incredible, unnatural and biased testimony of defendant’s wife. The
defense pointed out that the motive of her elaborate testimony was a
previous family misunderstanding between her and the defendant and the
latter’s opposition to the proposed return trip of said witness to her
home for lack of the necessary funds.

The defendant should be acquitted for insufficiency of the evidence for the prosecution, with costs de oficio.

GODDARD, J.:

I concur in the dissenting opinion of Justice Imperial.