THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. ARSENIO CATACUTAN, DEFENDANT AND APPELLANT.

Charged with having treacherously killed
Corporal Liborio Serrano of the Constabulary with a sharp-pointed
instrument in the morning of February 2, 1936, while said agent of the
authority was conducting a search by virtue of a judicial warrant
delivered to him for compliance therewith, Arsenio Catacutan was
sentenced by the Court of First Instance of Pampanga to reclusion perpetua,
with the corresponding accessory penalties, and to indemnify the heirs
of the deceased in the sum of P1,000. Said court held that,
notwithstanding the allegations of the information and the fact proven
at the trial of the case that when the crime was committed the deceased
was in the performance of his official duties, the crime committed was
only murder, the fiscal having stated during the trial, as set forth by
the trial judge in his decision, although such fact does not appear of
record, that the accused was charged only with murder.

Arsenio Catacutan appealed from the sentence imposed upon him,
assigning in his brief the following alleged errors as committed by the
trial court, to wit:

“I. In holding that
the defendant and appellant voluntarily and intentionally attacked the
deceased Liborio Serrano, when in fact the wound which caused his death
was inflicted accidentally during the fight, when the appellant evaded
the blow which Victor Manansala, the companion of the deceased,
attempted to deal him with a dagger.

“II, In not holding
that the guilt of the accused has not been established beyond a
reasonable doubt, and in convicting instead of, acquitting him.

“III. In considering treachery as an aggravating circumstance in spite
of the fact that it is alleged as & circumstance qualifying murder.”

This court has reviewed the evidence very carefully and it is fully
convinced that the facts of the case occurred as follows: Corporal
Liborio Serrano, provided with the judicial warrant, Exhibit I,
requiring him to search the houses of one Jacinto Bondoc and of the
herein appellant for unlicensed revolvers at any time of the day or
night, went to the appellant’s house with Victor Manansala at 4:00
o’clock in the morning of February 2, 1936, for said purpose. Once
inside the7 house and after making known that he was an agent of the
authority by actually showing to the appellant the search warrant
carried by him, Corporal Serrano proceeded to search it. While he was
so engaged, the appellant’s wife handed her husband a bundle saying
that it contained their son’s excrement. Suspecting something, Corporal
Serrano snatched the bundle and, upon unwrapping it, found that it
contained the revolver. Caught in his ruse, the appellant seized a kris
on the wall of his house and stabbed Corporal Serrano in the abdomen
with it, thereby inflicting upon him a wound which produced hemorrhage
and later developed into acute anemia, causing his death on the night
of said day.

Multiple wounds were found on both hands of the deceased by the
physician who examined him, which fact corroborates the testimony of
Victor Manansala, who witnessed the crime, to the effect that upon
feeling himself wounded, the deceased caught the kris with which the
appellant had stabbed him in the abdomen by the blade in order to
protect himself. The deceased also had six contused wounds on the
forehead, in the parietal and occipital regions and on the left
shoulder, which fact likewise corroborates Manansala’s testimony that
the appellant, not satisfied with having stabbed the deceased in the
abdomen, dealt him several blows with a palm stick within his reach,
until said deceased fell to the floor. After Corporal Serrano had
fallen, the appellant went in pursuit of Victor Manansala whom he,
nevertheless, was unable to overtake because the latter had gone to
hide in a rice field near the scene of the crime. The appellant
later-returned to his house to take not only the instruments with which
he had committed the crime but also the above-stated revolver.
Immediately thereafter he left the place on his carabao and he did not
again show up until the time he surrendered to a policeman and to the
municipal president of Candaba.

The appellant attempted to defend himself at the trial by stating
that the wound which brought about the death of the deceased was
inflicted by Victor Manansala when, as the appellant and the deceased
were engaged in a hand to hand fight for the possession of the stick
with which the deceased was beating the appellant, Manansala approached
them for the purpose of stabbing the appellant. Fortunately for the
appellant, the blow landed fully on the abdomen of the deceased. This
testimony of the accused is in no way corroborated. As a matter of
fact, when he was examined by Lieutenant Botin of the Constabulary a
few hours after the incident, no contusion or any trace of blows was
found on his body, much less on his arm with which he claims to have
parried the blow dealt him by the deceased with a stick. On the other
hand, before the deceased expired he had pointed to the appellant as
the person responsible for his wounds.

Victor Manansala ran to a nearby rice field when the accused
pursued him, hiding therein and never leaving the place to avoid being
harmed by the accused until the latter left on his carabao. Thus
Manansala could see the accused return to his house after the latter
had pursued him.

The appellant likewise attempted to defend himself by stating that
the deceased and Victor Manansala had caught him while he was asleep
and told him not to move because they were agents of the authority.
Neither is this point corroborated and, although the appellant
attempted to prove by the testimony of Lucas Cunanan that the cane,
Exhibit F, with which he claims the deceased had attacked him, was the
same cane carried by the deceased four days before it does not mean
that the deceased really used it in attacking him. Had the deceased
used said cane some marks of the blows would have been found on the
appellant’s body. However, Lieutenant Botin who had examined him a few
hours after the incident positively declared that he had found no
injury or trace of injury on his body.

The crime committed by the appellant, as shown by the evidence,
which is the important thing, and not by what the fiscal thought and
stated during the trial, which is absolutely immaterial, is the complex
crime of homicide and assault upon an agent of the authority because
the circumstance of treachery which might qualify the crime of homicide
committed as murder, does not appear to have been satisfactorily
proven. It is not shown that the assault upon the deceased was made
treacherously, because the aggressor and the victim were then facing
each other. Taking into account the fact that the appellant voluntarily
surrendered to the authorities a few hours after he had committed the
crime, the seventh mitigating circumstance must be considered in his
favor; and as there is no aggravating circumstance to offset it, the
penalty which must be imposed upon him is the minimum of that
prescribed by law, to wit: from seventeen years, four months,and one
day to eighteen years, two months and twenty days of reclusion temporal
by virtue of article 64, rule 2, in connection with article 48 of the
Revised Penal Code, inasmuch as the more serious of the two crimes
committed by the appellant is homicide; and the maximum period of the
penalty prescribed for said crime is from seventeen years, four months
and one day to twenty years of reclusion temporal (article 249 of the Revised Penal Code).

It being understood that the judgment appealed from is modified, as
it is hereby modified, in the sense of sentencing the accused to,an
indeterminate penalty of from fourteen years, eight months and one day
to eighteen years, two months and twenty days of reclusion temporal, by virtue of Act No. 4103; it is affirmed in all other respects, with the costs against said appellant. So ordered.

Avancena, C. J., Villa-Real, Imperial, Laurels and Concepcion, JJ., concur.