PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. DOMINGO CASTUERA, DEFENDANT-APPELLANT.

This appeal has been certified to Us by the Court of Appeals for
resolution of the question of law raised therein.  Appellant Domingo Castuera,
who pleaded guilty to the crime of homicide, seeks modification of the pe­nalty
imposed on him by the Court of First Instance of Albay.

The information to which appellant pleaded guilty is quoted as
follows:

“That at or about 1:00 o’clock in the afternoon of May 9,
1980, at Barangay Malobago,
Municipality of Manito, Province of Albay,
Philippines, and within the jurisdiction of this Honorable Court, the
above-named accused, with deliberate intent and with intent to kill, did then
and there willfully, unlawfully and feloniously attack assault and hack
TEODORICO MADRIGALEJOS with a bolo, thereby in­flicting upon the latter mortal
wound on the left side of the neck which injuries resulted in the death of the
latter, TEODORICO MADRIGALEJOS shortly thereafter.

“ACTS CONTRARY TO LAW.”

Having entered his plea, appellant, with leave of court,
presented two witnesses to establish the extenuating circumstance that
sufficient provocation on the part of the victim immediately preceded the
commission of the offense.  The
testimonies of these witnesses were synthesized by the trial court as follows:

“At about 1:00 o’clock
in the afternoon of May 9, 1980
at Barangay Malobago,
Manito, Albay, Teodorico Madrigalejos, Asuedo Castuera were having a drinking spree.  While they were drinking, appellant passed
by.  Teodorico
called the appellant and invited him to join them which the latter first
refused but which he later honored (tsn, November 20, 1980, pp. 4-7).  Later on, Teodorico,
who kept on drinking, reprimanded appellant and told him, ‘I told you already
Domingo that when it is time to work you work, when it is time to drink, you
drink and let us drink as much as you would like.’ Appellant retorted, ‘You know
me, when I work, I work and when I drink, I drink and I even can drink until
morning.’ (tsn, November 20, 1980, p. 15).

“Teodorico suddenly stood up and
boxed appellant.  Appellant, then, unsheathed
his bolo and hacked Teodorico hitting him on the left
side of the neck (tsn, November 20, 1980, pp. 7-8, pp. 16-17).  Teodorico died of
‘severe hemorrhage due to incised wound cutting half of the neck left side
cutting all the caratoid and jugular vein and artery’
(postmortem Certificate of Death, Records, p. 5).

“Immediately after the incident, appellant voluntarily
surrendered to the authorities.”

Concluding that appellant was entitled to three mitigating
circumstances, to wit:  (1) sufficient
provocation on the part of the deceased; (2) voluntary surrender; and (3) plea
of guilty, the court rendered a decision, the dispositive
part of which reads:

“PREMISES CONSIDERED, this Court hereby finds the accused
Domingo Castuera guilty beyond reasonable doubt of
the crime of Homicide and hereby sentences him to suffer the penalty of five
(5) years of prision correccional
to eight (8) years of prision mayor.

“Accused is further required to indemnify the heirs of the
deceased victim Teodorico Madrigalejos,
as and for the death of the latter, the sum of Twelve Thousand Pesos
(P12,000.00), Philippine Currency.

“The convict herein shall be credited in the service of his
sentence with the full time during which he has under­gone preventive
imprisonment provided he agrees voluntarily in writing to abide by the same disciplinary
rules imposed upon convicted persons (Article 29, Revised Penal Code).”

Appellant admits that the plea of guilty was entered by him
voluntarily and with full knowledge of the significance and consequences
thereof.  The record discloses that the information
was read to him in the dialect which he speaks and understands.  And as stated by the trial court, “the
information was exhaustively, extensively and intensively explained to the accused
by this court, the prosecuting fiscal and defense counsel.  Likewise, the meaning and implication of his
plea of guilty were ventilated thoroughly to the said accused.”

Appellant’s sole submission in this appeal is that the penalty
meted out by the lower court – five years of prision correccional to eight years of prision
mayor – is excessive and contrary to law. 
He claims that the proper penalty should be “prision
correccional in its medium period, as minimum, to six
(6) years and one (1) day of prision mayor, as
maximum.”^[1]

The penalty prescribed by law for the crime of homicide is
reclusion temporal^[2],
the duration of which is from twelve (12) years and one (1) day to twenty (20)
years.^[3]
It is a divisible penalty consisting of three periods.

The concurrence of three mitigating circumstances, not offset by
any aggravating circumstance, calls for an application of Article 64, Rule 5 of
the Revised Penal Code, which We quote:

“When there are two or more mitigating circumstances and no
aggravating circumstances are present, the court shall impose the penalty next lower
to that prescribed by law, in the period it may deem applicable, according to
the number and nature of such circumstances.”

The penalty next lower to reclusion temporal, according to the
graduated scale in Article 71 of the same Code, is prision
mayor, whose range is from six (6) years and one (1) day to twelve (12)
years.  Prision
mayor is also a single divisible penalty.

Implicit in the above-quoted Rule 5 of Article 64 is that the
presence of three mitigating circumstances may be taken into account not only
in lowering the basic penalty of reclusion temporal to the next lower penalty
of prision mayor, but also in determining the
applicable period of the latter penalty. 
According to the last clause of said Rule 5, such period should be
applied “according to the number and nature of such circumstances,”
which undoubtedly refers to the same mitigating circumstances.  Considering that the nature, independently of
the number, of the mitigating circumstances of voluntary surrender, and plea of
guilty not only manifests the appellant’s desire to acknowledge his guilt with
evident remorse or to save the government the trouble and expense necessarily
incurred in search and capture^[4],
but evinces as well his predisposition to reformation and rehabilitation, and
keeping in mind that appellant would not have committed the offense had the
victim not given sufficient provocation immediately before the commission
thereof, We hold that the maximum term of the indeterminate sentence of eight
(8) years imposed by the lower court should be reduced to seven (7) years,
which is within the minimum period of prision mayor.

Applying the provisions of the Indeterminate Sentence Law, the
minimum of the sentence should further be reduced by one degree.

As early as People vs. Ducosin^[5],
the very first case decided by this Court involving the application of the
Indeterminate Sentence Law, We held that “the Indeterminate Sentence Law,
Act No. 1403, simply provides that the ‘minimum’ shall ‘not be less than the
minimum imprisonment period of the penalty next lower.” Otherwise stated,
the court has the discretion to fix the minimum imprisonment anywhere within
the range of the next lower penalty without reference to the degrees into which
it may be subdivided.  The range of the
next lower penalty, prision correccional,
is six (6) months and one (1) day to six (6) years.  Since the minimum of the indeterminate
sentence imposed by the lower court, five years, is within the range of prision correccional, the same
conforms to the provisions of the Revised Penal Code and of Section 1 of the
Indeterminate Sentence Law.

In Ducosin, however, we laid down the
factors and circumstances that should guide the discretion of the court in
fixing the term of the minimum period of imprisonment.  As We said in that case, “keeping in
mind the basic purpose of the Indeterminate Sentence Law ‘to uplift and redeem
valuable human material, and prevent unnecessary and excessive deprivation of
personal liberty and economic usefulness’ x x x it is necessary to consider the criminal, first, as an
individual and, second, as a member of society. 
This opens up an almost limitless field of investigation and study which
it is the duty of the court to explore in each case as far as is humanly
possible, with the end in view that penalties shall not be standardized but
fitted as far as is possible to the individual, with due regard to the impe­rative
necessity of protecting the social order.”

In conformity with the principle adverted to in Ducosin and considering the circumstances that have
persuaded Us to reduce the maximum period of the indeterminate sentence, We
exercise Our discretion in imposing the proper penalty by reducing the minimum
of the appellant’s sentence to two (2) years of prision
correccional

WHEREFORE, the judgment of the lower court is accord­ingly
modified, so as to impose upon the appellant an indeterminate penalty ranging
from two (2) years of prision correccional,
as minimum, to seven (7) years of prision mayor, as
maximum.  The judgment appealed from is
affirmed in all other respects.  Costs de
oficio.

SO ORDERED.

Makasiar, (Chairman), Aquino, Guerrero, Abad Santos, and De Castro, JJ., concur.

Concepcion, Jr., J., on leave.

^[1]
p. 4, Appellant’s brief.

^[2]
Article 249, par. 2, Revised Penal Code.

^[3]
Article 27, par. 7, id.

^[4]
People vs. Gervacio, 24 SCRA 960.

^[5]
59 Phil. 109.