EN
BANC
THE
PEOPLE OF THE
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
G.
R.
No. 27200
January
20, 1928
-versus-
FRANCISCO
BUSTOS,
ET AL.,
Defendants-Appellants.
D
E C I S I
O N
VILLAREAL,
J :
This
is an appeal taken
by the accused, Francisco Bustos and Antonio Macaspac, from the
judgment
of the Court of First Instance of Rizal convicting each of them of the
crime of homicide, and sentencing Antonio Macaspac to fourteen years,
eight
months and one day of reclusion temporal, and Francisco Bustos
to
twelve years and one day of reclusion temporal, taking into
consideration
in favor of the latter the mitigating circumstance of provocation by
the
deceased; further sentencing both accused to the accessories of the
law,
to indemnify, jointly and severally, the heirs of the deceased in the
sum
of P1,000, and to pay the costs of the action.
In support of his
appeal,
Antonio Macaspac assigns the following alleged errors as committed by
the
lower court in its Decision, to wit: (1) The lower court erred in
finding
the appellant Antonio Macaspac liable beyond a reasonable doubt, as
coprincipal,
for the death of Felipe del Castillo; (2) the lower court erred in not
finding the accused Antonio Macaspac's alibi proven.
Francisco Bustos, in
turn, in support of his, assigns the following alleged errors as
committed
by the trial court in its Decision, to wit: [1] The lower court erred
in
basing its decision principally upon the testimonies of Isabel
Encarnacion
[a deaf-mute] and Laureana Yumul, and upon the following findings:
"However,
immediately after the occurrence, Francisco Bustos met the Spaniard
Juan
T. Lechea and told him that Angel del Castillo's son had thrown stones
at him in his own house. He said nothing of having been assaulted by
Angel
del Castillo, Felipe del Castillo and one Delfin. Francisco Bustos made
the same statement to Nicanor Garcia, Municipal President of San Pedro
Macati, except that he said that it was old man Castillo, the
deceased's
father, who threw stones at him. The absence of any traces of blood
between
Francisco Bustos's house and the place where the deceased fell, shows
that
the latter was wounded in the latter place. The wound below the sternum
was necessarily mortal. We doubt that the deceased could have walked
one
hundred fifty [150] meters, the distance between Francisco
Bustos's
house and the place where he fell wounded, and traverse that distance
without
leaving a trail of blood behind him." (Decision, page 4).
[2]
The lower court erred in convicting the herein defendant-appellant
Francisco
Bustos and sentencing him to twelve years imprisonment of reclusion
temporal.
The alleged errors
assigned by both of the accused in support of their respective appeals
simmer down to the single proposition that the trial court erred in
finding
each of them guilty, beyond any doubt, of the crime with which they are
charged in the Information.
The following facts,
without contradiction, were proved at the trial:chanroblesvirtuallawlibrary
On the afternoon of
October 24, 1925, while trying to determine the boundaries of the lands
which they respectively occupied on the Guadalupe Estate, Francisco
Bustos
and Angel del Castillo became engaged in a dispute, finally resulting
in
the former catching the latter by the neck. Attracted by the cries of
the
people, Mariano Montemayor and his ward, Antonio Macaspac, ran to the
place
of the fight, Antonio Macaspac catching hold of Francisco Bustos, and
Mariano
Montemayor of Angel del Castillo, thus separating the combatants.
Mariano
Montemayor entertained Angel del Castillo on the street by conversing
with
him. Antonio Macaspac took Francisco Bustos to the latter's house.
Laureana
Yumul, Angel del Castillo's wife, who was also there went to her house,
leaving her husband. On nearing her home, she heard the desperate cries
of her deaf-mute daughter, Soledad Encarnacion, who was under a mango
tree
gesticulating and making signs, falling upon her knees and getting up
again,
without knowing what to do. Going in the direction pointed out by her
daughter,
Laureana Yumul came upon her son Felipe del Castillo stretched out on
the
ground wounded, expiring a few moments later. The autopsy performed by
Dr. Eugenio Santos disclosed the following wounds: A sharp wound 7
centimeters
long and 4 centimeters deep on the left arm at the level of the
humero-cubital
articulation, penetrating the flesh and two bones; two sharp wounds on
the posterior internal surface of the lower third of the same arm,
running
obliquely, and penetrating the cubitus and the radius; and a
penetrating
wound below the sternum, involving the stomach, and running obliquely
downwards
from left to right, 8 centimeters deep. The physician was of opinion
that
the last wound was necessarily fatal. [Exhibit B].
That same night
Francisco
Bustos presented himself to the municipal president with a wound on his
forehead, stating that he had been stoned by someone. He was taken to
the
General Hospital where he was examined and found to have a wound on his
forehead and several bruises on his nose and lips, caused by a blunt
instrument
which might have been a stone.
The only question of
fact to determine in this appeal is: Who is or are responsible for the
wounds found on Felipe del Castillo's body, which caused his death?
On this point, Laureana
Yumul testified to the effect that when she repaired to the place
pointed
out by her deafmute daughter, she found her son stretched out on the
ground,
wounded, and she asked him who had inflicted the wounds on him; that
her
son answered: "Mother, go to the municipality and report this, because
Francisco Bustos and Antonio Macaspac have hacked me up ;" that upon
hearing
this, she shouted for help several times; that after the lapse of
sufficient
time for one to finish smoking a cigarette, her son expired; that some
time thereafter, the agents of authority arrived, but her son was
already
dead.
The defense impeached
the veracity of this witness by means of the testimony of the municipal
president, Nicanor Garcia, and Cristino Basay, who testified that they
were the first to arrive at the place where the deceased lay and that
when
Laureana Yumul came up, she asked them what had happened to her son,
and
who had killed him.
The Court below found
Laureana Yumul's testimony more credible. Taking into account the
circumstances
of the case and the number of persons in the vicinity who must have
gone
to the place of the occurrence, it is highly probable that some of the
curious ones asked such questions without anyone taking notice of who
they
were, due to the excitement of the moment; and when municipal president
Nicanor Garcia and Cristino Basay testified on this point at the trial
months afterwards, in harking back to the events of the removal of the
body, it may be that in the midst of the confusion of thoughts they got
the idea that it was the deceased's mother who had asked them such
questions.
Laureana Yumul stoutly denies having asked such questions as are
attributed
to her.
Aside from the
ante-mortem
declaration of Felipe del Castillo, as to who had inflicted the wounds
that caused his death, we have the testimony of Mariano del Castillo,
the
8-year-old brother of the deceased, to the effect that on his return
from
having pastured his carabaos, he saw his brother pursued by Francisco
Bustos
and Antonio Macaspac, the former armed with a dagger and the latter
with
a bolo. As he became frightened he ran to his house, where he met his
father,
Angel del Castillo, to whom he related what he had seen. When Angel del
Castillo had heard his son's story, he picked up a bolo and went in
search
of his son's aggressors, but did not find them in their respective
homes.
The prosecution also
presented Soledad Encarnacion, deaf-mute daughter of Laureana Yumul,
who
was interpreted by a teacher from the deaf and dumb school who had
never
taught the witness; nor had the latter ever been to such a school.
While
it is true that modern pedagogy has made tremendous strides in the
instruction
and education of persons so afflicted, even to the extent of enabling
the
blind to read by means of the sense of touch, and deafmutes to receive
instruction through conventional signs and objects, nevertheless, with
respect to deaf-mutes, it is necessary that he who is to communicate
with
them know the meaning of their signs, either from having had them
taught
to him, or from having acquired a knowledge of them through frequent
contact
with the same. Without these circumstances, although it is possible to
guess part of what deaf-mutes mean by their signs even without having
had
much to do with them, still much of what they wish to say escapes us,
and
in our eagerness to understand them, we resort to conjecture. It will
be
seen how dangerous then is such a procedure to arrive at the truth, and
above all when the life and liberty of an accused man are at stake.
This
was shown in the present case, in which during the course of
interpretation,
there were times when the interpreter could not make out what the
witness
meant by such signs as she uses, and this is due to the fact that the
deaf-mute
had never been a pupil of the interpreter, nor had the latter
previously
had anything to do with the former, such as would have given her an
opportunity
to acquire some knowledge of the meaning of the signs the deaf-mute
used.
In view of this, it would not be prudent to admit the deaf-mute's
testimony
as interpreted by the teacher.
The accused, Francisco
Bustos, testifying in his own behalf, attempted to prove that after the
encounter with Angel del Castillo, and while he was in his own house,
said
Angel del Castillo, accompanied by his son Felipe del Castillo and a
certain
individual named Delfin, as also his wife Laureana Yumul, called upon
him
to come down because he, the said Angel del Castillo, wanted to kill
him;
that because he did not accept the challenge, the challenger and his
companions
went up into his house; that, in order to defend himself, he picked up
his dagger and with it dealt someone a blow, he knew not whom, having
received
a blow with a bolo on his forehead, which left him unconscious on the
ground.
By this the accused no doubt meant it to be understood that the one who
received the blow with the dagger was Felipe del Castillo, who was
found
to have a deep wound below the sternum, which caused his death. The
character
of the wound on the accused Francisco Bustos's forehead when he
presented
himself to the municipal president Nicanor Garcia and his declaration
that
he had been stoned by someone, contradicts his own testimony. The blood
stains found in his house do not corroborate his testimony, because if
Felipe del Castillo had received the fatal wound in said accused's
house,
he would not have had strength enough to get to where he was found
stretched
out, which is 150 meters from said house, and besides, there would have
been blood stains along the trail. The said blood stains are not
incompatible
with the prosecution's version, since after having been stoned by
Felipe
del Castillo, when the latter was pursued by the accused, Francisco
Bustos
must have repaired to his house where some of the drops of blood
issuing
from his forehead must have fallen.
Francisco Bustos's
declaration, then, far from detracting from the evidence presented by
the
prosecution, actually corroborates it.
The accused, Antonio
Macaspac, pleaded an alibi, maintaining that he was absent from
Guadalupe
from 6:30 in the evening until 11:30 at night, having gone to Manila.
Taking
into consideration the time when Felipe del Castillo was found wounded,
which must have been shortly before nightfall, it is not improbable
that
he might have left for Manila after the assault with the object of
preparing
an alibi.
The wounds found on
Felipe del Castillo's body, besides the stab, show that the assault
upon
him was made with two kinds of weapons, one sharp-edged and the other
pointed,
thus corroborating the deceased's ante-mortem declaration and witness
Mariano
del Castillo's testimony.
Therefore, the evidence
of the alibi presented by the accused Antonio Macaspac cannot prevail
over
the clear and positive proof of the prosecution concerning his
participation
in the assault upon Felipe del Castillo.
The evidence adduced
at the trial conclusively establishes the fact that on the afternoon in
question, the accused Francisco Bustos and Antonio Macaspac, on meeting
Felipe del Castillo, son of Angel del Castillo with whom Francisco
Bustos
had just had a quarrel, and in which Antonio Macaspac had intervened,
the
said accused pursued him; that Felipe del Castillo threw a stone at his
pursuers which struck Francisco Bustos wounding him on the forehead;
that
the accused continued to pursue their victim until they overtook him,
inflicting
several wounds upon him as a result of which he died a few minutes
later.
These acts constitute
the crime of homicide as defined and penalized in Article 404 of the
Penal
Code, the herein accused being criminally liable as principals by
direct
participation, and the penalty provided by the law being reclusion
temporal
to its full extent.
In applying the
penalty,
no modifying circumstance of criminal liability can be taken into
consideration,
because neither can the fact that there were two aggressors be held to
constitute abuse of superior strength, since the relative physical
strength
of the aggressors and the assaulted party does not appear of record;
nor
can the fact that the deceased stoned Francisco Bustos be considered a
provocation, since it does not clearly appear that the deceased was the
one who started the fight and not the one who was provoked. On the
contrary,
it may be inferred from the ante-mortem declaration of Felipe del
Castillo
that he took to stoning only upon being pursued by the accused.
By virtue of the
foregoing,
the judgment appealed from is modified, as recommended by the
Attorney-General,
sentencing the accused Francisco Bustos to fourteen years, eight months
and one day of reclusion temporal, and confirmed in all other
respects,
with one-half of the costs against each of the appellants. So ordered.
Johnson, Street,
Malcolm,
Ostrand, Johns and Romualdez, JJ., concur. |