Vasquez, Michelle G. People vs. Oanis PETITIONER: THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES RESPONDENT: ANTONIO Z.

OANIS and ALBERTO GALANTA G.R. No. L-47722, July 27, 1943 MORAN, J. (p) FACTS

Date Submitted: August 14, 2012

Chief of Police, Oanis and his co-accused Corporal Galanta were under instructions to arrest one Balagtas, a notorious criminal and escaped convict, and if overpowered, to get him dead or alive. Proceeding to the suspected house, they went into a room and on seeing a man sleeping with his back towards the door, simultaneously fired at him with their revolvers, without first making any reasonable inquiry as to his identity. The victim turned out to be an innocent man, Tecson and not the wanted criminal. The corpse was thereafter brought to the provincial hospital and upon autopsy by Dr. Ricardo de Castro, multiple gunshot wounds inflicted by a .32 and a .45 caliber revolvers were found on Tecson's body which caused his death. Charged with the crime of murder of one Serapio Tecson, the accused Antonio Z. Oanis and Alberto Galanta, chief of police of Cabanatuan and corporal of the Philippine Constabulary, respectively, were, after due trial, found guilty by the lower court of homicide through reckless imprudence and were sentenced each to an indeterminate penalty of from one year and six months to two years and two months of prison correccional and to indemnify jointly and severally the heirs of the deceased in the amount of P1,000. Defendants appealed separately from this judgment. ISSUE Whether or not Oanis and Galanta may upon the facts presented above be held criminally liable for the death caused to Tecson RULING Judgment of the court of origin modified. Defendants were declared guilty of murder with the mitigating circumstance of the act of performing their duty, and accordingly sentenced to an indeterminate penalty of from five(5) years of prision correctional to fifteen (15) years of reclusion temporal, with the accessories of the law, and to pay the heirs of the deceased Serapio Tecson jointly and severally as indemnity of P2,000, with costs.

Vasquez, Michelle G. People vs. Mosende PETITIONER: PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES RESPONDENT: RUDY MOSENDE G.R. No. 97170, December 10, 1993 NARVASA, C.J. (p) FACTS

Date Submitted: August 14, 2012

The murder victim in this case was a fifteen year-old boy named Carlo Alipao, who was living in the town of Mainit, Surigao del Norte with his mother, Gloria Alipao. He was last seen alive by his mother in the late afternoon of September 18, 1986, when he left his home with two friends, Jinky Mozol and Marlon Escuyos, to visit another friend, Rudy Mosende. Carlo, or "Lelot," as he was more familiarly called, was then wearing a T-shirt and dark-colored short trousers with stripes. There is no narration in the record of what Lelot and his companions did after leaving his home and before Lelot was killed. What the record contains is the narrative of Benceslao Resullar, Jr. and Fidelino Balaga, the former, a friend of Rudy Mosende, of events transpiring after Lelot's death. According to Benceslao and Fidelino, at about 7 o'clock in the evening of that day, September 18, 1986, they were drinking rum at Benceslao's house when Rudy Mosende dropped by and asked them to take a stroll. They agreed. When they reached a street corner, Mosende asked them to take some "pulutan" at his shack. Again they agreed. On entering Mosende's shack which was in a dilapidated state and had no flooring Mosende shut the door and told them to dig a hole in the ground. Again the two agreed and did as they were told, thinking that they would bury the entrails and hide of the animal slaughtered by Mosende for their pulutan. When the hole was knee-deep, Mosende told them to go to the shack's toilet. Benceslao and Fidelino were aghast to find in the toilet the dead body of a male person, whose hands and feet were bound with rope, and whose head and upper torso were encased in a sack. Mosende now told them to bury the cadaver in the hole they had just dug. This time, the pair demurred. However, they eventually did as they were told when Mosende drew out a bolo and angrily threatened them with it. Fearing for their lives, they carried the corpse to the hole, dropped it in, and covered it with soil. Benceslao asked Mosende who was the person they had just buried. Mosende said it was Lelot Alipao ("Lelot" being, as already mentioned, the nickname of Carlito Alipao). Mosende then told them that if word ever got out of Lelot's (Carlo's) killing, they and their parents would themselves be slain. With Mosende's threat ringing in their ears, Benceslao and Fidelino left the shack; and not long afterwards, fled to Surigao City. They returned to Mainit after Mosende was arrested sometime in April, 1987, and revealed what they knew to the authorities. Carlo (Lelot) Alipao's remains were discovered after seven (7) months or so. The events leading to that discovery, as disclosed by the largely undisputed evidence given by Lelot's mother and other disinterested witnesses, are succinctly recounted by the Trial Court. Those events include the extraordinary dream of Mrs. Alipao which supposedly revealed to her the place where her son's body lay.

. The three accused were separately arraigned, and after they all entered a plea of not guilty, trial ensued. The Trial Court found Mosende guilty as a principal of the crime of murder, qualified by treachery, defined and penalized under Art. 248, par. 1 of the Revised Penal Code of Carlo Alipao, on the basis of circumstantial evidence, refusing to believe his alibi. ISSUE Whether or not the accused, Mosende is guilty of the crime of murder RULING YES. The law is that circumstantial evidence will support and justify a verdict of conviction if there be more than one circumstance, if the facts from which the inferences are derived are proven, and the combination of all the circumstances is such as to produce a conviction beyond reasonable doubt. These requisites are adequately met in this case at bar. There are several circumstances generating certitude of Mosende's guilt, these being: 1) it was in the shack of the family of Rudy Mosende that the corpse of Lelot Alipao bound hand and foot, head and upper body encased in a sack, dead from severe blows to the head from a blunt instrument was dug up from a shallow hole in the dirt floor; 2) the body had been buried in that place by Benceslao Resullar, Jr. and Fidelino Balaga some seven months earlier;

3) it was on the invitation and request of Rudy Mosende that Benceslao and Fidelino had gone to that shack and dug the hole themselves;

4) it was Rudy Mosende who showed them the cadaver of Lelot Alipao, lying in the toilet; and it was Rudy who told them to carry it to the hole and bury it there, and who bullied them into doing so when they initially demurred; 5) Mosende told them it was Lelot Alipao they were interring; 6) Mosende threatened to kill Benceslao and Fidelino and their parents if anyone should come to know of the evening's bizarre event; and because of their fear, the two exiled themselves in Surigao City, returning to Mainit only after they learned of Mosende's arrest; 7) when Lelot left his home for the last time, with two friends, it was allegedly to visit Rudy Mosende.

Vasquez, Michelle G. People vs. Martin PETITIONER: THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES RESPONDENT: ANICETO MARTIN G.R. No. L-3002 May 23, 1951 JUGO, J. (p) FACTS

Date Submitted: August 14, 2012

Aniceto Martin was accused of the complex crime of parricide with abortion before the Court of First Instance of Ilocos Norte. After trial he was acquitted of abortion, but found guilty of parricide and was sentenced to suffer the penalty of reclusion perpetua, to indemnify the heirs of the penalty of deceased in the sum of P2,000, with the accessory penalties of the law, and to pay the costs. He appealed. The defendant, twenty-eight years old, a farmer, was living in the barrio No. 12 of the municipality of Laoag, Ilocos Norte. He courted the girl Laura Liz of the same barrio for several months and was accepted. They had sexual intercourse before marriage and she became pregnant. In an advanced stage of pregnancy, she came to live with the family of the family of the defendant and demanded marriage, which was duly solemnized on June 7, 1948, and they continued to live as husband and wife. Between four and five o' clock in the morning of August 1, 1948, the corpse of Laura was found inside the family toilet, which was at a certain distance from their home, with a maguey rope, six meters long and one centimeter in diameter, around her neck, leaving a circular mark around it with the exception of the nape which was unmarked undoubtedly due to her long and thick hair covering it. The corpse was first seen by Anselma Martin, sister of the accused, who was living in the same house, and Saturnino Tumaneng, brother-in-law of Laura, who happened to be passing by. The defendant was absent from home. ISSUE Whether or not Martin is guilty of the crime of parricide RULING YES. In the case at bar, the trial court considered two mitigating circumstances in favor of the defendant: (1) that of unlawful aggression on the part of the deceased without any sufficient provocation on the part of the defendant which in this case is equivalent to incomplete self-defense on the part of the defendant, he should not have wound it around her neck and tightened it and (2) the lack of instruction, without any aggravating circumstances to offset them, the penalty next lower in the degree should be imposed, which is that of reclusion temporal. Judgment MODIFIED.

Vasquez, Michelle G. People vs. Quianzon PETITIONER: THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS RESPONDENT: JUAN QUIANZON, defendant-appellant. G.R. No. 42607 September 28, 1935 RECTO, J. (p) FACTS

Date Submitted: August 14, 2012

On February 1, 1934, a novena for the suffrage of the soul of the deceased person was being held in the house of Victoria Cacpal in a barrio, near the poblacion, of the municipality of Paoay, Ilocos Norte, with the usual attendance of the relatives and friends. The incident that led to the filling of these charges took place between 3 to 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Andres Aribuabo, one of the persons present, went to ask for food of Juan Quianzon, then in the kitchen, who, to all appearances, had the victuals in his care. It was the second or third time that Aribuabo approached Quianzon with the same purpose whereupon the latter, greatly peeved, took hold of a firebrand and applied ran to the place where the people were gathered exclaiming that he is wounded and was dying. Raising his shirt, he showed to those present a wound in his abdomen below the navel. Aribuabo died as a result of this wound on the tenth day after the incident. Juan Quianzon was charged with and convicted of the crime of homicide in the Court of First Instance of Ilocos Norte, and sentenced to an indeterminate penalty of from six years and one day of prision mayor, as minimum to fourteen years, seven months and one day of reclusion temporal, as maximum. It is contended by the defense that even granting that it was the accused who inflicted the wound which resulted in Aribuabo's death, he should not be convicted of homicide but only of serious physical injuries because said wound was not necessarily fatal and the deceased would have survived it had he not twice removed the drainage which Dr. Mendoza had placed to control or isolate the infection. ISSUE Whether or not the accused is criminally liable for the death of the Arubuabo RULING YES. According to the Court, the contention made by the defense is without merit. According to the physician who examined whether he could survive or not." It was a wound in the abdomen which occasionally results in traumatic peritonitis. The infection was cause by the fecal matter from the large intestine which has been perforated. The possibility, admitted by said physician that the patient might have survived said wound had he not removed the drainage, does not mean that the act of the patient was the real cause of his death. Even without said act the fatal consequence could have followed, and

the fact that the patient had so acted in a paroxysm of pain does not alter the juridical consequences of the punishable act of the accused. However, the Court also stated that assuming that it should disregard Simeon Cacpal's testimony (identifying Quianzon as the one who inflicted the wound), there is no evidence of record that the crime charged was committed by means of the knife, Exhibit A, and only have the extrajudicial admission of the accused that he had committed it by means of a bamboo spit with which the wound of the deceased might have been caused because, according to the physician who testified in this case, it was produced by a "sharp and penetrating" instrument. Hence, judgment was modified with the mitigating circumstances of lack of instruction and of intention to commit so grave a wrong as the committed, taken into consideration in favor of the appellant, without any aggravating circumstances adverse to him. In this view, the accused was sentenced to an indeterminate penalty with a minimum of four years of prision correccional and a maximum of a eight years of prision mayor, affirming it in all other respect, with cost to said appellant.

Vasquez, Michelle G. People vs. Marasigan PETITIONER: THE UNITED STATES RESPONDENT: FILOMENO MARASIGAN G.R. No. L-9426, August 15, 1914 MORELAND, J. (p) FACTS

Date Submitted: August 14, 2012

In this case it appears that about 4 oclock of the afternoon of the 23d of January, 1913, Francisco Mendoza, while engaged in examining his sugar crop growing upon his lands in the barrio of Irucan, now called Calayan, in the municipality of Taal, Batangas Province, was asked by the accused and his wife to approach them. The two had an argument and while doing so, the accused struck at Mendoza. On attempting to ward off the blow Mendoza was cut in the left hand. The accused continued the attack, whereupon Mendoza seized the accused by the neck and the body and threw him down. While both were lying upon the ground the accused still sought to strike Mendoza with his dagger. The latter seized the hand which held the dagger and attempted to loosen his hold upon it. While they were thus fighting for the possession of the knife, the wife of the accused came forward and took the dagger from her husbands hand, throwing it to one side. She then seized who after various maneuvers, struck Mendoza a blow which knocked him senseless. As a result of the fight Mendoza received three wounds, two in the chest and one in the left hand, the latter being the most serious, the extensor tendor in one of the seven days at a cost of about P45, but the middle finger of the left hand was rendered useless. The accused asserts that he should have a new trial upon the ground that if he should be given another opportunity to present evidence he would be able to show by a physician, Gregorio Limjoco, that the finger which the court found to have been rendered useless by the cut already described was not necessarily a useless member, inasmuch as, if the accused would permit a surgical operation, the finger could be restored to its normal condition. He also asserts that he could demonstrate by the physician referred to that it was not the middle finger that was disabled but the third finger instead. ISSUES (1) Whether or not a motion for a new trial due to reasons stated by the defendant should be granted (2) Whether or not the defendant is guilty of assault RULING (1) NO. The Court did not regard the case made as sufficient to warrant a new trial. It held that it is immaterial for the purposes of this case whether the finger, the usefulness of which was destroyed, was the middle finger or the third finger. All agree that one of the fingers of the

left hand was rendered useless by the act of the accused. It does not matter which finger it was. (2) YES. The Court held that it does not attach any importance to the contention that the original condition of the finger could be restored by a surgical operation to relieve the accused from the natural and ordinary results of his crime. It was his voluntary act which disabled Mendoza and he must abide by the consequences resulting therefrom without aid from Mendoza. The judgment appealed from is affirmed, with costs against the appellant.