[ G.R. No. 13498. September 30, 1918 ] 38 Phil. 693
[ G.R. No. 13498. September 30, 1918 ]
THE UNITED STATES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. AGUSTIN CASTOR, ISIDORO PALOMADO AND JUAN PALMA, DEFENDANTS AND APPELLANTS. D E C I S I O N
MALCOLM, J.:
The three defendants maliciously and voluntarily set fire to, and destroyed, the house of one Concepcion Castellana, knowing that it was occupied at the time. The nighttime was selected for the commission of the dastardly deed. The house was valued at P40. Fifty-five cavanes of palay was stored in the house but no evidence of the value of this rice was introduced.
These facts, fully established by the proof, fall within the provisions of article 549 of the Penal Code, and there being present one aggravating circumstance, offset by no mitigating circumstance, the maximum penalty must be imposed. While, as suggested in the concurring opinion in the United States vs. Butardo and Butardo ([1908], 11 Phil., 60), the penalty for arson in the Spanish Penal Code is of exceptional severity, it is to be remembered that the enormity of the offense is not measured by the value of the property that may be destroyed but rather by the human lives exposed to danger. Arson was considered, and still is considered in a few jurisdictions, to be a capital offense. At common law, it “was accounted a heinous and exorbitant felony.” (Poulter’s Case 11 Coke 29a.) Such principles of jurisprudence in conjunction with the aggravated facts before us, justify the increase of the sentence of six years handed down by the trial court to life imprisonment.
Judgment is reversed and each defendant and appellant is sentenced to life imprisonment, to the accessory penalties provided by law, and to pay one third of the costs of both instances, while the defendants shall jointly and severally indemnify Concepcion Castellana in the sum of P40. Appellant Castor’s motion for a new trial is denied, since not supported by affidavits of witnesses and since no showing of newly discovered evidence material to his defense is made. So ordered.
Torres, Street, Avanceña, and Fisher, JJ., concur.