THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. FERNANDITO SICAT Y SALAK, DEFENDANT-APPELLANT.

People versus Sicat

The Case

This is People versus Sicat, a criminal appeal in which the People of the Philippines prosecuted Fernandito Sicat for killing his lawful wife, Aida Sicat. The charge was parricide under the Revised Penal Code. The accused admitted the killing but claimed he acted in self-defense. The case matters because it shows how the Supreme Court treats the justifying circumstance of self-defense when the accused himself is the one who struck the fatal blow, and how the Court measures passion and obfuscation and voluntary surrender as mitigating circumstances. It is a compact lesson on burden of proof, on the number and nature of wounds as evidence against self-defense, and on the difference between a recommendation for executive clemency and a mitigating circumstance in law.

Procedural History

The case began in the Regional Trial Court of Tarlac, Branch 64, on an information charging parricide with evident premeditation. After trial, the court found Fernandito Sicat guilty beyond reasonable doubt of parricide and sentenced him to reclusion perpetua, with the accessories provided by law and credit for preventive imprisonment. It ordered him to indemnify the heirs of Aida Sicat in the amount of 30,000 pesos as death indemnity and 10,000 pesos as moral damages, and to pay the costs. In the same decision, the trial court observed that the accused appeared to be a gentle person with a bright future, described him as a victim of circumstances not of his own making, and strongly recommended that executive clemency be extended to him, forwarding a copy of the decision to the President through the Secretary of Justice. The accused appealed to the Supreme Court, raising a single assignment of error: that the trial court gravely erred in applying Article 246 of the Revised Penal Code against him.

Facts

Fernandito Sicat and Aida Frayna Sicat were married in 1976 and had four children. He had worked in Saudi Arabia but was unemployed at the time of the incident. He testified that about a year before the killing he already suspected his wife of an illicit affair, because she often came home late from the school where she taught and could not give a clear account of where she had been.

On the evening of December 10, 1988, he left the house supposedly to visit a compadre, then went to Angeles City, and returned past nine o'clock in the evening. He claimed that upon opening the door of their room he caught his wife on the floor with another man, both naked, and that the stranger jumped out of the window and escaped. He confronted his wife, who remained silent. Because of the children, he took no drastic action. He and his wife then spent the night at his mother's house, where he and his wife quarrelled and his mother left to sleep at a neighbor's house.

At about three o'clock in the morning of December 11, 1988, he felt a searing pain on his neck and saw his wife near the bed with her right hand smeared with blood. He stood up, saw a knife under the bed, and, believing himself betrayed and that his wife still wanted to take his life, he picked up the knife and slashed her throat, causing instantaneous death. He then tried to end his own life by cutting his wrist. At about seven thirty in the morning, the police, informed that he had slashed his throat, went to his house, and later Mayor Hermes Frias of Capas joined them and persuaded him to surrender. After a long pause he threw down a blood-stained improvised knife and came out, with a gaping wound on his neck, and was rushed to the provincial hospital. Inside the bedroom the mayor and the police found the lifeless body of Aida Sicat on the bed with a slit throat. The autopsy showed six wounds, including stab wounds to the chest and incised wounds on the neck that severed the underlying muscles, arteries, veins and nerves, and the cause of death was irreversible shock from severe hemorrhage due to multiple stab and incised wounds.

Issues

• Whether or not the accused proved by clear and convincing evidence the elements of self-defense, namely unlawful aggression, reasonable necessity of the means employed, and lack of sufficient provocation on his part, so as to be acquitted of parricide.
• Whether or not the killing of his lawful wife constitutes the crime of parricide under Article 246 of the Revised Penal Code.
• Whether or not the mitigating circumstances of passion and obfuscation and of voluntary surrender may be appreciated in his favor.

Applicable Provisions

Article 246 of the Revised Penal Code, as quoted in the decision, provides:

Parricide is committed when any person kills his father, mother or child, whether legitimate or illegitimate, or any of his ascendants, or descendants, or his spouse.

This is the provision under which the accused was charged and convicted, and the Court used it to classify the killing of his wife as parricide.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that the claim of self-defense must fail. It laid down the rule that if an accused invokes self-defense, it is incumbent upon him to prove by clear and convincing evidence that he acted in self-defense, and that the burden of proof has shifted to him. The Court found that the appellant failed to prove his allegations. It reasoned that he had more reason to kill his wife than his wife had to kill him, agreeing with the trial court that the victim was killed by her husband because of intense jealousy and a feeling of insecurity caused by the fact that his wife was practically the breadwinner of the family, and that out of a remorseful conscience he tried to take his own life. Self-defense was further negated by the manner of infliction and the number of injuries: the wife suffered six stab wounds, two of them fatal. The stabbing was not even necessary, because by the appellant's own testimony his wife did not have the knife in her hands when he woke up; he merely saw her bloodied right hand and the knife under the bed, yet he still picked up the knife and inflicted the six stab wounds. The Court also noted that the theory of self-defense was an afterthought, shown by his failure to surrender at once, taking about an hour to come out of the house, and by his failure to relate his claim of self-defense at once to the proper authorities.

On the second issue, the Court held that parricide is committed when any person kills his spouse, and that since the marriage between the appellant and the victim was admitted in the pre-trial conference, the killing fell under the crime of parricide.

On the third issue, the Court refused to appreciate either mitigating circumstance. On passion and obfuscation, it held that there can be no passion and obfuscation when more than five hours had lapsed between the discovery of his wife's unfaithfulness and the killing, because he had enough time to reflect and gain control of himself. On voluntary surrender, it held that there was none, because it was the police officers and later the mayor who went to his house to ask him to give up.

Doctrine

First, self-defense is a justifying circumstance that the accused must establish by clear and convincing evidence, because once he admits the killing and invokes it, the burden of proof shifts to him. Second, the number and manner of infliction of wounds, and the conduct of the accused after the killing, such as delay in surrendering and failure to promptly claim self-defense, may negate self-defense. Third, killing one's spouse is parricide under Article 246 of the Revised Penal Code, and the admission of the marriage in pre-trial establishes the relationship. Fourth, passion and obfuscation require that the killing be done while the accused is under the influence of a powerful impulse, and a lapse of more than five hours between the discovery of infidelity and the killing shows he had time to reflect, so the circumstance does not apply. Fifth, voluntary surrender requires that the accused surrender himself to the authorities, not that the authorities come to him and persuade him to give up. Finally, a recommendation for executive clemency by the trial court is not a mitigating circumstance and does not affect the penalty; it is addressed to the executive, not to the courts.

Disposition

The Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the trial court convicting Fernandito Sicat of parricide and sentencing him to reclusion perpetua, with the modification that the indemnity to the heirs of the victim was raised to 50,000 pesos.

Remember This

The single line worth memorizing is that self-defense must be proved by clear and convincing evidence, and that the number and manner of wounds, delay in surrender, and failure to promptly claim self-defense may destroy it. Examiners like to use this case on the burden of proof in self-defense, on the elements of parricide under Article 246, and on why passion and obfuscation and voluntary surrender do not apply on these facts.