EN BANC
THE UNITED STATES,
Complainant-Appellee,
G.
R.
No. 1079
July
19,
1903
-versus-
EUSTAQUIO
DALIGDIG,
Defendant-Appellant.
D E C I S I
O N
TORRES, J :
This case was brought up
in consultation of the Judgment of August 26, 1902. While it was
pending
in this court Mr. Smith, attorney for the defendant, filed a motion
asking
that his client, Eustaquio Daligdig, be included in the amnesty of July
4, 1902, upon the ground that the crime of double murder was committed
while the defendant was a captain in the revolutionary army, and
occurred
prior to the 1st of May of said year.
The Solicitor-General
concurs in this motion, upon the around that the record discloses that
the murders in question were committed by the defendant in the course
of
the insurrection against the government of the United States
established
in these Islands, and that they were the result of internal political
feuds
between the accused and the deceased.
The record of this
case shows that one day in the month of February, 1901, the defendant,
Daligdig, who was at that time a captain in the revolutionary forces,
and
two men under his command, arrested two persons, unknown, in the barrio
of Manilla, of the town of Langaran, Misamis, and conducted them toward
the outskirts of the town; that on the road the defendant ordered his
two
soldiers to kill the prisoners, which order was carried out, the
prisoners
being stabbed to death. On the body of each one of the deceased a
placard
was placed reading, "Traitor to the country." The corpses were left
unburied
for three days. Several witnesses testified that these men were
arrested
and killed because they were suspected of being traitors to the
revolutionary
cause.
Upon the supposition
that the belief that these men were traitors was the sole motive which
led to the commission of the double crime of murder for which the
defendant
was condemned to death - the record containing no evidence whatever
indicating
that any other motive impelled the defendant to direct the killing of
the
deceased - it is unquestionable that the murders perpetrated are of a
political
character and the result of internal hatreds existing between the two
murdered
Filipinos and the accused, who was a captain in the revolutionary army,
in arms against the government established in the Province of Misamis.
In a normal condition
of society the severest punishment is meted out for the odius crime
which
was committed by order of the defendant. However, considering the
circumstances
under which these crimes were committed, and the fact that the
sovereign
power in these Islands, in view of the extraordinary and radical
disturbance
which, during the period following the year 1896, prevailed in and
convulsed
this country, and prompted by the dictates of humanity and public
policy,
has deemed it advisable to blot out even the shadow of a certain class
of offenses, decreeing full pardon and amnesty to their authors an act
of elevated statesmanship and timely generosity, more political than
judicial
in its nature, intended to mitigate the severity of the law - it is
incumbent
upon Us, in deciding this case, to conform our judgment to the
requirements
and conditions of the decree so promulgated.
In view of the
foregoing
considerations, We decide that Eustaquio Daligdig is included within
the
amnesty of July 4, 1902. The Judge below will be notified of this
decision,
and, as soon as the defendant, Eustaquio Daligdig, shall have taken the
oath prescribed in the amnesty proclamation, evidence of which will be
submitted to this Court, he will be set at liberty.
Arellano, C.J.,
Cooper, McDonough and Mapa, JJ., concur.
Willard, J.,
dissents.
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