[ G.R. No. 38942. November 14, 1933 ] 58 Phil. 742
[ G.R. No. 38942. November 14, 1933 ]
THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. HIGINO LAUAS, DEFENDANT AND APPELLANT. D E C I S I O N
STREET, J.:
This appeal has been brought to reverse a judgment of the Court of First Instance of Benguet, finding the appellant, Higino Lauas, guilty of the offense of homicide and sentencing him to undergo imprisonment for twelve years and one day, reclusion temporal, with the accessory penalties prescribed by law, and requiring him to indemnify the heirs of the deceased, Juanito Mangeyew, in the amount of one thousand pesos, and requiring him to pay the costs.
On the morning of June 28, 1932, the body of an Igorot boy, named Juanito Mangeyew, was found in an unfrequented place on a creek, distant about two and one-half or three kilometers from the barrio of Acupan, in the municipal district of Itogon, Benguet, Mountain Province. The next morning the justice of the peace, a Constabulary officer, and the health officer of the subdistrict of Benguet went out to where the body had been found for the purpose of conducting an investigation. The deceased appeared to have had the age of 13 or 14 years, and the body had been pretty well hacked to pieces with a bolo or other sharp-bladed instrument. The right arm was completely severed at the shoulder joint. The head was almost decapitated at the base of the skull, and only the front portion of the neck still connected the head with the body. The right arm had been cut off, and in the left scapular region of the back a cut had been made through the scapular bone into the cavity of the chest.
Investigations were set afoot and in less than a month the appellant, Higino Lauas, a native Igorot of Cadaclan, Natonin, Bontoc, of the age of 19 years, was arrested for the crime. Upon being quizzed by Constabulary officers, he signed a statement before M. Montilla, a justice of the peace of Trinidad, which is in substance as follows:
“On the 20th day of June, 1932, Nachogwat, William Maykas and myself left Cadaclan for Baguio. My two companions are my cousins. I came with the intention of looking for work, while my two cousins intended to continue their studies. We hiked from Cadaclan to Bontoc for two days. We stopped for one or two days in Bontoc in the house of my niece, the wife of private Bacnag, Constabulary soldier at Bontoc. Then we rode in a PU-car of Representative Erving from Bontoc to Trinidad, stopping at the Farm School. I stayed in the farm school for two nights and one day.
“On Sunday morning, June 26, I left my companions at the Farm School and went to Acupan to look for work. I know Acupan because I had been there already about a year ago. Upon arrival in Acupan, I stopped in the bunkhouse where my cousin Moises lives. Moises was not there as they say he went to Baguio. I slept that night in the room of Moises. On Monday morning, June 27, I ate breakfast with Melencio Malengta, William Maykas and Dionisia Lepaya.
“After breakfast, I went down to the office at Acupan to present myself for work. I left William Maykas in the bunk house. When I presented for work, they asked me my cedula, but I left it in Cadaclan, so I was not accepted. I proceeded to the Mill Site at Balatoc to present again for work. But I was told that there was no vacancy. So I returned to the bunk house, and while there I again decided to go to Sangilo to try my luck in looking for work. I followed the trail just above the bunk house. Upon reaching the brook, I met the boy (the deceased) and asked him from what town he was. He answered that he was from Mankayan and that he was looking for dried wood but there was none. I asked him further whether he knew the boy who wounded Fructuoso Kinidiong at Hartwell last March, and again answered that he was his third cousin. I again asked him why his cousin was not imprisoned, and he answered that his cousin was not found guilty. So right then and there, I thought of killing him in order to revenge the wounding of Kinidiong who is my second cousin. I then invited the boy to go with me to show him the place where there were plenty of dried wood. We followed the brook on the left side going to Sangilo, and upon reaching the highest part of the brook near the hill, I forgot myself and got my bolo and slashed him three times—one on the back of the head, another on the right shoulder which also cut the right ear at the same time, and another on the back just below the left shoulder. After killing him, I did not proceed anymore to Sangilo as I was afraid, and instead, I went down to Balatoc, passing the short cut on the top of the mountains. On the bridge at Balatoc, I met Malota, my townmate and we had a little conversation. We did not talk very long because I was in a hurry to go to Baguio and there was a truck at Balatoc. So I rode in the truck for Baguio. Upon arrival, I met an Igorot from Benguet and sold him my bolo with which I killed the boy, for P3.
“From Baguio I hiked to Trinidad Farm School where I stayed for one night only. The following day I rode in a truck of Dangwa for Bontoc and stopped for the night in the house of private Bacnag. The next day I proceeded to Cadaclan by hiking and arrived there after two days.
“Three days after my arrival in Cadaclan, I held a ‘cañao’ in the house of Chamias, my sister’s daughter, to celebrate the killing I had done in Acupan, but of course, I did not tell anybody in my town what I had done. On July 14, 1932 while I was in my house at Cadaclan, four soldiers under corporal Gayad of Bontoc came and told me that I was wanted in Trinidad, Benguet, for investigation.”
Among the Igorots employed at the Balatoc mine, near Baguio, was one Malota, who was acquainted with Higino Lauas, because they came from the same place. Malota’s duty at the mine was to take care of the Igorot bunk house and to clean it up after it had been used by the occupants. One forenoon, as Malota was crossing a bridge on the road nearby, he met Lauas. Malota greeted him and indicated a disposition to talk, but Lauas was uncommunicative and pale. After a few moments, however, Lauas stated that he had killed some one without giving the name, and said that he was leaving for Cadaclan. At this time Malota had no knowledge of the fact that Juanito Mangeyew had been slain, but after the body of the youth had been discovered, Malota informed the investigators that the act had been done by Higino Lauas and that he had returned to his native place. This information led a few days later to the arrest of Lauas, and upon being questioned he at first denied his responsibility. Later he said that the deed had been committed by him in conjunction with Malota and Malengta. These two were accordingly then arrested and questioned about the killing, but they denied their guilt and it soon became evident that the statement of Higino Lauas implicating them was false. Lauas then made the confession quoted above, in which he took the responsibility for the crime upon himself alone.
It will be noted that, in his conversation with Malota, Lauas did not give the name of the person he had killed. The obvious reason for this is that he probably did not know the name of the boy, who was a total stranger.
The defense is rested exclusively on the proposition that the confession of Lauas was extorted from him by the Constabulary through physical mistreatment. In support of this contention Malota, as well as the appellant, were used as witnesses. The principal item in the charge is that they were made to sit on air, which means that they were placed in a sitting posture without support, a position which would undoubtedly become quite uncomfortable if protracted. Malota pretended that one of his teeth had been knocked out by a Constabulary soldier. The court examined his mouth and found two teeth wanting and all loose. In this connection we note that the purpose of the officers in quizzing Malota was to get an admission from him that he had taken part in the perpetration of the crime.
The trial judge discredited the proof tending to show that Lauas’s confession was not voluntary; and while we cannot express our approval of all that was apparently done in handling these prisoners, we are of the opinion that the confession is admissible and that the trial judge committed no error in attaching some weight to it. It will be observed that apart from the confession of Lauas we have the admission made by him to Malota that he had killed some one, and the discovery of the mutilated body of Mangeyew without any suggestion that any one else had been killed in that vicinity points to Lauas as the perpetrator of the offense. It will also be noted that, although Malota had been subjected to the same kind of mistreatment as is claimed to have been used upon the appellant, that mistreatment was not sufficiently rude to induce Malota to confess participation on his own part in the crime. We are of the opinion that the confession of Lauas was not due to mistreatment but resulted from consciousness of his guilt.
In this jurisdiction where the trial judge passes upon the weight as well as the admissibility of a confession, he may, in weighing the confession, take into account the conditions under which it was obtained and it is not necessary to pass upon the admissibility of the confession as a separate preliminary issue. The rule excluding confessions when not voluntarily given grew up at a time when accused persons were not admissible as witnesses in their own behalf. In that period, of course, the courts were careful to guard accused persons from the inferences that might be drawn from thoughtless words capable of being twisted into an admission or confession of guilt. With the abolition of the rule which totally disqualified accused persons, it would seem to be no longer necessary to preserve the old doctrine with respect to the admissibility of confessions in its full rigor, since the accused, now, being competent to testify in his own behalf, may explain the words of confession or admission in their proper sense or deny their force altogether. At any rate the rule applicable in our courts is that it is the duty of the court to weigh the proof as to the conditions under which the confession was made, and to reject it if it was not found to be voluntary; but if voluntary, to attach such weight to it as appears to be proper. In the case before us we think that the written confession of the appellant is admissible and that, taken in connection with his oral admission to Malota that he had killed some one, it sufficiently proves that he is the individual who committed this crime.
As to the qualification of the offense, it savors strongly of murder, but in view of the lack of details as to the facts connected with the killing, it must be qualified as homicide only. The trial court appreciated in favor of the accused the mitigating circumstance of lack of instruction and placed the penalty in the minimum degree appropriate to homicide. The concession to the appellant of this mitigating circumstance was proper, for the confession itself shows that the appellant, in committing this homicide, acted upon an impulse drawn from the sources of uncivilized life, and although he had received instruction in the schools that are now established among the non-Christian people of the Mountain Province and had attained a respectable command of the English language, this veneer of education had not changed his fundamentally savage character.
The judgment will therefore be affirmed, and it is so ordered, with costs against the appellant.
Malcolm, Villa-Real, Abad Santos, Hull, Vickers, and Imperial, JJ., concur.