PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. EDWIN MABUBAY, ACCUSED-APPELLANT.

People versus Mabubay

The Case

People versus Mabubay is a criminal appeal in which the People of the Philippines prosecuted Edwin Mabubay for murder, and the accused in turn asked the Supreme Court to overturn his conviction. The case matters for two reasons. First, it is a clean teaching case on treachery, the aggravating circumstance that qualifies a killing as murder, because the Court shows exactly which physical acts satisfy it. Second, it is a reminder that an appeal corrects the penalty as well as the verdict, since the Court found the conviction sound but the sentence wrong.

Procedural History

The Provincial Fiscal of Kalibo, Aklan, filed an information charging Edwin Mabubay with murder. At arraignment the accused pleaded not guilty. After trial, the Regional Trial Court of Kalibo, Aklan, rendered judgment on December 15, 1988, finding him guilty beyond reasonable doubt of murder, sentencing him to thirty years of reclusion perpetua, ordering him to indemnify the heirs of Dioleto Raz in the sum of 30,000 pesos, and to pay the costs. The accused appealed directly to the Supreme Court, assigning as sole error the trial court's finding of treachery.

Facts

Around 5:30 in the afternoon of May 9, 1988, Dioleto Raz and several companions were gathered in front of the store of the spouses Raul and Telly Tagala beside the provincial road in Barangay Bubog, Numancia, Aklan. They were drinking tuba and listening to Raz, who sat on a stool with his back to the road, talk about his fighting cocks.

Edwin Mabubay came from a feeder road, approached Raz slowly from behind, suddenly placed his right hand around the victim's neck, drew a knife from his left waist, and stabbed Raz once on the left breast with his left hand. The wound perforated the right ventricle and caused death. When Romeo Leyson moved to help the victim, the accused warned him not to interfere, holding the knife at an angle as he retreated. Raz died before reaching the hospital.

Testimony established that the accused is left-handed and that there had been no quarrel between him and the victim. The accused gave a different account: that Raz offered him tuba, that he drank only half and poured the rest away, that Raz angrily called him a fool, and that when Raz seemed to rise, he put his arm around the victim's shoulders and stabbed him. After the stabbing he surrendered to the police in Numancia.

Issues

• Whether or not the killing of Dioleto Raz was attended by treachery, so as to qualify the crime as murder.
• Whether or not the penalty imposed by the trial court was correct.

Applicable Provisions

Paragraph 16 of Article 14 of the Revised Penal Code, as quoted in the decision, provides:

Treachery, the 16th aggravating circumstance, exists when the offender commits any of the crimes against the person, employing means, methods, or forms in the execution thereof which tend directly and specially to insure its execution, without risk to himself arising from any defense which the offended party might make.

This is the provision the Court applies to decide whether the killing is murder or homicide.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that treachery was present. To constitute treachery, two conditions must concur: the employment of means of execution that give the person attacked no opportunity to defend himself or to retaliate, and the deliberate or conscious adoption of those means. Both were satisfied. The accused approached the seated victim from behind, encircled his neck with his right arm, and stabbed him with his left hand. The attack was sudden and unexpected, the victim had no chance to defend himself, and the assailant faced no risk. The Court rejected the accused's version, noting that no altercation preceded the stabbing and that the eyewitnesses had no ill feeling toward him.

On the second issue, the Court held the penalty incorrect. The penalty for murder is reclusion temporal in its maximum period to death. Under the Indeterminate Sentence Law, the minimum must be taken from the next lower penalty, prision mayor in its maximum period, which is ten years and one day to twelve years, while the maximum must fall within reclusion temporal in its maximum period, that is, seventeen years, four months and one day, to twenty years.

Doctrine

Treachery requires two elements: first, the means of execution gave the victim no opportunity to defend himself or retaliate; second, the offender deliberately or consciously adopted those means. An attack from behind on a seated, unsuspecting victim, with the assailant restraining the victim before stabbing, satisfies both elements and qualifies the killing as murder. The penalty for murder is reclusion temporal in its maximum period to death, and under the Indeterminate Sentence Law the minimum is drawn from the next lower penalty and the maximum from the proper period of the prescribed penalty.

Disposition

The Court affirmed the conviction but modified the penalty, sentencing the accused to an indeterminate imprisonment of twelve years of prision mayor as minimum to twenty years of reclusion temporal as maximum, with costs de oficio.

Remember This

Memorize the two elements of treachery and the rule that an attack from behind on an unsuspecting victim who is given no chance to defend himself is treacherous. Examiners use this case to test treachery as a qualifying circumstance and the correct application of the Indeterminate Sentence Law to murder.