[ G.R. No. 7929. November 08, 1912 ] 23 Phil. 391
[ G.R. No. 7929. November 08, 1912 ]
THE UNITED STATES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. GENOVEVA APEGO, DEFENDANT AND APPELLANT. D E C I S I O N
TORRES, J.:
This case comes to us on appeal from a judgment of February 15, 1912 by which the Honorable Mariano Cui, judge, sentenced the appellant to the penalty of twelve years and one day of reclusion temporal, accessories, to pay an indemnity of P1,000 to the heirs of the decease and the costs.
At about 8 o’clock in the evening of December 24, 1911, the spouses, Pio Bautista and Maria Apego, coming from the municipality of Nasugbu, returned to their house, situated in the barrio of Sampaga, pueblo of Balayan, Batangas, and before entering the same called to Genoveva Apego, the woman’s sister, who they knew was therein, and, as they receive no reply, went up into the house; the husband led the way and opened the door; he was followed by his wife who, once inside, lit a match and then a small kerosene lamp there was in the house. In the meantime the husband approached the place where Genoveva was, who, startled, immediately awoke, seized a pocketknife used in spinning hemp, which was in a box at her side, and with it attacked and struck Bautista, who was near her, a blow in the breast; thereupon her sister Maria, who was not aware of the aggression, asked Genoveva why empty tin cans and other articles were scattered about the azotea of the house, to which Genoveva replied by saying: “What! have you arrived already?” and at once got up in front the said spouses; at this moment Maria advised her to cogitate and reflex but Genoveva immediately ran out of the house, asking for help; it was then that the wife noticed that her husband was seriously wounded, and when he was afterwards examined by a physician it was ascertained that he bore a downward, penetrating wound, in the shape of a T, in the intercostal space between the second and third ribs of the left side, that it reached one the lungs and the heart, was necessarily fatal, and was inflicted wit sharp-pointed, cutting instrument. A few moments after its infliction injured man died.
By reason of the foregoing, an information was filed in the Court of First Instance of Batangas, on January 8,1912, by the provincial fiscal, charge Genoveva Apego with the crime of murder, and upon the institution of this case the aforementioned judgment was rendered.
We accept the classification of homicide given by the trial judge to the facts involving the violent death of Pio Bautista, since, in the commission the crime, it does not appear that there was present any of the qualify circumstances that determine a more serious crime and penalty.
It is unquestionable and beyond all doubt that Genoveva Apego, an unmarried woman of about 25 years of age, inflicted upon the deceased with a pocketknife a serious wound of a necessarily mortal nature, for died shortly afterwards. This wound penetrated the left nipple, extended between the second and third ribs of the same side from an upper toward a lower and an outward toward an inner direction and reached the heart and one of the lungs.
The record does not show whether the deceased was able to make any ante-mortem statement, nor does it appear to have been ascertained what was the motive of the fatal aggression of which the said Pio Bautista was the victim.
The following conclusions of fact are derived from a careful study this case: upon the arrival of Maria Apego and her husband, Pio Bautista, at the stairs of their house, and as Genoveva Apego did not reply to the call made to her from the outside by her sister Maria, the said spouses went the upper floor of the house; Bautista led the way and, in order to enter, opened the outside door, a sliding door, and as there was no light inside stumbled against Genoveva Apego, who was sleeping near the said door, and touched her left arm; thereupon, Genoveva awoke and believing, as sh testified, that somebody was trying to abuse her, seized the pocketknife aforementioned, asking at the same time who was beside her, and as she did not receive a reply immediately, she got up and struck the person before her a blow with the said knife; in the meanwhile Maria Apego had separated from her husband to light a match and then a kerosene lamp there was in the house and was not aware of the assault made upon her husband by her sister, and only when the light had been lit did she see sister Genoveva in front of Bautista, who had already been wounded and was in an attitude indicating that he was about to fall to the floor; thereupon Genoveva went down out of the house, calling for help, and ran to the house of an aunt of hers where she was arrested by the policeman, Manuel Peinado, to whom she then and there delivered the pocketknife with which she had assaulted her brother-in-law.
In view of the shape and direction of the wound received by the deceased and the part of the body where it was inflicted, according to the detail report of the medical examination, it is unquestionable that the wound was inflicted by the defendant after she had arisen from the place where she had been sleeping, or, at least, when she had raised up in a sitting posture or was seated on the floor, at the time that the deceased perhaps stooped over, in stumbling against her, and touched her left arm; but in manner may it be presumed that she assaulted her brother-in-law, Bautista while she was still lying on the floor of the house; such a presumption precluded by a consideration of the direction the weapon took in penetrating the deceased’s breast.
Maria Apego testified that, during the two years her sister Genoveva lived their house, the latter had conducted herself correctly, that they had always gotten along well and harmoniously together and had never had the least misunderstanding between them. The record does not show whether there had been any trouble or there existed any resentment between the defendant and the deceased who, before he died and during the few moments he lived after he was wounded, made no statement whatever relative to this point or to the conduct observed by the defendant with respect to the assault of which he was the victim, and, therefore, the defendant’s testimony must be accepted, to wit, that she struck a blow with the pocketknife at the person beside her, and who afterwards turn out to be her brother-in-law, Pio Bautista, without knowing who he was and in the belief that, since he touched her left arm, he was about commit an attempt against her honor.
Under this hypothesis, it can not be denied that, upon the defendant’s awakening, startled at feeling somebody grasp her left arm and believing that an attempt was being made against her honor, as she received no reply whatever to her question as to who was beside her in the darkness the house, she understood that there was a positive unlawful aggression from which she had to defend herself with the said pocketknife, and it also undeniable that there was no previous provocation on her part; but is unquestionable that, in making use of this deadly weapon, even in the defense of her person and rights, by decidedly wounding him who had touched her or caught her by the arm, the defendant exceeded her right of defense, since there was no real need of wounding with the said weapon him who had merely caught her by the arm, and perhaps did so to awake her, as she was asleep and had not replied to her sister’s calls; and as party who she believed was making an attempt against her honor, because he had caught her by the arm, performed no other act of aggression such as might indicate a decided purpose to commit an attempt against her honor than merely to catch her by the arm, and although the defendant believed that it was the commencement of such an attempt and that she had to defend herself therefrom, it is true that, once awake a provided, with an effective weapon for her defense, there was no just reasonable cause for striking a blow therewith in the center of the bod where the principal vital organs are seated, of the man who had not performed any act which might be considered as an actual attempt against her honor.
From the foregoing considerations it is concluded that in the commission the crime there was present the circumstance of incomplete exemption fro responsibility, as all the three requisites specified in subarticle 4 of the Penal Code are not applicable; wherefore the criminal act is altogether excusable, on account of the lack of the second of the said requisites, although a majority of them were present, that is, the first the third requisites; and, therefore, in accordance with the provisions article 86 of the code, a penalty lower by one or two degrees than that prescribed by article 404 of the code, in the discretion of the court, must be imposed upon the defendant.
In view of the fact that the accused is an ignorant woman, wholly uneducated, and that it was not shown that, at the time when she assault the deceased, she knew that he was her brother-in-law, account must b taken of the circumstance prescribed by article 11 of the code, in conne with Act No. 2142, as no aggravating circumstance whatever was present t counteract the effects of the said extenuating circumstance; therefore penalty applicable to the defendant is the one lower by two degrees an in the minimum period.
For the foregoing reasons it is our opinion that, with a reversal of the judgment appealed from, the defendant, Genoveva Apego, should be, as she is hereby, sentenced to the penalty of two years of prision correccional, to the accessories of article 61, to pay an indemnity hundred pesos to the heirs of the deceased, and, in case of insolvency, subsidiary imprisonment which shall not exceed one-third of the principal penalty, and to the payment of the costs of both instances. In computing the time of the sentence, credit shall be allowed for one-half of the of imprisonment suffered by the defendant while awaiting trial. So ordered.
Arellano, C. J., Mapa and Johnson, JJ., concur.