the abdomen, pulled her hair and had also twisted her neck when said attorney, Leoncio Santos and Jose Enriquez separated petitioner and
respondent.
An attempt on the life of a person implies that the actor in the attempt is moved by an intention to kill the person against whom the attempt is
made, and after a careful examination of the evidence produced by appellant we cannot make up our mind to declare that the alleged
maltreatments of respondent to his wife were moved by such intent to kill. On the contrary, we share the opinion of the trial judge who declared
that said maltreatments cannot constitute attempts on the life of appellant as provided in Article 97, No.2, of the Civil Code of the Philippines.
From the second edition of the Revised Penal Code by Dean Vicente J. Francisco Book II, part 1, pp. 671-672 we copy the following:
In the prosecutions for frustrated or attempted homicide, the intention to take life must be proved with the same degree of certainty as is required
with respect to other elements of the crime, and the inference of such intent should not be drawn in the absence of circumstances sufficient to
prove such intention beyond reasonable doubt (People vs. Villanueva, 51 Phil., 448). It is absolutely necessary that the homicidal intent be
evidenced by adequate acts which at the time of their execution were unmistakably calculated to produce the death of the victim, since the crime of
frustrated or attempted homicide is one in which, more than in any other case, the penal law is based upon the material results produced by the
criminal act. It is not proper or just to attribute to the delinquent a specific intent to commit the higher crime in the absence of proof to justify such a
conclusion (U.S. vs. Taguibao, 1 Phil., 16). Conformably to this rule, therefore, an accused who, upon seeing a man plowing the land which was
the subject matter of a dispute, immediately attacks the latter, inflicting blows upon his neck with the back of the bolo, must be convicted of
physical injuries, and not of frustrated homicide, because the mere fact that the assault was committed with the back instead of the cutting edge of
the bolo negatives the idea of homicidal intent and precludes the crime from constituting frustrated homicide. (U.S. vs. Taguibao, 1 Phil., 16).
Nothing is more difficult to discover than intention, this being a mental act; we are only able to deduce it from the external acts performed by the
agent, and when these acts have naturally given a definite result, courts should not without clear and conclusive proof, hold that some other result
was intended (U.S. vs. Mendoza, 38 Phil., 691, 693)> It is always to be remembered that the first and simplest presumption which, as stated
above, the law draws with respect to human conduct, in connection with acts of violence, is that the actor intended the natural consequence of his
acts; and this presumption should be implied in a fair and rational way, with proper regard to all the details of the act, and without the suppression
of any of its elements. *** Likewise, where the accused inflicted a scalp wound with a hatchet and struck at his victim a second time, it should not
be inferred, from the mere fact that a hatchet in the hands of an infuriated man is a deadly weapon, that the accused really intended to kill (People
vs. Villanueva, 51 Phil., 488). When criminal liability is made to consist in the intention to perform an act which was not realized, the facts from
which it is claimed that intention sprang must be such as to exclude all contrary supposition. When this intention is not necessarily disclosed by the
acts performed by the defendant, greater importance should not be given to such acts than that which they in themselves import, nor should the
defendants liability be extended beyond that which is actually involved in the material results of the act. (U.S. vs Mendoza, 38 Phil., 691).
In the case of U.S. vs. Reyes et al., 30 Phil., 551, the Highest Tribunal of the land said the following:
Homicide; Criminal intent. When the case affords no good reason for holding that the assailants positively intended to kill the injured party in
spite of the persistent and repeated beatings they gave him, however much they plainly demonstrated their intention of doing him injury, by striking
him in an inhuman manner on various parts of his body, it is improper to classify the crime as either frustrated or attempted homicide. A personal
assault must be punished according to its consequences and the harm done to the victim, for the penal law in this class of crimes is only
concerned with the material results produced by the transgression, unless the perverse intention of taking the victims life be clearly manifested.
In the maltreatments complained of in this case, the respondent only used at most his bare fists or hands and desisted from giving further
chastisement after the first blows were given at the spur of the impulse. It is argued, however, that this is a civil case and that appellant is only
bound to prove her right of action by preponderance of evidence and not by evidence beyond reasonable doubt upon which a conviction for
attempted paricide would rest, and though we may, to a certain extent, agree with counsel for appellant on this point, yet we cannot help but
declare that in so far as the intent to kill is concerned, it must be established with clear and convincing evidence, and that in the case at bar said
intent has not been proved by such evidence. Petitioner-appellant herself should not have been so sure of her evidence when instead of the
present action she dared not cause the prosecution of her husband for attempted parricide as a means of establishing her right to secure the legal
separation she applies for in this case.
Wherefore, the decision appealed from, being in conformity with the law and the evidence of record, is hereby affirmed without pronouncement as
to costs.
It is so ordered.
Pea and Makalintal, JJ., concur.
Judgment affirmed.
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