Republic of the Philippines

SUPREME COURT
Manila

EN BANC

G.R. No. L-38511             October 6, 1933

THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS, plaintiff-appellee,

W.A. Caldwell and Sotto and Astilla for appellant.

VICKERS, J.:

The accused was charged in the Court of First Instance of Manila with the crime of asesinato,
committed as follows:

That on or about the 24th day of July, 1932, in the City of Manila, Philippine Islands, the said
accused did then and there willfully, unlawfully and feloniously, without any just cause
therefor and with intent to kill and treachery, assault and attack one Yu Lon by suddenly
giving him a fist blow on the back part of the head, under conditions which intended directly
and especially to insure, the accomplishment of his purpose without risk to himself arising
from any defense the victim Yu Lon might make, thus causing him to fall on the ground as a
consequence of which he suffered a lacerated wound on the scalp and a fissured fracture on
the left occipital region, which were necessarily mortal and which caused the immediate
death of the said Yu Lon.

After hearing the evidence, Judge Luis P. Torres found the defendant guilty as charged, and
sentenced him to suffer reclusion perpetua, with the accessory penalties of the law, to indemnify the
heirs of the deceased Yu Lon in the sum of P1,000, without subsidiary imprisonment in case of
insolvency, and to pay the costs.

Appellant's attorney de oficio makes the following assignments of error:

1. The trial court erred in finding that the appellant the person who committed the assault on
Yu Lon, the victim to the crime charged in the information.

2. Assuming that the appellant is the person who committed the assault on Yu Lon (a fact
which we specifically deny), the trial court erred in finding that the appellant struck his
supposed victim.

3. Assuming that the appellant is the person who committed the assault on Yu Lon, and that
the appellant did strike his supposed victim (facts which we specifically deny) the trial court
erred in finding that the blow was dealt from the victim's rear.
 4. The trial court erred in finding that the identity of the appellant was fully established.

5. Assuming that the four preceding errors assigned are without merit, the trial court erred in
convicting the appellant of the crime of murder, under article 248 of the Revised Penal Code,
instead of convicting him of the crime of maltreatment, under article 266 of the said Code.

It appears from the evidence that about 8:30 on the night of July 24, 1932 Yu Lon and Yu Yee, father
and son, stopped to talk on the sidewalk at the corner of Mestizos and San Fernando Streets in the
District of San Nicolas Yu Lon was standing near the outer edge of the sidewalk, with his back to the
street. While they were talking, a man passed back and forth behind Yu Lon once or twice, and
when Yu Yee was about to take leave of his father, the man that had been passing back the forth
behind Yu Lon approached him from behind and suddenly and without warning struck him with his
fist on the back part of the head. Yu Lon tottered and fell backwards. His head struck the asphalt
pavement; the lower part of his body fell on the sidewalk. His assailants immediately ran away. Yu
Yee pursued him through San Fernando, Camba, and Jaboneros Streets, and then lost sight of him.
Two other Chinese, Chin Sam and Yee Fung, who were walking along Calle Mestizos, saw the
incident and joined him in the pursuit of Yu Lon's assailant. The wounded man was taken to the
Philippine General Hospital, were he died about midnight. A post-mortem examination was made the
next day by Dr. Anastacia Villegas, who found that the deceased had sustained a lacerated wound
and fracture of the skull in the occipital region, and that he had died from cerebral hemorrhage; that
he had tuberculosis, though not in an advanced stage, and a tumor in the left kidney.

Yu Yee promptly reported the incident to the police, and about 3 o'clock the next morning Sergeant
Sol Cruz and other detectives, accompanied by Yu Yee, went to the scene of the crime and found
blood stains in the street. Yu Yee said that he could recognize his father's assailant, and described
him as being about five feet in height, 25 or 30 years old, with long hair and wearing a suit of dark
clothes. After Sergeant Sol Cruz had been working on the case for three or four days he received
information that the accused might be the person that had assaulted Yu Lon, and on August 4th the
accused was arrested by detectives Manrique and Bustamante. He was wearing a dark wool suit. Yu
Yee was immediately called to the police station. The accused was placed near the middle of a line
of some eleven persons that had been detained for investigation. They were wearing different kinds
of clothes. Yu Yee without hesitation pointed out the defendant as the person that had assaulted Yu
Lon. He identified him not only by his long hair combed towards the back and worn long on the sides
in the form of side-whiskers (patillas), but also by his high cheek-bones and the fact that his ears
have no lobes. The defendant was identified at the trial not only by Yu Yee, but also by Chin Sam
and Yee Fung.

With respect to the first four assignment of error, which raise questions of fact as to the identification
of the accused, and whether or not be struck the deceased, and if he did assault the deceased,
whether he did so in a treacherous manner, we see no sufficient reason, after considering the
evidence and arguments of counsel, to doubt the correctness of the findings of the trial judge. The
accused was identified by Yu Yee and two other Chinese, and although Yu Yee may have
overstated at the trial some of the facial peculiarities in the defendant that he claimed to have
observed at the time of the incident, it must be remembered that Yu Yee without hesitation picked
the defendant out of a group of eleven persons as his father's assailant, and that he had exceptional
opportunities for observing his father's assailant, because while that person was walking back and
forth behind Yu Lon, Yu Yee was facing the assailant.

We find the testimony of the defendant and his witnesses as to the whereabouts of the defendant on
the night in question unworthy of credit. 1awphil.net
The testimony of the three Chinese that a man struck the deceased and then ran away is
corroborated by the testimony of a 15-year old boy, Dominador Sales.

As to the contention that the deceased would have fallen on his face if he had been struck on the
back of the head, the expert testimony shows that in such a case a person instinctively makes an
effort to preserve or regain his balance, and that as result thereof the deceased may have fallen
backwards. Another consideration is that sidewalks almost invariably slope towards the pavement,
and this being true, when the deceased straightened up, he naturally tended to fall backwards. The
evidence leaves no room for doubt that the accused struck the deceased on the back of the head,
because when the deceased was assaulted he and Yu Yee were standing on the sidewalk, facing
each other, and if the accused had not struck the deceased on the back of the head, it would have
been necessary for him to go between the deceased and Yu Yee. Since the accused struck the
deceased from behind and without warning, he acted with treachery. "There is treachery when the
offender commits any of the crimes against the person, employing means, methods, or forms in the
execution thereof which tend directly and especially to insure its execution, without risk to himself
arising from the defense which the offended party might make." (Article 14, No. 16, of the Revised
Penal Code.)

The fourth assignment of error is a repetition of the first.

In the fifth assignment of error it is contended that the appellant if guilty at all, should be punished in
accordance with article 266 of the Revised Penal Code, or for slight physical injuries instead of
murder.

Paragraph No. 1 of article 4 of the Revised Penal Code provide that criminal liability shall be incurred
by any person committing a felony (delito) although the wrongful act done be different from that
which he intended; but in order that a person may be criminally liable for a felony different from that
which he proposed to commit, it is indispensable that the two following requisites be present, to wit:
(a) That a felony was committed; and (b) that the wrong done to the aggrieved person be the direct
consequence of the crime committed by the offender. U.S. vs. Brobst, 14 Phil., 310; U.S. vs. Mallari,
29 Phil., 14 U.S. vs. Diana, 32 Phil., 344.)

In the Brobst case, supra, it was held that death may result from a blow over or near the heart or in
the abdominal region, notwithstanding the fact that the blow leaves no outward mark of violence; that
where death result as the direct consequence of the use of illegal violence, the mere fact that the
diseased or weakened condition of the injured person contributed to his death, does not relieve the
illegal aggressor of criminal responsibility; that one is not relieved, under the law in these Islands,
from criminal liability for the natural consequences of one's illegal acts, merely because one does not
intend to produce such consequences; but that in such cases, the lack of intention, while it does not
exempt from criminal liability, is taken into consideration as an extenuating circumstance. (U.S. vs.
Luciano, 2 Phil., 96.)

The reasoning of the decisions cited is applicable to the case at bar. There can be no reasonable
doubt as to the cause of the death of Yu Lon. There is nothing to indicate that it was due to some
extraneous case. It was clearly the direct consequence of defendants felonious act, and the fact that
the defendant did not intend to cause so great an injury does not relieve him from the consequence
of his unlawful act, but is merely a mitigating circumstance (U.S. vs. Rodriguez, 23 Phil., 22).

The next question is whether the crime committed by the defendant should be classified as homicide
or murder. Can the defendant be convicted of murder when he did not intend to kill the deceased?
We have seen that under the circumstances of this case the defendant is liable for the killing of Yu
Lon, because his death was the direct consequence of defendant's felonious act of striking him on
the head. If the defendant had not committed the assault in a treacherous manner. he would
nevertheless have been guilty of homicide, although he did not intend to kill the deceased; and since
the defendant did commit the crime with treachery, he is guilty of murder, because of the presence
of the qualifying circumstance of treachery.

The Supreme Court of Spain has held that there is no incompatibility, moral or legal,
between alevosia and the mitigating circumstance of not having intended to cause so great an injury:

Considering that there is no moral or legal incompatibility between treachery and the
mitigating circumstance No. 3 of article 9 of the Penal Code, because the former depends
upon the manner of execution of the crime and the latter upon the tendency of the will
towards a definite purpose, and therefore there is no obstacle, in case treacherous means,
modes or forms are employed, to the appreciation of the first of said circumstances and
simultaneously of the second if the injury produced exceeds the limits intended by the
accused; and for that reason it cannot be held in the instant case that this mitigating
circumstances excludes treachery, or that the accused, being chargeable with the death of
the offended party, should not be liable due to the voluntary presence of treachery in the act
perpetrated, although with mitigation corresponding to the disparity between the act intended
and the act consummated, etc. (Decision of May 10, 1905, Gazette of April 20, 906; Viada:
5th edition, Vol. 2, p. 156.)

In the case of the United States vs. Candelaria (2 Phil., 104), this court speaking through Chief
Justice Arellano said:

In trying Jacinto to a tree the three defendants acted treacherously (alevosamente). Whether
it was to prevent him from making resistance, whether it was to torture him for the purpose of
making him give information, or whether it was for the purpose of inflicting further
punishment, the fact is that by this means the defendants secured themselves against any
risk which might have arisen from an attempt at self-defense on the part of the victim. We are
of opinion that they had no intention to cause so great an evil as that which resulted, but this
does not neutralize that other qualifying circumstance of the resulting death, because if there
was no alevosia for the purpose of killing there was alevosia for the purpose of the illtreating.
The means employed were not made use of for the precise purpose of making certain the
death of Jacinto de Jesus but as a safe means of illtreating him without risk to the persons
who were doing so. If by this means the ill treatment was aggravated, it follows that it is a
qualifying circumstances in the death which resulted. It was not a condition of the purpose,
but it was a condition of the criminal act itself, in whatever sense this be taken.

The penalty of murder (article 248 of the Revised Penal Code) is reclusion temporal in its maximum
period to death, and there being present in this case one mitigating and no aggravating
circumstance the prison sentence of the appellant is reduced to seventeen years, four months, and
one day of reclusion temporal. As thus modified, the decision appealed from is affirmed, with the
costs against the appellant.

Avanceña, C.J., Street, Abad Santos, and Butte, JJ., concur.