Republic of the Philippines

SUPREME COURT
Manila

SECOND DIVISION

G.R. No. 96132 June 26, 1992

ORIEL MAGNO, petitioner,

vs.
HONORABLE COURT OF APPEALS and PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, respondents.

PARAS, J.:

This is an appeal by certiorari under Rule 45 of the Revised Rules of Court, from the decision* of the respondent Court of Appeals which affirmed in
toto the decision of the Regional Trial Court of Quezon City, Branch 104 finding the accused petitioner, guilty of violations of Batas Pambansa Blg. 22, in
Criminal Cases Q-35693 to 35696 before they were elevated on appeal to the respondent appellate Court under CA-G.R. CR No. 04889.

The antecedent facts and circumstances of the four (4) counts of the offense charged, have been clearly illustrated, in the Comment of the Office of the
Solicitor General as official counsel for the public respondent, thus:

Petitioner was in the process of putting up a car repair shop sometime in April 1983, but a did not have complete equipment that could make his venture
workable. He also had another problem, and that while he was going into this entrepreneurship, he lacked funds with which to purchase the necessary
equipment to make such business operational. Thus, petitioner, representing Ultra Sources International Corporation, approached Corazon Teng,
(private complainant) Vice President of Mancor Industries (hereinafter referred to as Mancor) for his needed car repair service equipment of which
Mancor was a distributor, (Rollo, pp. 40-41)

Having been approached by petitioner on his predicament, who fully bared that he had no sufficient funds to buy the equipment needed, the former
(Corazon Teng) referred Magno to LS Finance and Management Corporation (LB Finance for brevity) advising its Vice-President, Joey Gomez, that
Mancor was willing and able to supply the pieces of equipment needed if LS Finance could accommodate petitioner and provide him credit facilities.
(Ibid., P. 41)

The arrangement went through on condition that petitioner has to put up a warranty deposit equivalent to thirtyper centum (30%) of the total value of the
pieces of equipment to be purchased, amounting to P29,790.00. Since petitioner could not come up with such amount, he requested Joey Gomez on a
personal level to look for a third party who could lend him the equivalent amount of the warranty deposit, however, unknown to petitioner, it was Corazon
Teng who advanced the deposit in question, on condition that the same would be paid as a short term loan at 3% interest (Ibid., P. 41)

The specific provision in the Leasing Agreement, reads:

1.1. WARRANTY DEPOSIT — Before or upon delivery of each item of Equipment, the Lessee shall deposit with the Lessor such
sum or sums specified in Schedule A to serve as security for the faithful performance of its obligations.

This deposit shall be refunded to the Lessee upon the satisfactory completion of the entire period of Lease, subject to the conditions
of clause 1.12 of this Article. (Ibid., p. 17)

As part of the arrangement, petitioner and LS Finance entered into a leasing agreement whereby LS Finance would lease the garage equipments and
petitioner would pay the corresponding rent with the option to buy the same. After the documentation was completed, the equipment were delivered to
petitioner who in turn issued a postdated check and gave it to Joey Gomez who, unknown to the petitioner, delivered the same to Corazon Teng. When
the check matured, Petitioner requested through Joey Gomez not to deposit the check as he (Magno) was no longer banking with Pacific Bank.

To replace the first check issued, petitioner issued another set of six (6) postdated checks. Two (2) checks dated July 29, 1983 were deposited and
cleared while the four (4) others, which were the subject of the four counts of the aforestated charges subject of the petition, were held momentarily by
Corazon Teng, on the request of Magno as they were not covered with sufficient funds. These checks were a) Piso Bank Check Nos. 006858, dated
August 15, 1983, 006859 dated August 28, 1983 and 006860 dated September 15, 1983, all in the amount of P5,038.43 and No. 006861 dated
September 28, 1983, in the amount of P10,076.87. (Ibid., pp. 42 & 43).

Subsequently, petitioner could not pay LS Finance the monthly rentals, thus it pulled out the garage equipments. It was then on this occasion that
petitioner became aware that Corazon Teng was the one who advanced the warranty deposit. Petitioner with his wife went to see Corazon Teng and
promised to pay the latter but the payment never came and when the four (4) checks were deposited they were returned for the reason "account closed."
(Ibid., p. 43)

After joint trial before the Regional Trial Court of Quezon City, Branch 104, the accused-petitioner was convicted for violations of BP Blg. 22 on the four
(4) cases, as follows:
 . . . finding the accused-appellant guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the offense of violations of B.P. Blg. 22 and sentencing the
accused to imprisonment for one year in each Criminal Case Nos. Q-35693, Q-35695 and Q-35696 and to pay to complainant the
respective amounts reflected in subject checks. (Ibid., pp. 25, 27)

Reviewing the above and the affirmation of the above-stated decision of the court a quo, this Court is intrigued about the outcome of the checks subject
of the cases which were intended by the parties, the petitioner on the one hand and the private complainant on the other, to cover the "warranty deposit"
equivalent to the 30% requirement of the financing company. Corazon Teng is one of the officers of Mancor, the supplier of the equipment subject of the
Leasing Agreement subject of the high financing scheme undertaken by the petitioner as lessee of the repair service equipment, which was arranged at
the instance of Mrs. Teng from the very beginning of the transaction.

By the nature of the "warranty deposit" amounting to P29,790.00 corresponding to 30% of the "purchase/lease" value of the equipments subject of the
transaction, it is obvious that the "cash out" made by Mrs. Teng was not used by petitioner who was just paying rentals for the equipment. It would have
been different if petitioner opted to purchase the pieces of equipment on or about the termination of the lease-purchase agreement in which case he had
to pay the additional amount of the warranty deposit which should have formed part of the purchase price. As the transaction did not ripen into a
purchase, but remained a lease with rentals being paid for the loaned equipment, which were pulled out by the Lessor (Mancor) when the petitioner
failed to continue paying possibly due to economic constraints or business failure, then it is lawful and just that the warranty deposit should not be
charged against the petitioner.

To charge the petitioner for the refund of a "warranty deposit" which he did not withdraw as it was not his own account, it having remained with LS
Finance, is to even make him pay an unjust "debt", to say the least, since petitioner did not receive the amount in question. All the while, said amount
was in the safekeeping of the financing company, which is managed, supervised and operated by the corporation officials and employees of LS Finance.
Petitioner did not even know that the checks he issued were turned over by Joey Gomez to Mrs. Teng, whose operation was kept from his knowledge on
her instruction. This fact alone evoke suspicion that the transaction is irregular and immoral per se, hence, she specifically requested Gomez not to
divulge the source of the "warranty deposit".

It is intriguing to realize that Mrs. Teng did not want the petitioner to know that it was she who "accommodated" petitioner's request for Joey Gomez, to
source out the needed funds for the "warranty deposit". Thus it unfolds the kind of transaction that is shrouded with mystery, gimmickry and doubtful
legality. It is in simple language, a scheme whereby Mrs. Teng as the supplier of the equipment in the name of her corporation, Mancor, would be able to
"sell or lease" its goods as in this case, and at the same time, privately financing those who desperately need petty accommodations as this one.
This modus operandi has in so many instances victimized unsuspecting businessmen, who likewise need protection from the law, by availing of the
deceptively called "warranty deposit" not realizing that they also fall prey to leasing equipment under the guise of a lease-purchase agreement when it is
a scheme designed to skim off business clients.

This maneuvering has serious implications especially with respect to the threat of the penal sanction of the law in issue, as in this case. And, with a
willing court system to apply the full harshness of the special law in question, using the "mala prohibitia" doctrine, the noble objective of the law is tainted
with materialism and opportunism in the highest, degree.

This angle is bolstered by the fact that since the petitioner or lessee referred to above in the lease agreement knew that the amount of P29,790.00
subject of the cases, were mere accommodation-arrangements with somebody thru Joey Gomez, petitioner did not even attempt to secure the refund of
said amount from LS Finance, notwithstanding the agreement provision to the contrary. To argue that after the termination of the lease agreement, the
warranty deposit should be refundable in full to Mrs. Teng by petitioner when he did not cash out the "warranty deposit" for his official or personal use, is
to stretch the nicety of the alleged law (B.P. No, 22) violated.

For all intents and purposes, the law was devised to safeguard the interest of the banking system and the legitimate public checking account user. It did
not intend to shelter or favor nor encourage users of the system to enrich themselves through manipulations and circumvention of the noble purpose and
objective of the law. Least should it be used also as a means of jeopardizing honest-to-goodness transactions with some color of "get-rich" scheme to
the prejudice of well-meaning businessmen who are the pillars of society.

Under the utilitarian theory, the "protective theory" in criminal law, "affirms that the primary function of punishment is the protective (sic) of
society against actual and potential wrongdoers." It is not clear whether petitioner could be considered as having actually committed the wrong sought to
be punished in the offense charged, but on the other hand, it can be safely said that the actuations of Mrs. Carolina Teng amount to that of potential
wrongdoers whose operations should also be clipped at some point in time in order that the unwary public will not be failing prey to such a vicious
transaction (Aquino, The Revised Penal Code, 1987 Edition, Vol. I, P. 11)

Corollary to the above view, is the application of the theory that "criminal law is founded upon that moral disapprobation . . . of actions which are
immoral, i.e., which are detrimental (or dangerous) to those conditions upon which depend the existence and progress of human society. This
disappropriation is inevitable to the extent that morality is generally founded and built upon a certain concurrence in the moral opinions of all. . . . That
which we call punishment is only an external means of emphasizing moral disapprobation the method of punishment is in reality the amount of
punishment," (Ibid., P. 11, citing People v. Roldan Zaballero, CA 54 O.G. 6904, Note also Justice Pablo's view in People v. Piosca and Peremne, 86
Phil. 31).

Thus, it behooves upon a court of law that in applying the punishment imposed upon the accused, the objective of retribution of a wronged society,
should be directed against the "actual and potential wrongdoers." In the instant case, there is no doubt that petitioner's four (4) checks were used to
collateralize an accommodation, and not to cover the receipt of an actual "account or credit for value" as this was absent, and therefore petitioner should
not be punished for mere issuance of the checks in question. Following the aforecited theory, in petitioner's stead the "potential wrongdoer", whose
operation could be a menace to society, should not be glorified by convicting the petitioner.

While in case of doubt, the case should have been resolved in favor of the accused, however, by the open admission of the appellate court below, oven
when the ultimate beneficiary of the "warranty deposit" is of doubtful certainty, the accused was convicted, as shown below:

Nor do We see any merit in appellant's claim that the obligation of the accused to complainant had been extinguished by the
termination of the leasing agreement — by the terms of which the warranty deposit advanced by complainant was refundable to the
 accused as lessee — and that as the lessor L.S. Finance neither made any liquidation of said amount nor returned the same to the
accused, it may he assumed that the amount was already returned to the complainant. For these allegations, even if true, do not
change the fact, admitted by appellant and established by the evidence, that the four checks were originally issued on account or for
value. And as We have already observed, in order that there may be a conviction under the from paragraph of Section 2 of B.P. Blg
22 — with respect to the element of said offense that the check should have been made and issued on account or for value — it is
sufficient, all the other elements of the offense being present, that the check must have been drawn and issued in payment of an
obligation.

Moreover, even granting, arguendo, that the extinguishment, after the issuance of the checks, of the obligation in consideration of
which the checks were issued, would have resulted in placing the case at bar beyond the purview of the prohibition in Section 1 of
BP Blg. 22, there is no satisfactory proof that there was such an extinguishment in the present case. Appellee aptly points out that
appellant had not adduced any direct evidence to prove that the amount advanced by the complainant to cover the warranty deposit
must already have been returned to her. (Rollo, p. 30)

It is indubitable that the respondent Court of Appeals even disregarded the cardinal rule that the accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty
beyond reasonable doubt. On the contrary, the same court even expected the petitioner-appellant to adduce evidence to show that he was not guilty of
the crime charged. But how can be produce documents showing that the warranty deposit has already been taken back by Mrs. Teng when she is an
officer of Mancor which has interest in the transaction, besides being personally interested in the profit of her side-line. Thus, even if she may have
gotten back the value of the accommodation, she would still pursue collecting from the petitioner since she had in her possession the checks that
"bounced".

That the court a quo merely relied on the law, without looking into the real nature of the warranty deposit is evident from the following pronouncement:

And the trail court concluded that there is no question that the accused violated BP Blg. 22, which is a special statutory law,
violations of which are mala prohibita. The court relied on the rule that in cases of mala prohibita, the only inquiry is whether or not
the law had been violated, proof of criminal intent not being necessary for the conviction of the accused, the acts being prohibited for
reasons of public policy and the defenses of good faith and absence of criminal intent being unavailing in prosecutions for said
offenses." (Ibid., p. 26)

The crux of the matter rests upon the reason for the drawing of the postdated checks by the petitioner, i.e.,whether they were drawn or issued "to apply
on account or for value", as required under Section 1 of B.P. Blg, 22. When viewed against the following definitions of the catch-terms "warranty" and
"deposit", for which the postdated checks were issued or drawn, all the more, the alleged crime could not have been committed by petitioner:

a) Warranty — A promise that a proposition of fact is true. A promise that certain facts are truly as they are represented to be and
that they will remain so: . . . (Black's Law Dictionary, Fifth Edition, (1979) p. 1423)

A cross-reference to the following term shows:

Fitness for Particular Purpose: —

Where the seller at the time of contracting has reason to know any particular purpose for which the goods are required and that the
buyer is relying on the seller's skill or judgment to select or furnish suitable goods, there is, unless excluded or modified, an implied
warranty that the goods shall be fit for such purpose, (Ibid., p. 573)

b) Deposit: — Money lodged with a person as an earnest or security for the performance of some contract, to be forfeited if the
depositor fails in his undertaking. It may be deemed to be part payment and to that extent may constitute the purchaser the actual
owner of the estate.

To commit to custody, or to lay down; to place; to put. To lodge for safe- keeping or as a pledge to intrust to the care of another.

The act of placing money in the custody of a bank or banker, for safety or convenience, to be withdrawn at the will of the depositor
or under rules and regulations agreed on. Also, the money so deposited, or the credit which the depositor receives for it. Deposit,
according to its commonly accepted and generally understood among bankers and by the public, includes not only deposits payable
on demand and for which certificates, whether interest-bearing or not, may be issued, payable on demand, or on certain notice or at
a fixed future time. (Ibid., pp. 394-395)

Furthermore, the element of "knowing at the time of issue that he does not have sufficient funds in or credit with the drawee bank for the payment of
such check in full upon its presentment, which check is subsequently dishonored by the drawee bank for insufficiency of funds or credit or would have
been dishonored for the same reason . . . is inversely applied in this case. From the very beginning, petitioner never hid the fact that he did not have the
funds with which to put up the warranty deposit and as a matter of fact, he openly intimated this to the vital conduit of the transaction, Joey Gomez, to
whom petitioner was introduced by Mrs. Teng. It would have been different if this predicament was not communicated to all the parties he dealt with
regarding the lease agreement the financing of which was covered by L.S. Finance Management.

WHEREFORE, the appealed decision is REVERSED and the accused-petitioner is hereby ACQUITTED of the crime charged.

SO ORDERED.
 FIRST DIVISION

[G.R. No. 125865. March 26, 2001]

JEFFREY LIANG (HUEFENG), petitioner, vs. PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, respondent.

RESOLUTION

YNARES-SANTIAGO, J.:

This resolves petitioners Motion for Reconsideration of our Decision dated January 28, 2000, denying the petition for review.

The Motion is anchored on the following arguments:

1) THE DFAS DETERMINATION OF IMMUNITY IS A POLITICAL QUESTION TO BE MADE BY THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH OF THE
GOVERNMENT AND IS CONCLUSIVE UPON THE COURTS.

2) THE IMMUNITY OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS IS ABSOLUTE.

3) THE IMMUNITY EXTENDS TO ALL STAFF OF THE ASIAN DEVELOPMENT BANK (ADB).

4) DUE PROCESS WAS FULLY AFFORDED THE COMPLAINANT TO REBUT THE DFA PROTOCOL.

5) THE DECISION OF JANUARY 28, 2000 ERRONEOUSLY MADE A FINDING OF FACT ON THE MERITS, NAMELY, THE SLANDERING OF
A PERSON WHICH PREJUDGED PETITIONERS CASE BEFORE THE METROPOLITAN TRIAL COURT (MTC)-MANDALUYONG.

6) THE VIENNA CONVENTION ON DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS IS NOT APPLICABLE TO THIS CASE.

This case has its origin in two criminal Informations[1] for grave oral defamation filed against petitioner, a Chinese national who was employed as an Economist
by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), alleging that on separate occasions on January 28 and January 31, 1994, petitioner allegedly uttered defamatory words to Joyce
V. Cabal, a member of the clerical staff of ADB. On April 13, 1994, the Metropolitan Trial Court of Mandaluyong City, acting pursuant to an advice from the
Department of Foreign Affairs that petitioner enjoyed immunity from legal processes, dismissed the criminal Informations against him. On a petition for certiorari and
mandamus filed by the People, the Regional Trial Court of Pasig City, Branch 160, annulled and set aside the order of the Metropolitan Trial Court dismissing the
criminal cases.[2]

Petitioner, thus, brought a petition for review with this Court. On January 28, 2000, we rendered the assailed Decision denying the petition for review. We ruled,
in essence, that the immunity granted to officers and staff of the ADB is not absolute; it is limited to acts performed in an official capacity. Furthermore, we held that
the immunity cannot cover the commission of a crime such as slander or oral defamation in the name of official duty.

On October 18, 2000, the oral arguments of the parties were heard. This Court also granted the Motion for Intervention of the Department of Foreign
Affairs. Thereafter, the parties were directed to submit their respective memorandum.

For the most part, petitioners Motion for Reconsideration deals with the diplomatic immunity of the ADB, its officials and staff, from legal and judicial processes
in the Philippines, as well as the constitutional and political bases thereof. It should be made clear that nowhere in the assailed Decision is diplomatic immunity denied,
even remotely. The issue in this case, rather, boils down to whether or not the statements allegedly made by petitioner were uttered while in the performance of his
official functions, in order for this case to fall squarely under the provisions of Section 45 (a) of the Agreement Between the Asian Development Bank and the
Government of the Republic of the Philippines Regarding the Headquarters of the Asian Development Bank, to wit:

Officers ands staff of the Bank, including for the purpose of this Article experts and consultants performing missions for the Bank, shall enjoy the following privileges
and immunities:

(a) Immunity from legal process with respect to acts performed by them in their official capacity except when the Bank waives the immunity.

After a careful deliberation of the arguments raised in petitioners and intervenors Motions for Reconsideration, we find no cogent reason to disturb our Decision
of January 28, 2000. As we have stated therein, the slander of a person, by any stretch, cannot be considered as falling within the purview of the immunity granted to
ADB officers and personnel. Petitioner argues that the Decision had the effect of prejudging the criminal case for oral defamation against him. We wish to stress that it
did not. What we merely stated therein is that slander, in general, cannot be considered as an act performed in an official capacity. The issue of whether or not
petitioners utterances constituted oral defamation is still for the trial court to determine.

WHEREFORE, in view of the foregoing, the Motions for Reconsideration filed by petitioner and intervenor Department of Foreign Affairs are DENIED with
FINALITY.

SO ORDERED.
 EN BANC

[G.R. No. 149453. April 1, 2003]

PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, THE SECRETARY OF JUSTICE, DIRECTOR GENERAL OF THE PHILIPPINE NATIONAL POLICE, CHIEF STATE
PROSECUTOR JOVENCITO ZUO, STATE PROSECUTORS PETER L. ONG and RUBEN A. ZACARIAS; 2ND ASSISTANT CITY
PROSECUTOR CONRADO M. JAMOLIN and CITY PROSECUTOR OF QUEZON CITY CLARO ARELLANO, petitioners, vs. PANFILO M.
LACSON, respondent.

RESOLUTION

CALLEJO, SR., J.:

Before the Court is the petitioners Motion for Reconsideration[1] of the Resolution[2] dated May 28, 2002, remanding this case to the Regional Trial
Court (RTC) of Quezon City, Branch 81, for the determination of several factual issues relative to the application of Section 8 of Rule 117 of the Revised
Rules of Criminal Procedure on the dismissal of Criminal Cases Nos. Q-99-81679 to Q-99-81689 filed against the respondent and his co-accused with
the said court. In the aforesaid criminal cases, the respondent and his co-accused were charged with multiple murder for the shooting and killing of
eleven male persons identified as Manuel Montero, a former Corporal of the Philippine Army, Rolando Siplon, Sherwin Abalora, who was 16 years old,
Ray Abalora, who was 19 years old, Joel Amora, Jevy Redillas, Meleubren Sorronda, who was 14 years old, [3] Pacifico Montero, Jr., of the 44th Infantry
Batallion of the Philippine Army, Welbor Elcamel, SPO1 Carlito Alap-ap of the Zamboanga PNP, and Alex Neri, former Corporal of the 44th Infantry
Batallion of the Philippine Army, bandied as members of the Kuratong Baleleng Gang. The respondent opposed petitioners motion for reconsideration.[4]

The Court ruled in the Resolution sought to be reconsidered that the provisional dismissal of Criminal Cases Nos. Q-99-81679 to Q-99-81689
were with the express consent of the respondent as he himself moved for said provisional dismissal when he filed his motion for judicial determination of
probable cause and for examination of witnesses. The Court also held therein that although Section 8, Rule 117 of the Revised Rules of Criminal
Procedure could be given retroactive effect, there is still a need to determine whether the requirements for its application are attendant. The trial court
was thus directed to resolve the following:

... (1) whether the provisional dismissal of the cases had the express consent of the accused; (2) whether it was ordered by the court after notice to the offended party;
(3) whether the 2-year period to revive it has already lapsed; (4) whether there is any justification for the filing of the cases beyond the 2-year period; (5) whether
notices to the offended parties were given before the cases of respondent Lacson were dismissed by then Judge Agnir; (6) whether there were affidavits of desistance
executed by the relatives of the three (3) other victims; (7) whether the multiple murder cases against respondent Lacson are being revived within or beyond the 2-year
bar.

The Court further held that the reckoning date of the two-year bar had to be first determined whether it shall be from the date of the order of then
Judge Agnir, Jr. dismissing the cases, or from the dates of receipt thereof by the various offended parties, or from the date of effectivity of the new
rule. According to the Court, if the cases were revived only after the two-year bar, the State must be given the opportunity to justify its failure to comply
with the said time-bar. It emphasized that the new rule fixes a time-bar to penalize the State for its inexcusable delay in prosecuting cases already filed
in court. However, the State is not precluded from presenting compelling reasons to justify the revival of cases beyond the two-year bar.

In support of their Motion for Reconsideration, the petitioners contend that (a) Section 8, Rule 117 of the Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure is
not applicable to Criminal Cases Nos. Q-99-81679 to Q-99-81689; and (b) the time-bar in said rule should not be applied retroactively.

The Court shall resolve the issues seriatim.

I. SECTION 8, RULE 117 OF THE REVISED RULES OF CRIMINAL PROCEDURE IS NOT APPLICABLE TO CRIMINAL CASES NOS. Q-99-81679 TO Q-99-
81689.

The petitioners aver that Section 8, Rule 117 of the Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure is not applicable to Criminal Cases Nos. Q-99-81679 to
Q-99-81689 because the essential requirements for its application were not present when Judge Agnir, Jr., issued his resolution of March 29,
1999. Disagreeing with the ruling of the Court, the petitioners maintain that the respondent did not give his express consent to the dismissal by Judge
Agnir, Jr., of Criminal Cases Nos. Q-99-81679 to Q-99-81689. The respondent allegedly admitted in his pleadings filed with the Court of Appeals and
during the hearing thereat that he did not file any motion to dismiss said cases, or even agree to a provisional dismissal thereof. Moreover, the heirs of
the victims were allegedly not given prior notices of the dismissal of the said cases by Judge Agnir, Jr. According to the petitioners, the respondents
express consent to the provisional dismissal of the cases and the notice to all the heirs of the victims of the respondents motion and the hearing thereon
are conditions sine qua non to the application of the time-bar in the second paragraph of the new rule.

The petitioners further submit that it is not necessary that the case be remanded to the RTC to determine whether private complainants were
notified of the March 22, 1999 hearing on the respondents motion for judicial determination of the existence of probable cause. The records allegedly
indicate clearly that only the handling city prosecutor was furnished a copy of the notice of hearing on said motion. There is allegedly no evidence that
private prosecutor Atty. Godwin Valdez was properly retained and authorized by all the private complainants to represent them at said hearing. It is their
contention that Atty. Valdez merely identified the purported affidavits of desistance and that he did not confirm the truth of the allegations therein.

The respondent, on the other hand, insists that, as found by the Court in its Resolution and Judge Agnir, Jr. in his resolution, the respondent
himself moved for the provisional dismissal of the criminal cases. He cites the resolution of Judge Agnir, Jr. stating that the respondent and the other
accused filed separate but identical motions for the dismissal of the criminal cases should the trial court find no probable cause for the issuance of
warrants of arrest against them.

The respondent further asserts that the heirs of the victims, through the public and private prosecutors, were duly notified of said motion and the
hearing thereof. He contends that it was sufficient that the public prosecutor was present during the March 22, 1999 hearing on the motion for judicial
determination of the existence of probable cause because criminal actions are always prosecuted in the name of the People, and the private
complainants merely prosecute the civil aspect thereof.

The Court has reviewed the records and has found the contention of the petitioners meritorious.

Section 8, Rule 117 of the Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure reads:

Sec. 8. Provisional dismissal. A case shall not be provisionally dismissed except with the express consent of the accused and with notice to the offended party.

The provisional dismissal of offenses punishable by imprisonment not exceeding six (6) years or a fine of any amount, or both, shall become permanent one (1) year
after issuance of the order without the case having been revived. With respect to offenses punishable by imprisonment of more than six (6) years, their provisional
dismissal shall become permanent two (2) years after issuance of the order without the case having been revived.

Having invoked said rule before the petitioners-panel of prosecutors and before the Court of Appeals, the respondent is burdened to establish the
essential requisites of the first paragraph thereof, namely:

1. the prosecution with the express conformity of the accused or the accused moves for a provisional (sin perjuicio) dismissal of the case; or both the prosecution and
the accused move for a provisional dismissal of the case;

2. the offended party is notified of the motion for a provisional dismissal of the case;

3. the court issues an order granting the motion and dismissing the case provisionally;

4. the public prosecutor is served with a copy of the order of provisional dismissal of the case.

The foregoing requirements are conditions sine qua non to the application of the time-bar in the second paragraph of the new rule. The raison d
etre for the requirement of the express consent of the accused to a provisional dismissal of a criminal case is to bar him from subsequently asserting that
the revival of the criminal case will place him in double jeopardy for the same offense or for an offense necessarily included therein.[5]

Although the second paragraph of the new rule states that the order of dismissal shall become permanent one year after the issuance thereof
without the case having been revived, the provision should be construed to mean that the order of dismissal shall become permanent one year after
service of the order of dismissal on the public prosecutor who has control of the prosecution [6] without the criminal case having been revived. The public
prosecutor cannot be expected to comply with the timeline unless he is served with a copy of the order of dismissal.

Express consent to a provisional dismissal is given either viva voce or in writing. It is a positive, direct, unequivocal consent requiring no inference
or implication to supply its meaning.[7]Where the accused writes on the motion of a prosecutor for a provisional dismissal of the case No
objection or With my conformity, the writing amounts to express consent of the accused to a provisional dismissal of the case.[8] The mere inaction or
silence of the accused to a motion for a provisional dismissal of the case[9] or his failure to object to a provisional dismissal[10]does not amount to express
consent.

A motion of the accused for a provisional dismissal of a case is an express consent to such provisional dismissal. [11] If a criminal case is
provisionally dismissed with the express consent of the accused, the case may be revived only within the periods provided in the new rule. On the other
hand, if a criminal case is provisionally dismissed without the express consent of the accused or over his objection, the new rule would not apply. The
case may be revived or refiled even beyond the prescribed periods subject to the right of the accused to oppose the same on the ground of double
jeopardy[12] or that such revival or refiling is barred by the statute of limitations. [13]

The case may be revived by the State within the time-bar either by the refiling of the Information or by the filing of a new Information for the same
offense or an offense necessarily included therein. There would be no need of a new preliminary investigation.[14] However, in a case wherein after the
provisional dismissal of a criminal case, the original witnesses of the prosecution or some of them may have recanted their testimonies or may have died
or may no longer be available and new witnesses for the State have emerged, a new preliminary investigation [15] must be conducted before an
Information is refiled or a new Information is filed. A new preliminary investigation is also required if aside from the original accused, other persons are
charged under a new criminal complaint for the same offense or necessarily included therein; or if under a new criminal complaint, the original charge
has been upgraded; or if under a new criminal complaint, the criminal liability of the accused is upgraded from that as an accessory to that as a
principal. The accused must be accorded the right to submit counter-affidavits and evidence. After all, the fiscal is not called by the Rules of Court to wait
in ambush; the role of a fiscal is not mainly to prosecute but essentially to do justice to every man and to assist the court in dispensing that justice.[16]

In this case, the respondent has failed to prove that the first and second requisites of the first paragraph of the new rule were present when Judge
Agnir, Jr. dismissed Criminal Cases Nos. Q-99-81679 to Q-99-81689. Irrefragably, the prosecution did not file any motion for the provisional dismissal of
the said criminal cases. For his part, the respondent merely filed a motion for judicial determination of probable cause and for examination of prosecution
witnesses alleging that under Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution and the decision of this Court inAllado v. Diokno,[17] among other cases, there was a
need for the trial court to conduct a personal determination of probable cause for the issuance of a warrant of arrest against respondent and to have the
prosecutions witnesses summoned before the court for its examination. The respondent contended therein that until after the trial court shall have
personally determined the presence of probable cause, no warrant of arrest should be issued against the respondent and if one had already been
issued, the warrant should be recalled by the trial court. He then prayed therein that:

1) a judicial determination of probable cause pursuant to Section 2, Article III of the Constitution be conducted by this Honorable Court, and for this purpose, an order
be issued directing the prosecution to present the private complainants and their witnesses at a hearing scheduled therefor; and

2) warrants for the arrest of the accused-movants be withheld, or, if issued, recalled in the meantime until the resolution of this incident.

Other equitable reliefs are also prayed for.[18]

 The respondent did not pray for the dismissal, provisional or otherwise, of Criminal Cases Nos. Q-99-81679 to Q-99-81689. Neither did he ever
agree, impliedly or expressly, to a mere provisional dismissal of the cases. In fact, in his reply filed with the Court of Appeals, respondent emphasized
that:

... An examination of the Motion for Judicial Determination of Probable Cause and for Examination of Prosecution Witnesses filed by the petitioner and his other co-
accused in the said criminal cases would show that the petitioner did not pray for the dismissal of the case. On the contrary, the reliefs prayed for therein by the
petitioner are: (1) a judicial determination of probable cause pursuant to Section 2, Article III of the Constitution; and (2) that warrants for the arrest of the accused be
withheld, or if issued, recalled in the meantime until the resolution of the motion. It cannot be said, therefore, that the dismissal of the case was made with the consent
of the petitioner. A copy of the aforesaid motion is hereto attached and made integral part hereof as Annex A. [19]

During the hearing in the Court of Appeals on July 31, 2001, the respondent, through counsel, categorically, unequivocally, and definitely declared
that he did not file any motion to dismiss the criminal cases nor did he agree to a provisional dismissal thereof, thus:

JUSTICE SALONGA:

And it is your stand that the dismissal made by the Court was provisional in nature?

ATTY. FORTUN:

It was in (sic) that the accused did not ask for it. What they wanted at the onset was simply a judicial determination of probable
cause for warrants of arrest issued. Then Judge Agnir, upon the presentation by the parties of their witnesses, particularly those
who had withdrawn their affidavits, made one further conclusion that not only was this case lacking in probable cause for purposes of
the issuance of an arrest warrant but also it did not justify proceeding to trial.

JUSTICE SALONGA:

And it is expressly provided under Section 8 that a case shall not be provisionally dismissed except when it is with the express conformity
of the accused.

ATTY. FORTUN:

That is correct, Your Honor.

JUSTICE SALONGA:

And with notice to the offended party.

ATTY. FORTUN:

That is correct, Your Honor.

JUSTICE SALONGA:

Was there an express conformity on the part of the accused?

ATTY. FORTUN:

There was none, Your Honor. We were not asked to sign any order, or any statement, which would normally be required by the
Court on pre-trial or on other matters, including other provisional dismissal. My very limited practice in criminal courts, Your
Honor, had taught me that a judge must be very careful on this matter of provisional dismissal. In fact they ask the accused to come
forward, and the judge himself or herself explains the implications of a provisional dismissal. Pumapayag ka ba dito. Puwede bang
pumirma ka?

JUSTICE ROSARIO:

You were present during the proceedings?

ATTY. FORTUN:

Yes, Your Honor.

JUSTICE ROSARIO:

You represented the petitioner in this case?

ATTY. FORTUN:

That is correct, Your Honor. And there was nothing of that sort which the good Judge Agnir, who is most knowledgeable in
criminal law, had done in respect of provisional dismissal or the matter of Mr. Lacson agreeing to the provisional dismissal
of the case.

JUSTICE GUERRERO:

Now, you filed a motion, the other accused then filed a motion for a judicial determination of probable cause?

ATTY. FORTUN:

Yes, Your Honor.

JUSTICE GUERRERO:

Did you make any alternative prayer in your motion that if there is no probable cause what should the Court do?
 ATTY. FORTUN:

That the arrest warrants only be withheld. That was the only prayer that we asked. In fact, I have a copy of that particular motion, and
if I may read my prayer before the Court, it said: Wherefore, it is respectfully prayed that (1) a judicial determination of probable
cause pursuant to Section 2, Article III of the Constitution be conducted, and for this purpose, an order be issued directing the
prosecution to present the private complainants and their witnesses at the scheduled hearing for that purpose; and (2) the warrants
for the arrest of the accused be withheld, or, if issued, recalled in the meantime until resolution of this incident.

JUSTICE GUERRERO:

There is no general prayer for any further relief?

ATTY. FORTUN:

There is but it simply says other equitable reliefs are prayed for.

JUSTICE GUERRERO:

Dont you surmise Judge Agnir, now a member of this Court, precisely addressed your prayer for just and equitable relief to dismiss the
case because what would be the net effect of a situation where there is no warrant of arrest being issued without dismissing the
case?

ATTY. FORTUN:

Yes, Your Honor. I will not second say (sic) yes the Good Justice, but what is plain is we did not agree to the provisional
dismissal, neither were we asked to sign any assent to the provisional dismissal.

JUSTICE GUERRERO:

If you did not agree to the provisional dismissal did you not file any motion for reconsideration of the order of Judge Agnir that the case
should be dismissed?

ATTY. FORTUN:

I did not, Your Honor, because I knew fully well at that time that my client had already been arraigned, and the arraignment was
valid as far as I was concerned. So, the dismissal, Your Honor, by Judge Agnir operated to benefit me, and therefore I did
not take any further step in addition to rocking the boat or clarifying the matter further because it probably could prejudice
the interest of my client.

JUSTICE GUERRERO:

Continue.[20]

In his memorandum in lieu of the oral argument filed with the Court of Appeals, the respondent declared in no uncertain terms that:

Soon thereafter, the SC in early 1999 rendered a decision declaring the Sandiganbayan without jurisdiction over the cases. The records were remanded to the QC
RTC: Upon raffle, the case was assigned to Branch 81. Petitioner and the others promptly filed a motion for judicial determination of probable cause (Annex B). He
asked that warrants for his arrest not be issued. He did not move for the dismissal of the Informations, contrary to respondent OSGs claim.[21]

The respondents admissions made in the course of the proceedings in the Court of Appeals are binding and conclusive on him. The respondent is
barred from repudiating his admissions absent evidence of palpable mistake in making such admissions.[22]

To apply the new rule in Criminal Cases Nos. Q-99-81679 to Q-99-81689 would be to add to or make exceptions from the new rule which are not
expressly or impliedly included therein.This the Court cannot and should not do.[23]

The Court also agrees with the petitioners contention that no notice of any motion for the provisional dismissal of Criminal Cases Nos. Q-99-81679
to Q-99-81689 or of the hearing thereon was served on the heirs of the victims at least three days before said hearing as mandated by Rule 15, Section
4 of the Rules of Court. It must be borne in mind that in crimes involving private interests, the new rule requires that the offended party or parties or the
heirs of the victims must be given adequate a priori notice of any motion for the provisional dismissal of the criminal case. Such notice may be served on
the offended party or the heirs of the victim through the private prosecutor, if there is one, or through the public prosecutor who in turn must relay the
notice to the offended party or the heirs of the victim to enable them to confer with him before the hearing or appear in court during the hearing. The
proof of such service must be shown during the hearing on the motion, otherwise, the requirement of the new rule will become illusory. Such notice will
enable the offended party or the heirs of the victim the opportunity to seasonably and effectively comment on or object to the motion on valid grounds,
including: (a) the collusion between the prosecution and the accused for the provisional dismissal of a criminal case thereby depriving the State of its
right to due process; (b) attempts to make witnesses unavailable; or (c) the provisional dismissal of the case with the consequent release of the accused
from detention would enable him to threaten and kill the offended party or the other prosecution witnesses or flee from Philippine jurisdiction, provide
opportunity for the destruction or loss of the prosecutions physical and other evidence and prejudice the rights of the offended party to recover on the
civil liability of the accused by his concealment or furtive disposition of his property or the consequent lifting of the writ of preliminary attachment against
his property.

In the case at bar, even if the respondents motion for a determination of probable cause and examination of witnesses may be considered for the
nonce as his motion for a provisional dismissal of Criminal Cases Nos. Q-99-81679 to Q-99-81689, however, the heirs of the victims were not notified
thereof prior to the hearing on said motion on March 22, 1999. It must be stressed that the respondent filed his motion only on March 17, 1999 and set it
for hearing on March 22, 1999 or barely five days from the filing thereof. Although the public prosecutor was served with a copy of the motion, the
records do not show that notices thereof were separately given to the heirs of the victims or that subpoenae were issued to and received by them,
including those who executed their affidavits of desistance who were residents of Dipolog City or Pian, Zamboanga del Norte or Palompon,
Leyte.[24] There is as well no proof in the records that the public prosecutor notified the heirs of the victims of said motion or of the hearing thereof on
March 22, 1999. Although Atty. Valdez entered his appearance as private prosecutor,[25]he did so only for some but not all the close kins of the victims,
namely, Nenita Alap-ap, Imelda Montero, Margarita Redillas, Rufino Siplon, Carmelita Elcamel, Myrna Abalora, and Leonora Amora who (except for
Rufino Siplon)[26] executed their respective affidavits of desistance.[27] There was no appearance for the heirs of Alex Neri, Pacifico Montero, Jr., and
Meleubren Sorronda. There is no proof on record that all the heirs of the victims were served with copies of the resolution of Judge Agnir, Jr. dismissing
the said cases. In fine, there never was any attempt on the part of the trial court, the public prosecutor and/or the private prosecutor to notify all the heirs
of the victims of the respondents motion and the hearing thereon and of the resolution of Judge Agnir, Jr. dismissing said cases. The said heirs were
thus deprived of their right to be heard on the respondents motion and to protect their interests either in the trial court or in the appellate court.

Since the conditions sine qua non for the application of the new rule were not present when Judge Agnir, Jr. issued his resolution, the State is not
barred by the time limit set forth in the second paragraph of Section 8 of Rule 117 of the Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure. The State can thus revive
or refile Criminal Cases Nos. Q-99-81679 to Q-99-81689 or file new Informations for multiple murder against the respondent.

II. THE TIME-BAR IN SECTION 8, RULE 117 OF THE REVISED RULES OF CRIMINAL PROCEDURE SHOULD NOT BE APPLIED
RETROACTIVELY.

The petitioners contend that even on the assumption that the respondent expressly consented to a provisional dismissal of Criminal Cases Nos.
Q-99-81679 to Q-99-81689 and all the heirs of the victims were notified of the respondents motion before the hearing thereon and were served with
copies of the resolution of Judge Agnir, Jr. dismissing the eleven cases, the two-year bar in Section 8 of Rule 117 of the Revised Rules of Criminal
Procedure should be applied prospectively and not retroactively against the State. To apply the time limit retroactively to the criminal cases against the
respondent and his co-accused would violate the right of the People to due process, and unduly impair, reduce, and diminish the States substantive right
to prosecute the accused for multiple murder. They posit that under Article 90 of the Revised Penal Code, the State had twenty years within which to file
the criminal complaints against the accused. However, under the new rule, the State only had two years from notice of the public prosecutor of the order
of dismissal of Criminal Cases Nos. Q-99-81679 to Q-99-81689 within which to revive the said cases. When the new rule took effect on December 1,
2000, the State only had one year and three months within which to revive the cases or refile the Informations. The period for the State to charge
respondent for multiple murder under Article 90 of the Revised Penal Code was considerably and arbitrarily reduced. They submit that in case of conflict
between the Revised Penal Code and the new rule, the former should prevail. They also insist that the State had consistently relied on the prescriptive
periods under Article 90 of the Revised Penal Code. It was not accorded a fair warning that it would forever be barred beyond the two-year period by a
retroactive application of the new rule.[28] Petitioners thus pray to the Court to set aside its Resolution of May 28, 2002.

For his part, the respondent asserts that the new rule under Section 8 of Rule 117 of the Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure may be applied
retroactively since there is no substantive right of the State that may be impaired by its application to the criminal cases in question since [t]he States
witnesses were ready, willing and able to provide their testimony but the prosecution failed to act on these cases until it became politically expedient in
April 2001 for them to do so.[29] According to the respondent, penal laws, either procedural or substantive, may be retroactively applied so long as they
favor the accused.[30] He asserts that the two-year period commenced to run on March 29, 1999 and lapsed two years thereafter was more than
reasonable opportunity for the State to fairly indict him.[31] In any event, the State is given the right under the Courts assailed Resolution to justify the
filing of the Information in Criminal Cases Nos. 01-101102 to 01-101112 beyond the time-bar under the new rule.

The respondent insists that Section 8 of Rule 117 of the Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure does not broaden the substantive right of double
jeopardy to the prejudice of the State because the prohibition against the revival of the cases within the one-year or two-year periods provided therein is
a legal concept distinct from the prohibition against the revival of a provisionally dismissed case within the periods stated in Section 8 of Rule
117. Moreover, he claims that the effects of a provisional dismissal under said rule do not modify or negate the operation of the prescriptive period under
Article 90 of the Revised Penal Code. Prescription under the Revised Penal Code simply becomes irrelevant upon the application of Section 8, Rule 117
because a complaint or information has already been filed against the accused, which filing tolls the running of the prescriptive period under Article 90.[32]

The Court agrees with the respondent that the new rule is not a statute of limitations. Statutes of limitations are construed as acts of grace, and a
surrender by the sovereign of its right to prosecute or of its right to prosecute at its discretion. Such statutes are considered as equivalent to acts of
amnesty founded on the liberal theory that prosecutions should not be allowed to ferment endlessly in the files of the government to explode only after
witnesses and proofs necessary for the protection of the accused have by sheer lapse of time passed beyond availability. [33] The periods fixed under
such statutes are jurisdictional and are essential elements of the offenses covered. [34]

On the other hand, the time-bar under Section 8 of Rule 117 is akin to a special procedural limitation qualifying the right of the State to prosecute
making the time-bar an essence of the given right or as an inherent part thereof, so that the lapse of the time-bar operates to extinguish the right of the
State to prosecute the accused.[35]

The time-bar under the new rule does not reduce the periods under Article 90 of the Revised Penal Code, a substantive law.[36] It is but a limitation
of the right of the State to revive a criminal case against the accused after the Information had been filed but subsequently provisionally dismissed with
the express consent of the accused. Upon the lapse of the timeline under the new rule, the State is presumed, albeit disputably, to have abandoned or
waived its right to revive the case and prosecute the accused. The dismissal becomes ipso factopermanent. He can no longer be charged anew for the
same crime or another crime necessarily included therein.[37] He is spared from the anguish and anxiety as well as the expenses in any new
indictments.[38] The State may revive a criminal case beyond the one-year or two-year periods provided that there is a justifiable necessity for the
delay.[39] By the same token, if a criminal case is dismissed on motion of the accused because the trial is not concluded within the period therefor, the
prescriptive periods under the Revised Penal Code are not thereby diminished. [40] But whether or not the prosecution of the accused is barred by the
statute of limitations or by the lapse of the time-line under the new rule, the effect is basically the same. As the State Supreme Court of Illinois held:

This, in effect, enacts that when the specified period shall have arrived, the right of the state to prosecute shall be gone, and the liability of the offender to be punishedto
be deprived of his libertyshall cease. Its terms not only strike down the right of action which the state had acquired by the offense, but also remove the flaw which the
crime had created in the offenders title to liberty. In this respect, its language goes deeper than statutes barring civil remedies usually do. They expressly take away only
the remedy by suit, and that inferentially is held to abate the right which such remedy would enforce, and perfect the title which such remedy would invade; but this
statute is aimed directly at the very right which the state has against the offenderthe right to punish, as the only liability which the offender has incurred, and declares
that this right and this liability are at an end. [41]

The Court agrees with the respondent that procedural laws may be applied retroactively. As applied to criminal law, procedural law provides or
regulates the steps by which one who has committed a crime is to be punished. In Tan, Jr. v. Court of Appeals,[42] this Court held that:

Statutes regulating the procedure of the courts will be construed as applicable to actions pending and undetermined at the time of their passage. Procedural laws are
retroactive in that sense and to that extent.The fact that procedural statutes may somehow affect the litigants rights may not preclude their retroactive application to
pending actions. The retroactive application of procedural laws is not violative of any right of a person who may feel that he is adversely affected. Nor is the retroactive
application of procedural statutes constitutionally objectionable. The reason is that as a general rule no vested right may attach to, nor arise from, procedural laws. It has
been held that a person has no vested right in any particular remedy, and a litigant cannot insist on the application to the trial of his case, whether civil or criminal, of
any other than the existing rules of procedure.
 It further ruled therein that a procedural law may not be applied retroactively if to do so would work injustice or would involve intricate problems of
due process or impair the independence of the Court. In a per curiam decision in Cipriano v. City of Houma,[43] the United States Supreme Court ruled
that where a decision of the court would produce substantial inequitable results if applied retroactively, there is ample basis for avoiding the injustice of
hardship by a holding of nonretroactivity.[44] A construction of which a statute is fairly susceptible is favored, which will avoid all objectionable,
mischievous, indefensible, wrongful, and injurious consequences. [45] This Court should not adopt an interpretation of a statute which produces absurd,
unreasonable, unjust, or oppressive results if such interpretation could be avoided. [46] Time and again, this Court has decreed that statutes are to be
construed in light of the purposes to be achieved and the evils sought to be remedied. In construing a statute, the reason for the enactment should be
kept in mind and the statute should be construed with reference to the intended scope and purpose.[47]

Remedial legislation, or procedural rule, or doctrine of the Court designed to enhance and implement the constitutional rights of parties in criminal
proceedings may be applied retroactively or prospectively depending upon several factors, such as the history of the new rule, its purpose and effect,
and whether the retrospective application will further its operation, the particular conduct sought to be remedied and the effect thereon in the
administration of justice and of criminal laws in particular. [48] In a per curiam decision in Stefano v. Woods,[49] the United States Supreme Court
catalogued the factors in determining whether a new rule or doctrine enunciated by the High Court should be given retrospective or prospective effect:

(a) the purpose to be served by the new standards, (b) the extent of the reliance by law enforcement authorities on the old standards, and (c) the effect on the
administration of justice of a retroactive application of the new standards.

In this case, the Court agrees with the petitioners that the time-bar of two years under the new rule should not be applied retroactively against the
State.

In the new rule in question, as now construed by the Court, it has fixed a time-bar of one year or two years for the revival of criminal cases
provisionally dismissed with the express consent of the accused and with a priori notice to the offended party. The time-bar may appear, on first
impression, unreasonable compared to the periods under Article 90 of the Revised Penal Code. However, in fixing the time-bar, the Court balanced the
societal interests and those of the accused for the orderly and speedy disposition of criminal cases with minimum prejudice to the State and the
accused. It took into account the substantial rights of both the State and of the accused to due process. The Court believed that the time limit is a
reasonable period for the State to revive provisionally dismissed cases with the consent of the accused and notice to the offended parties. The time-bar
fixed by the Court must be respected unless it is shown that the period is manifestly short or insufficient that the rule becomes a denial of justice.[50] The
petitioners failed to show a manifest shortness or insufficiency of the time-bar.

The new rule was conceptualized by the Committee on the Revision of the Rules and approved by the Court en banc primarily to enhance the
administration of the criminal justice system and the rights to due process of the State and the accused by eliminating the deleterious practice of trial
courts of provisionally dismissing criminal cases on motion of either the prosecution or the accused or jointly, either with no time-bar for the revival
thereof or with a specific or definite period for such revival by the public prosecutor. There were times when such criminal cases were no longer revived
or refiled due to causes beyond the control of the public prosecutor or because of the indolence, apathy or the lackadaisical attitude of public
prosecutors to the prejudice of the State and the accused despite the mandate to public prosecutors and trial judges to expedite criminal proceedings.[51]

It is almost a universal experience that the accused welcomes delay as it usually operates in his favor,[52] especially if he greatly fears the
consequences of his trial and conviction. He is hesitant to disturb the hushed inaction by which dominant cases have been known to expire.[53]

The inordinate delay in the revival or refiling of criminal cases may impair or reduce the capacity of the State to prove its case with the
disappearance or nonavailability of its witnesses.Physical evidence may have been lost. Memories of witnesses may have grown dim or have
faded. Passage of time makes proof of any fact more difficult. [54] The accused may become a fugitive from justice or commit another crime. The longer
the lapse of time from the dismissal of the case to the revival thereof, the more difficult it is to prove the crime.

On the other side of the fulcrum, a mere provisional dismissal of a criminal case does not terminate a criminal case. The possibility that the case
may be revived at any time may disrupt or reduce, if not derail, the chances of the accused for employment, curtail his association, subject him to public
obloquy and create anxiety in him and his family. He is unable to lead a normal life because of community suspicion and his own anxiety. He continues
to suffer those penalties and disabilities incompatible with the presumption of innocence.[55] He may also lose his witnesses or their memories may fade
with the passage of time. In the long run, it may diminish his capacity to defend himself and thus eschew the fairness of the entire criminal justice
system.[56]

The time-bar under the new rule was fixed by the Court to excise the malaise that plagued the administration of the criminal justice system for
the benefit of the State and the accused; not for the accused only.

The Court agrees with the petitioners that to apply the time-bar retroactively so that the two-year period commenced to run on March 31, 1999
when the public prosecutor received his copy of the resolution of Judge Agnir, Jr. dismissing the criminal cases is inconsistent with the intendment of the
new rule. Instead of giving the State two years to revive provisionally dismissed cases, the State had considerably less than two years to do so. Thus,
Judge Agnir, Jr. dismissed Criminal Cases Nos. Q-99-81679 to Q-99-81689 on March 29, 1999. The new rule took effect on December 1, 2000. If the
Court applied the new time-bar retroactively, the State would have only one year and three months or until March 31, 2001 within which to revive these
criminal cases. The period is short of the two-year period fixed under the new rule. On the other hand, if the time limit is applied prospectively, the State
would have two years from December 1, 2000 or until December 1, 2002 within which to revive the cases. This is in consonance with the intendment of
the new rule in fixing the time-bar and thus prevent injustice to the State and avoid absurd, unreasonable, oppressive, injurious, and wrongful results in
the administration of justice.

The period from April 1, 1999 to November 30, 1999 should be excluded in the computation of the two-year period because the rule prescribing it
was not yet in effect at the time and the State could not be expected to comply with the time-bar. It cannot even be argued that the State waived its right
to revive the criminal cases against respondent or that it was negligent for not reviving them within the two-year period under the new rule. As the United
States Supreme Court said, per Justice Felix Frankfurter, in Griffin v. People:[57]

We should not indulge in the fiction that the law now announced has always been the law and, therefore, that those who did not avail themselves of it waived their
rights .

The two-year period fixed in the new rule is for the benefit of both the State and the accused. It should not be emasculated and reduced by an
inordinate retroactive application of the time-bar therein provided merely to benefit the accused. For to do so would cause an injustice of hardship to the
State and adversely affect the administration of justice in general and of criminal laws in particular.
 To require the State to give a valid justification as a condition sine qua non to the revival of a case provisionally dismissed with the express
consent of the accused before the effective date of the new rule is to assume that the State is obliged to comply with the time-bar under the new rule
before it took effect. This would be a rank denial of justice. The State must be given a period of one year or two years as the case may be from
December 1, 2000 to revive the criminal case without requiring the State to make a valid justification for not reviving the case before the effective date of
the new rule. Although in criminal cases, the accused is entitled to justice and fairness, so is the State. As the United States Supreme Court said, per Mr.
Justice Benjamin Cardozo, in Snyder v. State of Massachussetts,[58] the concept of fairness must not be strained till it is narrowed to a filament. We are
to keep the balance true. In Dimatulac v. Villon,[59] this Court emphasized that the judges action must not impair the substantial rights of the accused nor
the right of the State and offended party to due process of law. This Court further said:

Indeed, for justice to prevail, the scales must balance; justice is not to be dispensed for the accused alone. The interests of society and the offended parties which have
been wronged must be equally considered. Verily, a verdict of conviction is not necessarily a denial of justice; and an acquittal is not necessarily a triumph of justice,
for, to the society offended and the party wronged, it could also mean injustice. Justice then must be rendered even-handedly to both the accused, on one hand, and the
State and offended party, on the other.

In this case, the eleven Informations in Criminal Cases Nos. 01-101102 to 01-101112 were filed with the Regional Trial Court on June 6, 2001 well
within the two-year period.

In sum, this Court finds the motion for reconsideration of petitioners meritorious.

IN THE LIGHT OF ALL THE FOREGOING, the petitioners Motion for Reconsideration is GRANTED. The Resolution of this Court, dated May 28,
2002, is SET ASIDE. The Decision of the Court of Appeals, dated August 24, 2001, in CA-G.R. SP No. 65034 is REVERSED. The Petition of the
Respondent with the Regional Trial Court in Civil Case No. 01-100933 is DISMISSED for being moot and academic. The Regional Trial Court of Quezon
City, Branch 81, is DIRECTED to forthwith proceed with Criminal Cases Nos. 01-101102 to 01-101112 with deliberate dispatch.

No pronouncements as to costs.

SO ORDERED.
 Republic of the Philippines
SUPREME COURT
Manila

EN BANC

G.R. No. L-5887 December 16, 1910

THE UNITED STATES, plaintiff-appellee,

vs.
LOOK CHAW (alias LUK CHIU), defendant-appellant.

Thos. D. Aitken for appellant.

Attorney-General Villamor for appellee.

ARELLANO, C. J.:

The first complaint filed against the defendant, in the Court of First Instance of Cebu, stated that he "carried, kept, possessed and had in his possession
and control, 96 kilogrammes of opium," and that "he had been surprised in the act of selling 1,000 pesos worth prepared opium."

The defense presented a demurrer based on two grounds, the second of which was the more than one crime was charged in the complaint. The
demurrer was sustained, as the court found that the complaint contained two charges, one, for the unlawful possession of opium, and the other, for the
unlawful sale of opium, and, consequence of that ruling, it ordered that the fiscal should separated one charge from the other and file a complaint for
each violation; this, the fiscal did, and this cause concerns only the unlawful possession of opium. It is registered as No. 375, in the Court of First
Instance of Cebu, and as No. 5887 on the general docket of this court.

The facts of the case are contained in the following finding of the trial court:

The evidence, it says, shows that between 11 and 12 o'clock a. m. on the present month (stated as August 19, 1909), several persons, among
them Messrs. Jacks and Milliron, chief of the department of the port of Cebu and internal-revenue agent of Cebu, respectively, went abroad
the steamship Erroll to inspect and search its cargo, and found, first in a cabin near the saloon, one sack (Exhibit A) and afterwards in the
hold, another sack (Exhibit B). The sack referred to as Exhibit A contained 49 cans of opium, and the other, Exhibit B, the larger sack, also
contained several cans of the same substance. The hold, in which the sack mentioned in Exhibit B was found, was under the defendant's
control, who moreover, freely and of his own will and accord admitted that this sack, as well as the other referred to in Exhibit B and found in
the cabin, belonged to him. The said defendant also stated, freely and voluntarily, that he had bought these sacks of opium, in Hongkong with
the intention of selling them as contraband in Mexico or Vera Cruz, and that, as his hold had already been searched several times for opium,
he ordered two other Chinamen to keep the sack. Exhibit A.

It is to be taken into account that the two sacks of opium, designated as Exhibits A and B, properly constitute thecorpus delicti. Moreover, another lot of
four cans of opium, marked, as Exhibit C, was the subject matter of investigation at the trial, and with respect to which the chief of the department of the
port of Cebu testified that they were found in the part of the ship where the firemen habitually sleep, and that they were delivered to the first officer of the
ship to be returned to the said firemen after the vessel should have left the Philippines, because the firemen and crew of foreign vessels, pursuant to the
instructions he had from the Manila custom-house, were permitted to retain certain amounts of opium, always provided it should not be taken shore.

And, finally, another can of opium, marked "Exhibit D," is also corpus delicti and important as evidence in this cause. With regard to this the internal-
revenue agent testified as follows:itc-alf

FISCAL. What is it?

WITNESS. It is a can opium which was bought from the defendant by a secret-service agent and taken to the office of the governor to prove
that the accused had opium in his possession to sell.

On motion by the defense, the court ruled that this answer might be stricken out "because it refers to a sale." But, with respect to this answer, the chief of
the department of customs had already given this testimony, to wit:

FISCAL. Who asked you to search the vessel?

WITNESS. The internal-revenue agent came to my office and said that a party brought him a sample of opium and that the same party knew
that there was more opium on board the steamer, and the agent asked that the vessel be searched.

The defense moved that this testimony be rejected, on the ground of its being hearsay evidence, and the court only ordered that the part thereof "that
there was more opium, on board the vessel" be stricken out.

The defense, to abbreviate proceedings, admitted that the receptacles mentioned as Exhibits A, B, and C, contained opium and were found on board the
steamship Erroll, a vessel of English nationality, and that it was true that the defendant stated that these sacks of opium were his and that he had them
in his possession.
According to the testimony of the internal-revenue agent, the defendant stated to him, in the presence of the provincial fiscal, of a Chinese interpreter
(who afterwards was not needed, because the defendant spoke English), the warden of the jail, and four guards, that the opium seized in the vessel had
been bought by him in Hongkong, at three pesos for each round can and five pesos for each one of the others, for the purpose of selling it, as
contraband, in Mexico and Puerto de Vera Cruz; that on the 15th the vessel arrived at Cebu, and on the same day he sold opium; that he had tried to
sell opium for P16 a can; that he had a contract to sell an amount of the value of about P500; that the opium found in the room of the other two
Chinamen prosecuted in another cause, was his, and that he had left it in their stateroom to avoid its being found in his room, which had already been
searched many times; and that, according to the defendant, the contents of the large sack was 80 cans of opium, and of the small one, 49, and the total
number, 129.

It was established that the steamship Erroll was of English nationality, that it came from Hongkong, and that it was bound for Mexico, via the call ports of
Manila and Cebu.

The defense moved for a dismissal of the case, on the grounds that the court had no jurisdiction to try the same and the facts concerned therein did not
constitute a crime. The fiscal, at the conclusion of his argument, asked that the maximum penalty of the law be imposed upon the defendant, in view of
the considerable amount of opium seized. The court ruled that it did not lack jurisdiction, inasmuch as the crime had been committed within its district, on
the wharf of Cebu.

The court sentenced the defendant to five years' imprisonment, to pay a fine of P10,000, with additional subsidiary imprisonment in case of insolvency,
though not to exceed one third of the principal penalty, and to the payment of the costs. It further ordered the confiscation, in favor of the Insular
Government, of the exhibits presented in the case, and that, in the event of an appeal being taken or a bond given, or when the sentenced should have
been served, the defendant be not released from custody, but turned over to the customs authorities for the purpose of the fulfillment of the existing laws
on immigration.

From this judgment, the defendant appealed to this court.lawphi1.net

The appeal having been heard, together with the allegations made therein by the parties, it is found: That, although the mere possession of a thing of
prohibited use in these Islands, aboard a foreign vessel in transit, in any of their ports, does not, as a general rule, constitute a crime triable by the courts
of this country, on account of such vessel being considered as an extension of its own nationality, the same rule does not apply when the article, whose
use is prohibited within the Philippine Islands, in the present case a can of opium, is landed from the vessel upon Philippine soil, thus committing an
open violation of the laws of the land, with respect to which, as it is a violation of the penal law in force at the place of the commission of the crime, only
the court established in that said place itself had competent jurisdiction, in the absence of an agreement under an international treaty.

It is also found: That, even admitting that the quantity of the drug seized, the subject matter of the present case, was considerable, it does not appear
that, on such account, the two penalties fixed by the law on the subject, should be imposed in the maximum degree.

Therefore, reducing the imprisonment and the fine imposed to six months and P1,000, respectively, we affirm in all other respects the judgment
appealed from, with the costs of this instance against the appellant. So ordered.

Torres, Mapa, Johnson, Carson, Moreland and Trent, JJ., concur.

 Republic of the Philippines
SUPREME COURT
Manila

EN BANC

G.R. No. 17958 February 27, 1922

THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS, plaintiff-appellee,

vs.
LOL-LO and SARAW, defendants-appellants.

Thos. D. Aitken for appellants.

Acting Attorney-General Tuason for appellee.

MALCOLM, J.:

The days when pirates roamed the seas, when picturesque buccaneers like Captain Avery and Captain Kidd and Bartholomew Roberts gripped the
imagination, when grostesque brutes like Blackbeard flourished, seem far away in the pages of history and romance. Nevertheless, the record before us
tells a tale of twentieth century piracy in the south seas, but stripped of all touches of chivalry or of generosity, so as to present a horrible case of rapine
and near murder.

On or about June 30, 1920, two boats left matuta, a Dutch possession, for Peta, another Dutch possession. In one of the boats was one individual, a
Dutch subject, and in the other boat eleven men, women, and children, likewise subjects of Holland. After a number of days of navigation, at about 7
o'clock in the evening, the second boat arrived between the Islands of Buang and Bukid in the Dutch East Indies. There the boat was surrounded by
six vintas manned by twenty-four Moros all armed. The Moros first asked for food, but once on the Dutch boat, too for themselves all of the cargo,
attacked some of the men, and brutally violated two of the women by methods too horrible to the described. All of the persons on the Dutch boat, with
the exception of the two young women, were again placed on it and holes were made in it, the idea that it would submerge, although as a matter of fact,
these people, after eleven days of hardship and privation, were succored violating them, the Moros finally arrived at Maruro, a Dutch possession. Two of
the Moro marauder were Lol-lo, who also raped one of the women, and Saraw. At Maruro the two women were able to escape.

Lol-lo and Saraw later returned to their home in South Ubian, Tawi-Tawi, Sulu, Philippine Islands. There they were arrested and were charged in the
Court of First Instance of Sulu with the crime of piracy. A demurrer was interposed by counsel de officio for the Moros, based on the grounds that the
offense charged was not within the jurisdiction of the Court of First Instance, nor of any court of the Philippine Islands, and that the facts did not
constitute a public offense, under the laws in force in the Philippine Islands. After the demurrer was overruled by the trial judge, trial was had, and a
judgment was rendered finding the two defendants guilty and sentencing each of them to life imprisonment (cadena perpetua), to return together with
Kinawalang and Maulanis, defendants in another case, to the offended parties, the thirty-nine sacks of copras which had been robbed, or to indemnify
them in the amount of 924 rupees, and to pay a one-half part of the costs.

A very learned and exhaustive brief has been filed in this court by the attorney de officio. By a process of elimination, however, certain questions can be
quickly disposed of.

The proven facts are not disputed. All of the elements of the crime of piracy are present. Piracy is robbery or forcible depredation on the high seas,
without lawful authority and done animo furandi, and in the spirit and intention of universal hostility.

It cannot be contended with any degree of force as was done in the lover court and as is again done in this court, that the Court of First Instance was
without jurisdiction of the case. Pirates are in law hostes humani generis. Piracy is a crime not against any particular state but against all mankind. It may
be punished in the competent tribunal of any country where the offender may be found or into which he may be carried. The jurisdiction of piracy unlike
all other crimes has no territorial limits. As it is against all so may it be punished by all. Nor does it matter that the crime was committed within the
jurisdictional 3-mile limit of a foreign state, "for those limits, though neutral to war, are not neutral to crimes." (U.S. vs. Furlong [1820], 5 Wheat., 184.)

The most serious question which is squarely presented to this court for decision for the first time is whether or not the provisions of the Penal Code
dealing with the crime of piracy are still in force. Article 153 to 156 of the Penal Code reads as follows:

ART. 153. The crime of piracy committed against Spaniards, or the subjects of another nation not at war with Spain, shall be punished with a
penalty ranging from cadena temporal to cadena perpetua.

If the crime be committed against nonbelligerent subjects of another nation at war with Spain, it shall be punished with the penalty of presidio
mayor.

ART. 154. Those who commit the crimes referred to in the first paragraph of the next preceding article shall suffer the penalty of cadena
perpetua or death, and those who commit the crimes referred to in the second paragraph of the same article, from cadena temporal to cadena
perpetua:

1. Whenever they have seized some vessel by boarding or firing upon the same.

2. Whenever the crime is accompanied by murder, homicide, or by any of the physical injuries specified in articles four hundred and
fourteen and four hundred and fifteen and in paragraphs one and two of article four hundred and sixteen.
 3. Whenever it is accompanied by any of the offenses against chastity specified in Chapter II, Title IX, of this book.

4. Whenever the pirates have abandoned any persons without means of saving themselves.

5. In every case, the captain or skipper of the pirates.

ART. 155. With respect to the provisions of this title, as well as all others of this code, when Spain is mentioned it shall be understood as
including any part of the national territory.

ART. 156. For the purpose of applying the provisions of this code, every person, who, according to the Constitution of the Monarchy, has the
status of a Spaniard shall be considered as such.

The general rules of public law recognized and acted on by the United States relating to the effect of a transfer of territory from another State to the
United States are well-known. The political law of the former sovereignty is necessarily changed. The municipal law in so far as it is consistent with the
Constitution, the laws of the United States, or the characteristics and institutions of the government, remains in force. As a corollary to the main rules,
laws subsisting at the time of transfer, designed to secure good order and peace in the community, which are strictly of a municipal character, continue
until by direct action of the new government they are altered or repealed. (Chicago, Rock Islands, etc., R. Co. vs. McGlinn [1885], 114 U.S., 542.)

These principles of the public law were given specific application to the Philippines by the Instructions of President McKinley of May 19, 1898, to General
Wesley Meritt, the Commanding General of the Army of Occupation in the Philippines, when he said:

Though the powers of the military occupant are absolute and supreme, and immediately operate upon the political condition of the inhabitants,
the municipal laws of the conquered territory, such as affect private rights of person and property, and provide for the punishment of crime, are
considered as continuing in force, so far as they are compatible with the new order of things, until they are suspended or superseded by the
occupying belligerent; and practice they are not usually abrogated, but are allowed to remain in force, and to be administered by the ordinary
tribunals, substantially as they were before the occupations. This enlightened practice is so far as possible, to be adhered to on the present
occasion. (Official Gazette, Preliminary Number, Jan. 1, 1903, p. 1. See also General Merritt Proclamation of August 14, 1898.)

It cannot admit of doubt that the articles of the Spanish Penal Code dealing with piracy were meant to include the Philippine Islands. Article 156 of the
Penal Code in relation to article 1 of the Constitution of the Spanish Monarchy, would also make the provisions of the Code applicable not only to
Spaniards but to Filipinos.

The opinion of Grotius was that piracy by the law of nations is the same thing as piracy by the civil law, and he has never been disputed. The specific
provisions of the Penal Code are similar in tenor to statutory provisions elsewhere and to the concepts of the public law. This must necessarily be so,
considering that the Penal Code finds its inspiration in this respect in the Novelas, the Partidas, and the Novisima Recopilacion.

The Constitution of the United States declares that the Congress shall have the power to define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high
seas, and offenses against the law of nations. (U.S. Const. Art. I, sec. 8, cl. 10.) The Congress, in putting on the statute books the necessary ancillary
legislation, provided that whoever, on the high seas, commits the crime of piracy as defined by the law of nations, and is afterwards brought into or found
in the United States, shall be imprisoned for life. (U.S. Crim. Code, sec. 290; penalty formerly death: U.S. Rev. Stat., sec. 5368.) The framers of the
Constitution and the members of Congress were content to let a definition of piracy rest on its universal conception under the law of nations.

It is evident that the provisions of the Penal Code now in force in the Philippines relating to piracy are not inconsistent with the corresponding provisions
in force in the United States.

By the Treaty of Paris, Spain ceded the Philippine Islands to the United States. A logical construction of articles of the Penal Code, like the articles
dealing with the crime of piracy, would be that wherever "Spain" is mentioned, it should be substituted by the words "United States" and wherever
"Spaniards" are mentioned, the word should be substituted by the expression "citizens of the United States and citizens of the Philippine Islands."
somewhat similar reasoning led this court in the case of United States vs. Smith ([1919], 39 Phil., 533) to give to the word "authority" as found in the
Penal Code a limited meaning, which would no longer comprehend all religious, military, and civil officers, but only public officers in the Government of
the Philippine Islands.

Under the construction above indicated, article 153 of the Penal Code would read as follows:

The crime of piracy committed against citizens of the United States and citizens of the Philippine Islands, or the subjects of another nation not
at war with the United States, shall be punished with a penalty ranging from cadena temporal to cadena perpetua.

If the crime be committed against nonbelligerent subjects of another nation at war with the United States, it shall be punished with the penalty
of presidio mayor.

We hold those provisions of the Penal code dealing with the crime of piracy, notably articles 153 and 154, to be still in force in the Philippines.

The crime falls under the first paragraph of article 153 of the Penal Code in relation to article 154. There are present at least two of the circumstances
named in the last cited article as authorizing either cadena perpetua or death. The crime of piracy was accompanied by (1) an offense against chastity
and (2) the abandonment of persons without apparent means of saving themselves. It is, therefore, only necessary for us to determine as to whether the
penalty of cadena perpetua or death should be imposed. In this connection, the trial court, finding present the one aggravating circumstance of
nocturnity, and compensating the same by the one mitigating circumstance of lack of instruction provided by article 11, as amended, of the Penal Code,
sentenced the accused to life imprisonment. At least three aggravating circumstances, that the wrong done in the commission of the crime was
deliberately augmented by causing other wrongs not necessary for its commission, that advantage was taken of superior strength, and that means were
employed which added ignominy to the natural effects of the act, must also be taken into consideration in fixing the penalty. Considering, therefore, the
number and importance of the qualifying and aggravating circumstances here present, which cannot be offset by the sole mitigating circumstance of lack
of instruction, and the horrible nature of the crime committed, it becomes our duty to impose capital punishment.

The vote upon the sentence is unanimous with regard to the propriety of the imposition of the death penalty upon the defendant and appellant Lo-lo (the
accused who raped on of the women), but is not unanimous with regard to the court, Mr. Justice Romualdez, registers his nonconformity. In accordance
with provisions of Act No. 2726, it results, therefore, that the judgment of the trial court as to the defendant and appellant Saraw is affirmed, and is
reversed as to the defendant and appellant Lol-lo, who is found guilty of the crime of piracy and is sentenced therefor to be hung until dead, at such time
and place as shall be fixed by the judge of first instance of the Twenty-sixth Judicial District. The two appellants together with Kinawalang and Maulanis,
defendants in another case, shall indemnify jointly and severally the offended parties in the equivalent of 924 rupees, and shall pay a one-half part of the
costs of both instances. So ordered.

Araullo, C.J., Johnson, Avanceña, Villamor, Ostrand, Johns and Romualdez, JJ., concur.
 Republic of the Philippines
SUPREME COURT
Manila

EN BANC

G.R. No. L-5272 March 19, 1910

THE UNITED STATES, plaintiff-appellee,

vs.
AH CHONG, defendant-appellant.

Gibb & Gale, for appellant.

Attorney-General Villamor, for appellee.

CARSON, J.:

The evidence as to many of the essential and vital facts in this case is limited to the testimony of the accused himself, because from the very nature of
these facts and from the circumstances surrounding the incident upon which these proceedings rest, no other evidence as to these facts was available
either to the prosecution or to the defense. We think, however, that, giving the accused the benefit of the doubt as to the weight of the evidence touching
those details of the incident as to which there can be said to be any doubt, the following statement of the material facts disclose by the record may be
taken to be substantially correct:

The defendant, Ah Chong, was employed as a cook at "Officers' quarters, No. 27," Fort Mc Kinley, Rizal Province, and at the same place Pascual
Gualberto, deceased, was employed as a house boy or muchacho. "Officers' quarters No. 27" as a detached house situates some 40 meters from the
nearest building, and in August, 19087, was occupied solely as an officers' mess or club. No one slept in the house except the two servants, who jointly
occupied a small room toward the rear of the building, the door of which opened upon a narrow porch running along the side of the building, by which
communication was had with the other part of the house. This porch was covered by a heavy growth of vines for its entire length and height. The door of
the room was not furnished with a permanent bolt or lock, and occupants, as a measure of security, had attached a small hook or catch on the inside of
the door, and were in the habit of reinforcing this somewhat insecure means of fastening the door by placing against it a chair. In the room there was but
one small window, which, like the door, opened on the porch. Aside from the door and window, there were no other openings of any kind in the room.

On the night of August 14, 1908, at about 10 o'clock, the defendant, who had received for the night, was suddenly awakened by some trying to force
open the door of the room. He sat up in bed and called out twice, "Who is there?" He heard no answer and was convinced by the noise at the door that it
was being pushed open by someone bent upon forcing his way into the room. Due to the heavy growth of vines along the front of the porch, the room
was very dark, and the defendant, fearing that the intruder was a robber or a thief, leaped to his feet and called out. "If you enter the room, I will kill you."
At that moment he was struck just above the knee by the edge of the chair which had been placed against the door. In the darkness and confusion the
defendant thought that the blow had been inflicted by the person who had forced the door open, whom he supposed to be a burglar, though in the light
of after events, it is probable that the chair was merely thrown back into the room by the sudden opening of the door against which it rested. Seizing a
common kitchen knife which he kept under his pillow, the defendant struck out wildly at the intruder who, it afterwards turned out, was his roommate,
Pascual. Pascual ran out upon the porch and fell down on the steps in a desperately wounded condition, followed by the defendant, who immediately
recognized him in the moonlight. Seeing that Pascual was wounded, he called to his employers who slept in the next house, No. 28, and ran back to his
room to secure bandages to bind up Pascual's wounds.

There had been several robberies in Fort McKinley not long prior to the date of the incident just described, one of which took place in a house in which
the defendant was employed as cook; and as defendant alleges, it was because of these repeated robberies he kept a knife under his pillow for his
personal protection.

The deceased and the accused, who roomed together and who appear to have on friendly and amicable terms prior to the fatal incident, had an
understanding that when either returned at night, he should knock at the door and acquiant his companion with his identity. Pascual had left the house
early in the evening and gone for a walk with his friends, Celestino Quiambao and Mariano Ibañez, servants employed at officers' quarters No. 28, the
nearest house to the mess hall. The three returned from their walk at about 10 o'clock, and Celestino and Mariano stopped at their room at No. 28,
Pascual going on to his room at No. 27. A few moments after the party separated, Celestino and Mariano heard cries for assistance and upon returning
to No. 27 found Pascual sitting on the back steps fatally wounded in the stomach, whereupon one of them ran back to No. 28 and called Liuetenants
Jacobs and Healy, who immediately went to the aid of the wounded man.

The defendant then and there admitted that he had stabbed his roommate, but said that he did it under the impression that Pascual was "a ladron"
because he forced open the door of their sleeping room, despite defendant's warnings.

No reasonable explanation of the remarkable conduct on the part of Pascuals suggests itself, unless it be that the boy in a spirit of mischief was playing
a trick on his Chinese roommate, and sought to frightened him by forcing his way into the room, refusing to give his name or say who he was, in order to
make Ah Chong believe that he was being attacked by a robber.

Defendant was placed under arrest forthwith, and Pascual was conveyed to the military hospital, where he died from the effects of the wound on the
following day.

The defendant was charged with the crime of assassination, tried, and found guilty by the trial court of simple homicide, with extenuating circumstances,
and sentenced to six years and one day presidio mayor, the minimum penalty prescribed by law.
At the trial in the court below the defendant admitted that he killed his roommate, Pascual Gualberto, but insisted that he struck the fatal blow without
any intent to do a wrongful act, in the exercise of his lawful right of self-defense.

Article 8 of the Penal Code provides that —

The following are not delinquent and are therefore exempt from criminal liability:

xxx xxx xxx

4 He who acts in defense of his person or rights, provided there are the following attendant circumstances:

(1) Illegal aggression.

(2) Reasonable necessity of the means employed to prevent or repel it.

(3) Lack of sufficient provocation on the part of the person defending himself.

Under these provisions we think that there can be no doubt that defendant would be entitle to complete exception from criminal liability for the death of
the victim of his fatal blow, if the intruder who forced open the door of his room had been in fact a dangerous thief or "ladron," as the defendant believed
him to be. No one, under such circumstances, would doubt the right of the defendant to resist and repel such an intrusion, and the thief having forced
open the door notwithstanding defendant's thrice-repeated warning to desist, and his threat that he would kill the intruder if he persisted in his attempt, it
will not be questioned that in the darkness of the night, in a small room, with no means of escape, with the thief advancing upon him despite his
warnings defendant would have been wholly justified in using any available weapon to defend himself from such an assault, and in striking promptly,
without waiting for the thief to discover his whereabouts and deliver the first blow.

But the evidence clearly discloses that the intruder was not a thief or a "ladron." That neither the defendant nor his property nor any of the property under
his charge was in real danger at the time when he struck the fatal blow. That there was no such "unlawful aggression" on the part of a thief or "ladron" as
defendant believed he was repelling and resisting, and that there was no real "necessity" for the use of the knife to defend his person or his property or
the property under his charge.

The question then squarely presents it self, whether in this jurisdiction one can be held criminally responsible who, by reason of a mistake as to the
facts, does an act for which he would be exempt from criminal liability if the facts were as he supposed them to be, but which would constitute the crime
of homicide or assassination if the actor had known the true state of the facts at the time when he committed the act. To this question we think there can
be but one answer, and we hold that under such circumstances there is no criminal liability, provided always that the alleged ignorance or mistake or fact
was not due to negligence or bad faith.

In broader terms, ignorance or mistake of fact, if such ignorance or mistake of fact is sufficient to negative a particular intent which under the law is a
necessary ingredient of the offense charged (e.g., in larcerny, animus furendi; in murder, malice; in crimes intent) "cancels the presumption of intent,"
and works an acquittal; except in those cases where the circumstances demand a conviction under the penal provisions touching criminal negligence;
and in cases where, under the provisions of article 1 of the Penal Code one voluntarily committing a crime or misdeamor incurs criminal liability for any
wrongful act committed by him, even though it be different from that which he intended to commit. (Wharton's Criminal Law, sec. 87 and cases cited;
McClain's Crim. Law, sec. 133 and cases cited; Pettit vs. S., 28 Tex. Ap., 240; Commonwealth vs. Power, 7 Met., 596; Yates vs. People, 32 N.Y., 509;
Isham vs. State, 38 Ala., 213; Commonwealth vs. Rogers, 7 Met., 500.)

The general proposition thus stated hardly admits of discussion, and the only question worthy of consideration is whether malice or criminal intent is an
essential element or ingredient of the crimes of homicide and assassination as defined and penalized in the Penal Code. It has been said that since the
definitions there given of these as well as most other crimes and offense therein defined, do not specifically and expressly declare that the acts
constituting the crime or offense must be committed with malice or with criminal intent in order that the actor may be held criminally liable, the
commission of the acts set out in the various definitions subjects the actor to the penalties described therein, unless it appears that he is exempted from
liability under one or other of the express provisions of article 8 of the code, which treats of exemption. But while it is true that contrary to the general rule
of legislative enactment in the United States, the definitions of crimes and offenses as set out in the Penal Code rarely contain provisions expressly
declaring that malice or criminal intent is an essential ingredient of the crime, nevertheless, the general provisions of article 1 of the code clearly indicate
that malice, or criminal intent in some form, is an essential requisite of all crimes and offense therein defined, in the absence of express provisions
modifying the general rule, such as are those touching liability resulting from acts negligently or imprudently committed, and acts done by one voluntarily
committing a crime or misdemeanor, where the act committed is different from that which he intended to commit. And it is to be observed that even
these exceptions are more apparent than real, for "There is little distinction, except in degree, between a will to do a wrongful thing and indifference
whether it is done or not. Therefore carelessness is criminal, and within limits supplies the place of the affirmative criminal intent" (Bishop's New Criminal
Law, vol. 1, s. 313); and, again, "There is so little difference between a disposition to do a great harm and a disposition to do harm that one of them may
very well be looked upon as the measure of the other. Since, therefore, the guilt of a crime consists in the disposition to do harm, which the criminal
shows by committing it, and since this disposition is greater or less in proportion to the harm which is done by the crime, the consequence is that the
guilt of the crime follows the same proportion; it is greater or less according as the crime in its own nature does greater or less harm" (Ruth. Ints. C. 18,
p. 11); or, as it has been otherwise stated, the thing done, having proceeded from a corrupt mid, is to be viewed the same whether the corruption was of
one particular form or another.

Article 1 of the Penal Code is as follows:

Crimes or misdemeanors are voluntary acts and ommissions punished by law.

Acts and omissions punished by law are always presumed to be voluntarily unless the contrary shall appear.
 An person voluntarily committing a crime or misdemeanor shall incur criminal liability, even though the wrongful act committed be different
from that which he had intended to commit.

The celebrated Spanish jurist Pacheco, discussing the meaning of the word "voluntary" as used in this article, say that a voluntary act is a free,
intelligent, and intentional act, and roundly asserts that without intention (intention to do wrong or criminal intention) there can be no crime; and that the
word "voluntary" implies and includes the words "con malicia," which were expressly set out in the definition of the word "crime" in the code of 1822, but
omitted from the code of 1870, because, as Pacheco insists, their use in the former code was redundant, being implied and included in the word
"voluntary." (Pacheco, Codigo Penal, vol. 1, p. 74.)

Viada, while insisting that the absence of intention to commit the crime can only be said to exempt from criminal responsibility when the act which was
actually intended to be done was in itself a lawful one, and in the absence of negligence or imprudence, nevertheless admits and recognizes in his
discussion of the provisions of this article of the code that in general without intention there can be no crime. (Viada, vol. 1, p. 16.) And, as we have
shown above, the exceptions insisted upon by Viada are more apparent than real.

Silvela, in discussing the doctrine herein laid down, says:

In fact, it is sufficient to remember the first article, which declared that where there is no intention there is no crime . . . in order to affirm,
without fear of mistake, that under our code there can be no crime if there is no act, an act which must fall within the sphere of ethics if there is
no moral injury. (Vol. 2, the Criminal Law, folio 169.)

And to the same effect are various decisions of the supreme court of Spain, as, for example in its sentence of May 31, 1882, in which it made use of the
following language:

It is necessary that this act, in order to constitute a crime, involve all the malice which is supposed from the operation of the will and an intent
to cause the injury which may be the object of the crime.

And again in its sentence of March 16, 1892, wherein it held that "considering that, whatever may be the civil effects of the inscription of his three sons,
made by the appellant in the civil registry and in the parochial church, there can be no crime because of the lack of the necessary element or criminal
intention, which characterizes every action or ommission punished by law; nor is he guilty of criminal negligence."

And to the same effect in its sentence of December 30, 1896, it made use of the following language:

. . . Considering that the moral element of the crime, that is, intent or malice or their absence in the commission of an act defined and punished
by law as criminal, is not a necessary question of fact submitted to the exclusive judgment and decision of the trial court.

That the author of the Penal Code deemed criminal intent or malice to be an essential element of the various crimes and misdemeanors therein defined
becomes clear also from an examination of the provisions of article 568, which are as follows:

He who shall execute through reckless negligence an act that, if done with malice, would constitute a grave crime, shall be punished with the
penalty of arresto mayor in its maximum degree, to prision correccional in its minimum degrees if it shall constitute a less grave crime.

He who in violation of the regulations shall commit a crime through simple imprudence or negligence shall incur the penalty of arresto mayor in
its medium and maximum degrees.

In the application of these penalties the courts shall proceed according to their discretion, without being subject to the rules prescribed in
article 81.

The provisions of this article shall not be applicable if the penalty prescribed for the crime is equal to or less than those contained in the first
paragraph thereof, in which case the courts shall apply the next one thereto in the degree which they may consider proper.

The word "malice" in this article is manifestly substantially equivalent to the words "criminal intent," and the direct inference from its provisions is that the
commission of the acts contemplated therein, in the absence of malice (criminal intent), negligence, and imprudence, does not impose any criminal
liability on the actor.

The word "voluntary" as used in article 1 of the Penal Code would seem to approximate in meaning the word "willful" as used in English and American
statute to designate a form of criminal intent. It has been said that while the word "willful" sometimes means little more than intentionally or designedly,
yet it is more frequently understood to extent a little further and approximate the idea of the milder kind of legal malice; that is, it signifies an evil intent
without justifiable excuse. In one case it was said to mean, as employed in a statute in contemplation, "wantonly" or "causelessly;" in another, "without
reasonable grounds to believe the thing lawful." And Shaw, C. J., once said that ordinarily in a statute it means "not merely `voluntarily' but with a bad
purpose; in other words, corruptly." In English and the American statutes defining crimes "malice," "malicious," "maliciously," and "malice aforethought"
are words indicating intent, more purely technical than "willful" or willfully," but "the difference between them is not great;" the word "malice" not often
being understood to require general malevolence toward a particular individual, and signifying rather the intent from our legal justification. (Bishop's New
Criminal Law, vol. 1, secs. 428 and 429, and cases cited.)

But even in the absence of express words in a statute, setting out a condition in the definition of a crime that it be committed "voluntarily," willfully,"
"maliciously" "with malice aforethought," or in one of the various modes generally construed to imply a criminal intent, we think that reasoning from
general principles it will always be found that with the rare exceptions hereinafter mentioned, to constitute a crime evil intent must combine with an act.
Mr. Bishop, who supports his position with numerous citations from the decided cases, thus forcely present this doctrine:
 In no one thing does criminal jurisprudence differ more from civil than in the rule as to the intent. In controversies between private parties
the quo animo with which a thing was done is sometimes important, not always; but crime proceeds only from a criminal mind. So that —

There can be no crime, large or small, without an evil mind. In other words, punishment is the sentence of wickedness, without which it can not
be. And neither in philosophical speculation nor in religious or mortal sentiment would any people in any age allow that a man should be
deemed guilty unless his mind was so. It is therefore a principle of our legal system, as probably it is of every other, that the essence of an
offense is the wrongful intent, without which it can not exists. We find this doctrine confirmed by —

Legal maxims. — The ancient wisdom of the law, equally with the modern, is distinct on this subject. It consequently has supplied to us such
maxims as Actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea, "the act itself does not make man guilty unless his intention were so;" Actus me incito factus
non est meus actus, "an act done by me against my will is not my act;" and others of the like sort. In this, as just said, criminal jurisprudence
differs from civil. So also —

Moral science and moral sentiment teach the same thing. "By reference to the intention, we inculpate or exculpate others or ourselves without
any respect to the happiness or misery actually produced. Let the result of an action be what it may, we hold a man guilty simply on the
ground of intention; or, on the dame ground, we hold him innocent." The calm judgment of mankind keeps this doctrine among its jewels. In
times of excitement, when vengeance takes the place of justice, every guard around the innocent is cast down. But with the return of reason
comes the public voice that where the mind is pure, he who differs in act from his neighbors does not offend. And —

In the spontaneous judgment which springs from the nature given by God to man, no one deems another to deserve punishment for what he
did from an upright mind, destitute of every form of evil. And whenever a person is made to suffer a punishment which the community deems
not his due, so far from its placing an evil mark upon him, it elevates him to the seat of the martyr. Even infancy itself spontaneously pleads
the want of bad intent in justification of what has the appearance of wrong, with the utmost confidence that the plea, if its truth is credited, will
be accepted as good. Now these facts are only the voice of nature uttering one of her immutable truths. It is, then, the doctrine of the law,
superior to all other doctrines, because first in nature from which the law itself proceeds, that no man is to be punished as a criminal unless his
intent is wrong. (Bishop's New Criminal Law, vol. 1, secs. 286 to 290.)

Compelled by necessity, "the great master of all things," an apparent departure from this doctrine of abstract justice result from the adoption of the
arbitrary rule that Ignorantia juris non excusat ("Ignorance of the law excuses no man"), without which justice could not be administered in our tribunals;
and compelled also by the same doctrine of necessity, the courts have recognized the power of the legislature to forbid, in a limited class of cases, the
doing of certain acts, and to make their commission criminal without regard to the intent of the doer. Without discussing these exceptional cases at
length, it is sufficient here to say that the courts have always held that unless the intention of the lawmaker to make the commission of certain acts
criminal without regard to the intent of the doer is clear and beyond question the statute will not be so construed (cases cited in Cyc., vol. 12, p. 158,
notes 76 and 77); and the rule that ignorance of the law excuses no man has been said not to be a real departure from the law's fundamental principle
that crime exists only where the mind is at fault, because "the evil purpose need not be to break the law, and if suffices if it is simply to do the thing which
the law in fact forbids." (Bishop's New Criminal Law, sec. 300, and cases cited.)

But, however this may be, there is no technical rule, and no pressing necessity therefore, requiring mistake in fact to be dealt with otherwise that in strict
accord with the principles of abstract justice. On the contrary, the maxim here is Ignorantia facti excusat ("Ignorance or mistake in point of fact is, in all
cases of supposed offense, a sufficient excuse"). (Brown's Leg. Max., 2d ed., 190.)

Since evil intent is in general an inseparable element in every crime, any such mistake of fact as shows the act committed to have proceeded from no
sort of evil in the mind necessarily relieves the actor from criminal liability provided always there is no fault or negligence on his part; and as laid down by
Baron Parke, "The guilt of the accused must depend on the circumstances as they appear to him." (Reg. vs. Thurborn, 1 Den. C., 387; P. vs.Anderson,
44 Cal.., 65; P. vs. Lamb, 54 Barb., 342; Yates vs. P., 32 N. Y., 509; Patterson vs. P., 46 Barb., 625; Reg. vs. Cohen, 8 Cox C. C., 41; P. vs. Miles, 55
Cal., 207, 209; Nalley vs. S., 28 Tex. Ap., 387.) That is to say, the question as to whether he honestly, in good faith, and without fault or negligence fell
into the mistake is to be determined by the circumstances as they appeared to him at the time when the mistake was made, and the effect which the
surrounding circumstances might reasonably be expected to have on his mind, in forming the intent, criminal or other wise, upon which he acted.

If, in language not uncommon in the cases, one has reasonable cause to believe the existence of facts which will justify a killing — or, in terms
more nicely in accord with the principles on which the rule is founded, if without fault or carelessness he does believe them — he is legally
guiltless of the homicide; though he mistook the facts, and so the life of an innocent person is unfortunately extinguished. In other words, and
with reference to the right of self-defense and the not quite harmonious authorities, it is the doctrine of reason and sufficiently sustained in
adjudication, that notwithstanding some decisions apparently adverse, whenever a man undertakes self-defense, he is justified in acting on
the facts as they appear to him. If, without fault or carelessness, he is misled concerning them, and defends himself correctly according to
what he thus supposes the facts to be the law will not punish him though they are in truth otherwise, and he was really no occassion for the
extreme measures. (Bishop's New Criminal Law, sec. 305, and large array of cases there cited.)

The common illustration in the American and English textbooks of the application of this rule is the case where a man, masked and disguised as a
footpad, at night and on a lonely road, "holds up" his friends in a spirit of mischief, and with leveled pistol demands his money or his life, but is killed by
his friend under the mistaken belief that the attack is a real one, that the pistol leveled at his head is loaded, and that his life and property are in imminent
danger at the hands of the aggressor. No one will doubt that if the facts were such as the slayer believed them to be he would be innocent of the
commission of any crime and wholly exempt from criminal liability, although if he knew the real state of the facts when he took the life of his friend he
would undoubtedly be guilty of the crime of homicide or assassination. Under such circumstances, proof of his innocent mistake of the facts overcomes
the presumption of malice or criminal intent, and (since malice or criminal intent is a necessary ingredient of the "act punished by law" in cases of
homicide or assassination) overcomes at the same time the presumption established in article 1 of the code, that the "act punished by law" was
committed "voluntarily."

Parson, C.J., in the Massachusetts court, once said:

If the party killing had reasonable grounds for believing that the person slain had a felonious design against him, and under that supposition
killed him, although it should afterwards appear that there was no such design, it will not be murder, but it will be either manslaughter or
 excusable homicide, according to the degree of caution used and the probable grounds of such belief. (Charge to the grand jury in Selfridge's
case, Whart, Hom., 417, 418, Lloyd's report of the case, p.7.)

In this case, Parker, J., charging the petit jury, enforced the doctrine as follows:

A, in the peaceable pursuit of his affairs, sees B rushing rapidly toward him, with an outstretched arms and a pistol in his hand, and using
violent menaces against his life as he advances. Having approached near enough in the same attitude, A, who has a club in his hand, strikes
B over the head before or at the instant the pistol is discharged; and of the wound B dies. It turns out the pistol was loaded with powder only,
and that the real design of B was only to terrify A. Will any reasonable man say that A is more criminal that he would have been if there had
been a bullet in the pistol? Those who hold such doctrine must require that a man so attacked must, before he strikes the assailant, stop and
ascertain how the pistol is loaded — a doctrine which would entirely take away the essential right of self-defense. And when it is considered
that the jury who try the cause, and not the party killing, are to judge of the reasonable grounds of his apprehension, no danger can be
supposed to flow from this principle. (Lloyd's Rep., p. 160.)

To the same effect are various decisions of the supreme court of Spain, cited by Viada, a few of which are here set out in full because the facts are
somewhat analogous to those in the case at bar.

QUESTION III. When it is shown that the accused was sitting at his hearth, at night, in company only of his wife, without other light than
reflected from the fire, and that the man with his back to the door was attending to the fire, there suddenly entered a person whom he did not
see or know, who struck him one or two blows, producing a contusion on the shoulder, because of which he turned, seized the person and
took from his the stick with which he had undoubtedly been struck, and gave the unknown person a blow, knocking him to the floor, and
afterwards striking him another blow on the head, leaving the unknown lying on the floor, and left the house. It turned out the unknown person
was his father-in-law, to whom he rendered assistance as soon as he learned his identity, and who died in about six days in consequence of
cerebral congestion resulting from the blow. The accused, who confessed the facts, had always sustained pleasant relations with his father-in-
law, whom he visited during his sickness, demonstrating great grief over the occurrence. Shall he be considered free from criminal
responsibility, as having acted in self-defense, with all the circumstances related in paragraph 4, article 8, of the Penal Code? The criminal
branch of theAudiencia of Valladolid found that he was an illegal aggressor, without sufficient provocation, and that there did not exists rational
necessity for the employment of the force used, and in accordance with articles 419 and 87 of the Penal Code condemned him to twenty
months of imprisonment, with accessory penalty and costs. Upon appeal by the accused, he was acquitted by the supreme court, under the
following sentence: "Considering, from the facts found by the sentence to have been proven, that the accused was surprised from behind, at
night, in his house beside his wife who was nursing her child, was attacked, struck, and beaten, without being able to distinguish with which
they might have executed their criminal intent, because of the there was no other than fire light in the room, and considering that in such a
situation and when the acts executed demonstrated that they might endanger his existence, and possibly that of his wife and child, more
especially because his assailant was unknown, he should have defended himself, and in doing so with the same stick with which he was
attacked, he did not exceed the limits of self-defense, nor did he use means which were not rationally necessary, particularly because the
instrument with which he killed was the one which he took from his assailant, and was capable of producing death, and in the darkness of the
house and the consteration which naturally resulted from such strong aggression, it was not given him to known or distinguish whether there
was one or more assailants, nor the arms which they might bear, not that which they might accomplish, and considering that the lower court
did not find from the accepted facts that there existed rational necessity for the means employed, and that it did not apply paragraph 4 of
article 8 of the Penal Code, it erred, etc." (Sentence of supreme court of Spain, February 28, 1876.) (Viada, Vol. I, p. 266.) .

QUESTION XIX. A person returning, at night, to his house, which was situated in a retired part of the city, upon arriving at a point where there
was no light, heard the voice of a man, at a distance of some 8 paces, saying: "Face down, hand over you money!" because of which, and
almost at the same money, he fired two shots from his pistol, distinguishing immediately the voice of one of his friends (who had before
simulated a different voice) saying, "Oh! they have killed me," and hastening to his assistance, finding the body lying upon the ground, he
cried, "Miguel, Miguel, speak, for God's sake, or I am ruined," realizing that he had been the victim of a joke, and not receiving a reply, and
observing that his friend was a corpse, he retired from the place. Shall he be declared exempt in toto from responsibility as the author of this
homicide, as having acted in just self-defense under the circumstances defined in paragraph 4, article 8, Penal Code? The criminal branch of
the Audiencia of Malaga did not so find, but only found in favor of the accused two of the requisites of said article, but not that of the
reasonableness of the means employed to repel the attack, and, therefore, condemned the accused to eight years and one day of prison
mayor, etc. The supreme court acquitted the accused on his appeal from this sentence, holding that the accused was acting under a justifiable
and excusable mistake of fact as to the identity of the person calling to him, and that under the circumstances, the darkness and remoteness,
etc., the means employed were rational and the shooting justifiable. (Sentence supreme court, March 17, 1885.) (Viada, Vol. I, p. 136.)

QUESTION VI. The owner of a mill, situated in a remote spot, is awakened, at night, by a large stone thrown against his window — at this, he
puts his head out of the window and inquires what is wanted, and is answered "the delivery of all of his money, otherwise his house would be
burned" — because of which, and observing in an alley adjacent to the mill four individuals, one of whom addressed him with blasphemy, he
fired his pistol at one the men, who, on the next morning was found dead on the same spot. Shall this man be declared exempt from criminal
responsibility as having acted in just self-defense with all of the requisites of law? The criminal branch of the requisites of law? The criminal
branch of the Audiencia of Zaragoza finds that there existed in favor of the accused a majority of the requisites to exempt him from criminal
responsibility, but not that of reasonable necessity for the means, employed, and condemned the accused to twelve months of prision
correctional for the homicide committed. Upon appeal, the supreme court acquitted the condemned, finding that the accused, in firing at the
malefactors, who attack his mill at night in a remote spot by threatening robbery and incendiarism, was acting in just self-defense of his
person, property, and family. (Sentence of May 23, 1877). (I Viada, p. 128.)

A careful examination of the facts as disclosed in the case at bar convinces us that the defendant Chinaman struck the fatal blow alleged in the
information in the firm belief that the intruder who forced open the door of his sleeping room was a thief, from whose assault he was in imminent peril,
both of his life and of his property and of the property committed to his charge; that in view of all the circumstances, as they must have presented
themselves to the defendant at the time, he acted in good faith, without malice, or criminal intent, in the belief that he was doing no more than exercising
his legitimate right of self-defense; that had the facts been as he believed them to be he would have been wholly exempt from criminal liability on
account of his act; and that he can not be said to have been guilty of negligence or recklessness or even carelessness in falling into his mistake as to the
facts, or in the means adopted by him to defend himself from the imminent danger which he believe threatened his person and his property and the
property under his charge.
The judgment of conviction and the sentence imposed by the trial court should be reversed, and the defendant acquitted of the crime with which he is
charged and his bail bond exonerated, with the costs of both instance de oficio. So ordered.

Johnson Moreland and Elliott, JJ., concur.

Arellano, C.J., and Mapa, J., dissent.

Separate Opinions

TORRES, J., dissenting:

The writer, with due respect to the opinion of the majority of the court, believes that, according to the merits of the case, the crime of homicide by
reckless negligence, defined and punishes in article 568 of the Penal Code, was committed, inasmuch as the victim was wilfully (voluntariomente) killed,
and while the act was done without malice or criminal intent it was, however, executed with real negligence, for the acts committed by the deceased
could not warrant the aggression by the defendant under the erroneous belief on the part of the accused that the person who assaulted him was a
malefactor; the defendant therefore incurred responsibility in attacking with a knife the person who was accustomed to enter said room, without any
justifiable motive.

By reason of the nature of the crime committed, in the opinion of the undersigned the accused should be sentenced to the penalty of one year and one
month of prision correctional, to suffer the accessory penalties provided in article 61, and to pay an indemnify of P1,000 to the heirs of the deceased,
with the costs of both instances, thereby reversing the judgment appealed from.
 Republic of the Philippines
SUPREME COURT
Manila

EN BANC

G.R. No. L-47722 July 27, 1943

THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, plaintiff-appellee,

vs.
ANTONIO Z. OANIS and ALBERTO GALANTA, defendants-appellants.

Antonio Z. Oanis in his own behalf.

Maximo L. Valenzuela for appellant Galanta.
Acting Solicitor-General Ibañez and Assistant Attorney Torres for appellee.

MORAN, J.:

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.

In the afternoon of December 24, 1938. Captain Godofredo Monsod, Constabulary Provincial Inspector at Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija, received from
Major Guido a telegram of the following tenor: "Information received escaped convict Anselmo Balagtas with bailarina and Irene in Cabanatuan get him
dead or alive." Captain Monsod accordingly called for his first sergeant and asked that he be given four men. Defendant corporal Alberto Galanta, and
privates Nicomedes Oralo, Venancio Serna and D. Fernandez, upon order of their sergeant, reported at the office of the Provincial Inspector where they
were shown a copy of the above-quoted telegram and a newspaper clipping containing a picture of Balagtas. They were instructed to arrest Balagtas
and, if overpowered, to follow the instruction contained in the telegram. The same instruction was given to the chief of police Oanis who was likewise
called by the Provincial Inspector. When the chief of police was asked whether he knew one Irene, a bailarina, he answered that he knew one of loose
morals of the same name. Upon request of the Provincial Inspector, the chief of police tried to locate some of his men to guide the constabulary soldiers
in ascertaining Balagtas' whereabouts, and failing to see anyone of them he volunteered to go with the party. The Provincial Inspector divided the party
into two groups with defendants Oanis and Galanta, and private Fernandez taking the route to Rizal street leading to the house where Irene was
supposedly living. When this group arrived at Irene's house, Oanis approached one Brigida Mallare, who was then stripping banana stalks, and asked
her where Irene's room was. Brigida indicated the place and upon further inquiry also said that Irene was sleeping with her paramour. Brigida trembling,
immediately returned to her own room which was very near that occupied by Irene and her paramour. Defendants Oanis and Galanta then went to the
room of Irene, and an seeing a man sleeping with his back towards the door where they were, simultaneously or successively fired at him with their .32
and .45 caliber revolvers. Awakened by the gunshots, Irene saw her paramour already wounded, and looking at the door where the shots came, she
saw the defendants still firing at him. Shocked by the entire scene. Irene fainted; it turned out later that the person shot and killed was not the notorious
criminal Anselmo Balagtas but a peaceful and innocent citizen named Serapio Tecson, Irene's paramour. The Provincial Inspector, informed of the
killing, repaired to the scene and when he asked as to who killed the deceased. Galanta, referring to himself and to Oanis, answered: "We two, sir." 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.

These are the facts as found by the trial court and fully supported by the evidence, particularly by the testimony of Irene Requinea. Appellants gave,
however, a different version of the tragedy. According to Appellant Galanta, when he and chief of police Oanis arrived at the house, the latter asked
Brigida where Irene's room was. Brigida indicated the place, and upon further inquiry as to the whereabouts of Anselmo Balagtas, she said that he too
was sleeping in the same room. Oanis went to the room thus indicated and upon opening the curtain covering the door, he said: "If you are Balagtas,
stand up." Tecson, the supposed Balagtas, and Irene woke up and as the former was about to sit up in bed. Oanis fired at him. Wounded, Tecson
leaned towards the door, and Oanis receded and shouted: "That is Balagtas." Galanta then fired at Tecson.

On the other hand, Oanis testified that after he had opened the curtain covering the door and after having said, "if you are Balagtas stand up." Galanta at
once fired at Tecson, the supposed Balagtas, while the latter was still lying on bed, and continued firing until he had exhausted his bullets: that it was
only thereafter that he, Oanis, entered the door and upon seeing the supposed Balagtas, who was then apparently watching and picking up something
from the floor, he fired at him.

The trial court refused to believe the appellants. Their testimonies are certainly incredible not only because they are vitiated by a natural urge to
exculpate themselves of the crime, but also because they are materially contradictory. Oasis averred that be fired at Tecson when the latter was
apparently watching somebody in an attitudes of picking up something from the floor; on the other hand, Galanta testified that Oasis shot Tecson while
the latter was about to sit up in bed immediately after he was awakened by a noise. Galanta testified that he fired at Tecson, the supposed Balagtas,
when the latter was rushing at him. But Oanis assured that when Galanta shot Tecson, the latter was still lying on bed. It is apparent from these
contradictions that when each of the appellants tries to exculpate himself of the crime charged, he is at once belied by the other; but their mutual
incriminating averments dovetail with and corroborate substantially, the testimony of Irene Requinea. It should be recalled that, according to Requinea,
Tecson was still sleeping in bed when he was shot to death by appellants. And this, to a certain extent, is confirmed by both appellants themselves in
their mutual recriminations. According, to Galanta, Oanis shot Tecson when the latter was still in bed about to sit up just after he was awakened by a
noise. And Oanis assured that when Galanta shot Tecson, the latter was still lying in bed. Thus corroborated, and considering that the trial court had the
opportunity to observe her demeanor on the stand, we believe and so hold that no error was committed in accepting her testimony and in rejecting the
exculpatory pretensions of the two appellants. Furthermore, a careful examination of Irene's testimony will show not only that her version of the tragedy
is not concocted but that it contains all indicia of veracity. In her cross-examination, even misleading questions had been put which were unsuccessful,
the witness having stuck to the truth in every detail of the occurrence. Under these circumstances, we do not feel ourselves justified in disturbing the
findings of fact made by the trial court.
The true fact, therefore, of the case is that, while Tecson was sleeping in his room with his back towards the door, Oanis and Galanta, on sight, fired at
him simultaneously or successively, believing him to be Anselmo Balagtas but without having made previously any reasonable inquiry as to his identity.
And the question is whether or not they may, upon such fact, be held responsible for the death thus caused to Tecson. It is contended that, as appellants
acted in innocent mistake of fact in the honest performance of their official duties, both of them believing that Tecson was Balagtas, they incur no
criminal liability. Sustaining this theory in part, the lower court held and so declared them guilty of the crime of homicide through reckless imprudence.
We are of the opinion, however, that, under the circumstances of the case, the crime committed by appellants is murder through specially mitigated by
circumstances to be mentioned below.

In support of the theory of non-liability by reasons of honest mistake of fact, appellants rely on the case of U.S. v. Ah Chong, 15 Phil., 488. The maxim
is ignorantia facti excusat, but this applies only when the mistake is committed without fault or carelessness. In the Ah Chong case, defendant therein
after having gone to bed was awakened by someone trying to open the door. He called out twice, "who is there," but received no answer. Fearing that
the intruder was a robber, he leaped from his bed and called out again., "If you enter the room I will kill you." But at that precise moment, he was struck
by a chair which had been placed against the door and believing that he was then being attacked, he seized a kitchen knife and struck and fatally
wounded the intruder who turned out to be his room-mate. A common illustration of innocent mistake of fact is the case of a man who was marked as a
footpad at night and in a lonely road held up a friend in a spirit of mischief, and with leveled, pistol demanded his money or life. He was killed by his
friend under the mistaken belief that the attack was real, that the pistol leveled at his head was loaded and that his life and property were in imminent
danger at the hands of the aggressor. In these instances, there is an innocent mistake of fact committed without any fault or carelessness because the
accused, having no time or opportunity to make a further inquiry, and being pressed by circumstances to act immediately, had no alternative but to take
the facts as they then appeared to him, and such facts justified his act of killing. In the instant case, appellants, unlike the accused in the instances cited,
found no circumstances whatsoever which would press them to immediate action. The person in the room being then asleep, appellants had ample time
and opportunity to ascertain his identity without hazard to themselves, and could even effect a bloodless arrest if any reasonable effort to that end had
been made, as the victim was unarmed, according to Irene Requinea. This, indeed, is the only legitimate course of action for appellants to follow even if
the victim was really Balagtas, as they were instructed not to kill Balagtas at sight but to arrest him, and to get him dead or alive only if resistance or
aggression is offered by him.

Although an officer in making a lawful arrest is justified in using such force as is reasonably necessary to secure and detain the offender, overcome his
resistance, prevent his escape, recapture him if he escapes, and protect himself from bodily harm (People vs. Delima, 46 Phil, 738), yet he is never
justified in using unnecessary force or in treating him with wanton violence, or in resorting to dangerous means when the arrest could be effected
otherwise (6 C.J.S., par. 13, p. 612). The doctrine is restated in the new Rules of Court thus: "No unnecessary or unreasonable force shall be used in
making an arrest, and the person arrested shall not be subject to any greater restraint than is necessary for his detention." (Rule 109, sec. 2, par. 2).
And a peace officer cannot claim exemption from criminal liability if he uses unnecessary force or violence in making an arrest (5 C.J., p. 753;
U.S.vs. Mendoza, 2 Phil., 109). It may be true that Anselmo Balagtas was a notorious criminal, a life-termer, a fugitive from justice and a menace to the
peace of the community, but these facts alone constitute no justification for killing him when in effecting his arrest, he offers no resistance or in fact no
resistance can be offered, as when he is asleep. This, in effect, is the principle laid down, although upon different facts, in U.S. vs. Donoso (3 Phil., 234,
242).

It is, however, suggested that a notorious criminal "must be taken by storm" without regard to his right to life which he has by such notoriety already
forfeited. We may approve of this standard of official conduct where the criminal offers resistance or does something which places his captors in danger
of imminent attack. Otherwise we cannot see how, as in the present case, the mere fact of notoriety can make the life of a criminal a mere trifle in the
hands of the officers of the law. Notoriety rightly supplies a basis for redoubled official alertness and vigilance; it never can justify precipitate action at the
cost of human life. Where, as here, the precipitate action of the appellants has cost an innocent life and there exist no circumstances whatsoever to
warrant action of such character in the mind of a reasonably prudent man, condemnation — not condonation — should be the rule; otherwise we should
offer a premium to crime in the shelter of official actuation.

The crime committed by appellants is not merely criminal negligence, the killing being intentional and not accidental. In criminal negligence, the injury
caused to another should be unintentional, it being simply the incident of another act performed without malice. (People vs. Sara, 55 Phil., 939). In the
words of Viada, "para que se celifique un hecho de imprudencia es preciso que no haya mediado en el malicia ni intencion alguna de dañar; existiendo
esa intencion, debera calificarse el hecho del delito que ha producido, por mas que no haya sido la intencion del agente el causar un mal de tanta
gravedad como el que se produjo." (Tomo 7, Viada Codigo Penal Comentado, 5.a ed. pag. 7). And, as once held by this Court, a deliberate intent to do
an unlawful act is essentially inconsistent with the idea of reckless imprudence (People vs. Nanquil, 43 Phil., 232; People vs. Bindor, 56 Phil., 16), and
where such unlawful act is wilfully done, a mistake in the identity of the intended victim cannot be considered as reckless imprudence (People vs. Gona,
54 Phil., 605) to support a plea of mitigated liability.

As the deceased was killed while asleep, the crime committed is murder with the qualifying circumstance ofalevosia. There is, however, a mitigating
circumstance of weight consisting in the incomplete justifying circumstance defined in article 11, No. 5, of the Revised Penal Code. According to such
legal provision, a person incurs no criminal liability when he acts in the fulfillment of a duty or in the lawful exercise of a right or office. There are two
requisites in order that the circumstance may be taken as a justifying one: (a) that the offender acted in the performance of a duty or in the lawful
exercise of a right; and (b) that the injury or offense committed be the necessary consequence of the due performance of such duty or the lawful
exercise of such right or office. In the instance case, only the first requisite is present — appellants have acted in the performance of a duty. The second
requisite is wanting for the crime by them committed is not the necessary consequence of a due performance of their duty. Their duty was to arrest
Balagtas or to get him dead or alive if resistance is offered by him and they are overpowered. But through impatience or over-anxiety or in their desire to
take no chances, they have exceeded in the fulfillment of such duty by killing the person whom they believed to be Balagtas without any resistance from
him and without making any previous inquiry as to his identity. According to article 69 of the Revised Penal Code, the penalty lower by one or two
degrees than that prescribed by law shall, in such case, be imposed.

For all the foregoing, the judgment is modified and appellants are hereby declared guilty of murder with the mitigating circumstance above mentioned,
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 an indemnity of P2,000, with costs.

Yulo, C.J., Bocobo, Generoso and Lopez Vito, A., concur.

Separate Opinions

PARAS, J., dissenting:

Anselmo Balagtas, a life termer and notorious criminal, managed to escape and flee form Manila to the provinces. Receiving information to the effect
that he was staying with one Irene in Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija, the office of the Constabulary in Manila ordered the Provincial Inspector in Cabanatuan
by telegram dispatched on December 25, 1938, to get Balagtas "dead or alive". Among those assigned to the task of carrying out the said order, were
Antonio Z. Oanis, chief of police of Cabanatuan, and Alberto Galanta, a Constabulary corporal, to whom the telegram received by the Provincial
Inspector and a newspaper picture of Balagtas were shown. Oanis, Galanta and a Constabulary private, after being told by the Provincial Inspector to
gather information about Balagtas, "to arrest him and, if overpowered, to follow the instructions contained in the telegram," proceeded to the place where
the house of Irene was located. Upon arriving thereat, Oanis approached Brigida Mallari, who was then gathering banana stalks in the yard, and inquired
for the room of Irene. After Mallari had pointed out the room, she was asked by Oanis to tell where Irene's paramour, Balagtas, was, whereupon Mallari
answered that he was sleeping with Irene. Upon reaching the room indicated, Oanis and Galanta, after the former had shouted "Stand up, if you are
Balagtas," started shooting the man who was found by them lying down beside a woman. The man was thereby killed, but Balagtas was still alive, for it
turned out that the person shot by Oanis and Galanta was one Serapio Tecson.

Consequently, Oanis and Galanta were charged with having committed murder. The Court of First Instance of Nueva Ecija, however, convicted them
only of homicide through reckless imprudence and sentenced them each to suffer the indeterminate penalty of from 1 year and 6 months to 2 years and
2 months of prision correctional, to jointly and severally indemnify the heirs of Serapio Tecson in the amount of P1,000, and to pay the costs. Oanis and
Galanta have appealed.

In accomplishing the acts with which the appellants were charged, they undoubtedly followed the order issued by the Constabulary authorities in Manila
requiring the Provincial Inspector in Cabanatuan to get Balagtas dead or alive, in the honest belief that Serapio Tecson was Anselmo Balagtas. As the
latter became a fugitive criminal, with revolvers in his possession and a record that made him extremely dangerous and a public terror, the Constabulary
authorities were justified in ordering his arrest, whether dead or alive. In view of said order and the danger faced by the appellants in carrying it out, they
cannot be said to have acted feloniously in shooting the person honestly believed by them to be the wanted man. Conscious of the fact that Balagtas
would rather kill than be captured, the appellants did not want to take chances and should not be penalized for such prudence. On the contrary, they
should be commended for their bravery and courage bordering on recklessness because, without knowing or ascertaining whether the wanted man was
in fact asleep in his room, they proceeded thereto without hesitation and thereby exposed their lives to danger.

The Solicitor-General, however, contends that the appellants were authorized to use their revolvers only after being overpowered by Balagtas. In the first
place, the alleged instruction by the Provincial Inspector to that effect, was in violation of the express order given by the Constabulary authorities in
Manila and which was shown to the appellants. In the second place, it would indeed be suicidal for the appellants or, for that matter, any agent of the
authority to have waited until they have been overpowered before trying to put our such a character as Balagtas. In the third place, it is immaterial
whether or not the instruction given by the Provincial Inspector was legitimate and proper, because the facts exist that the appellants acted in conformity
with the express order of superior Constabulary authorities, the legality or propriety of which is not herein questioned.

The theory of the prosecution has acquired some plausibility, though quite psychological or sentimental, in view only of the fact that it was not Balagtas
who was actually killed, but an "innocent man . . . while he was deeply asleep." Anybody's heart will be profoundly grieved by the trade, but in time will
be consoled by the realization that the life of Serapio Tecson was not vainly sacrificed, for the incident will always serve as a loud warning to any one
desiring to follow in the footsteps of Anselmo Balagtas that in due time the duly constituted authorities will, upon proper order, enforce the summary
forfeiture of his life.

In my opinion, therefore, the appellants are not criminally liable if the person killed by them was in fact Anselmo Balagtas for the reason that they did so
in the fulfillment of their duty and in obedience to an order issued by a superior for some lawful purpose (Revised Penal Code, art. 11, pars. 5 and 6).
They also cannot be held criminally liable even if the person killed by them was not Anselmo Balagtas, but Serapio Tecson, because they did so under
an honest mistake of fact not due to negligence or bad faith. (U.S. vs. Ah Chong, 15 Phil., 488).

It is true that, under article 4 of the Revised Penal Code, criminal liability is incurred by any person committing a felony although the wrongful act done
be different from that which he intended; but said article is clearly inapplicable since the killing of the person who was believed to be Balagtas was, as
already stated, not wrongful or felonious.

The case of U.S. vs. Mendieta (34 Phil., 242), cited by the Solicitor-General, is not in point, inasmuch as the defendant therein, who intended to injure
Hilario Lauigan with whom he had a quarrel, but killed another by mistake, would not be exempted from criminal liability if he actually injured or killed
Hilario Lauigan, there being a malicious design on his part. The other case involved by the prosecution is U.S. vs. Donoso (3 Phil., 234). This is also not
in point, as it appears that the defendants therein killed one Pedro Almasan after he had already surrendered and allowed himself to be bound and that
the said defendants did not have lawful instructions from superior authorities to capture Almasan dead or alive.

The appealed judgment should therefore be reversed and the appellants, Antonio Z. Oanis and Alberto Galanta, acquitted, with costs de oficio.

HONTIVEROS, J., dissenting:

According to the opinion of the majority, it is proper to follow the rule that a notorious criminal "must be taken by storm without regard to his life which he
has, by his conduct, already forfeited," whenever said criminal offers resistance or does something which places his captors in danger of imminent
attack. Precisely, the situation which confronted the accused-appellants Antonio Z. Oanis and Alberto Galanta in the afternoon of December 24, 1938,
was very similar to this. It must be remembered that both officers received instructions to get Balagtas "dead or alive" and according to the attitude of not
only the said appellants but also of Capt. Monsod, constabulary provincial inspector of Nueva Ecija, it may be assumed that said instructions gave more
emphasis to the first part; namely, to take him dead. It appears in the record that after the shooting, and having been informed of the case, Capt.
Monsod stated that Oanis and Galanta might be decorated for what they had done. That was when all parties concerned honestly believed that the dead
person was Balagtas himself, a dangerous criminal who had escaped from his guards and was supposedly armed with a .45 caliber pistol Brigida
Mallari, the person whom the appellants met upon arriving at the house of Irene Requinea, supposed mistress of Balagtas, informed them that said
Balagtas was upstairs. Appellants found there asleep a man closely resembling the wanted criminal. Oanis said: If you are Balagtas stand up," But the
supposed criminal showed his intention to attack the appellants, a conduct easily explained by the fact that he should have felt offended by the intrusion
of persons in the room where he was peacefully lying down with his mistress. In such predicament, it was nothing but human on the part of the
appellants to employ force and to make use of their weapons in order to repel the imminent attack by a person who, according to their belief, was
Balagtas It was unfortunate, however that an innocent man was actually killed. But taking into consideration the facts of the case, it is, according to my
humble opinion, proper to apply herein the doctrine laid down in the case of U.S. vs. Ah Chong (15 Phil., 488). In the instant case we have, as in the
case supra, an innocent mistake of fact committed without any fault or carelessness on the part of the accused, who having no time to make a further
inquiry, had no alternative but to take the facts as they appeared to them and act immediately.

The decision of the majority, in recognition of the special circumstances of this case which favored the accused-appellants, arrives at the conclusion that
an incomplete justifying circumstance may be invoked, and therefore, according to Article 69 of the Revised Penal Code, the imposable penalty should
be one which is lower by one or two degrees than that prescribed by law. This incomplete justifying circumstance is that defined in Article 11, No. 5 of
the Revised Penal Code, in favor of "a person who acts in the fulfillment of a duty or in the lawful exercise of a right or office." I believe that the
application of this circumstance is not proper. Article 69 of the Revised Penal Code provides as follows:

Art. 69. Penalty to be imposed when the crime committed is not wholly excusable. — A penalty lower by one or two degrees than that
prescribed by law shall be imposed if the deed is not wholly excusable by reason of the lack of some of the conditions required to justify the
same or to exempt from criminal liability in the several cases mentioned in articles 11 and 12, provided that the majority of such conditions be
present. The courts shall impose the penalty in the period which may be deemed proper, in view of the number and nature of the conditions of
exemption present or lacking.

This provision has been copied almost verbatim from Article 84 of the old Penal Code of the Philippines, and which was also taken from Article 87 of the
Spanish Penal Code of 1870.

Judge Guillermo Guevara, one of the members of the Committee created by Administrative Order No. 94 of the Department of Justice for the drafting of
the Revised Penal Code, in commenting on Article 69, said that the justifying circumstances and circumstances exempting from liability which are the
subject matter of this article are the following: self-defense, defense of relatives, defense of strangers, state of necessity and injury caused by mere
accident. Accordingly, justifying circumstance No. 5 of Article 11 dealing with the fulfillment of a duty or the lawful exercise of a right, calling or office,
cannot be placed within its scope.

The eminent treatiser of criminal law Mr. Groizard, in his commentary of Article 87 of the Spanish Penal Code of 1870 which is the source of Article 69 of
our Code says:

Ni tratandose de la imbecilidad, ni de la locura, ni de la menor edad, ni del que obra violentado por una fuerza inrresistible o impulsado por
miedo insuperable de un mal igual o mayor, o en cumplimiento de un deber, o en el ejercito legitimo de un derecho, oficio o cargo, o en virtud
de obediencia debida, ni del que incurre en alguna omision hallandose impedido por causa legitima o insuperable, puede tener aplicacion al
articulo que comentamos. Y la razon es obvia. En ninguna de estas execiones hay pluralidad de requisitos. La irrespondabilidad depende de
una sola condicion. Hay o no perturbacion de la razon; el autor del hecho es o no menor de nueve años; existe o no violencia material o moral
irresistible, etc., etc.; tal es lo que respectivamente hay que examinar y resolver para declarar la culpabilidad o inculpabilidad. Es, por lo tanto,
imposible que acontezca lo que el texto que va al frente de estas lineas rquiere, para que se imponga al autor del hecho la penalidad
excepcional que establece; esto es, que falten algunos requisitos de los que la ley exige para eximir de responsabilidad, y que concurran
el mayor numero de ellos, toda vez que, en los casos referidos, la ley no exige multiples condiciones.

It must be taken into account the fact according to Article 69 a penalty lower by one or two degrees than that prescribed by law shall be imposed if the
deed is not wholly excusable by reason of the lack of some of the conditions required by the law to justify the same or exempt from criminal liability. The
word "conditions" should not be confused with the word "requisites". In dealing with justifying circumstance No. 5 Judge Guevara states: "There are two
requisites in order that this circumstance may be taken into account: (a) That the offender acted in the performance of his duty or in the lawful exercise
of a right; and (b) That the injury or offense committed be the necessary consequence of the performance of a duty or the lawful exercise of a right or
office." It is evident that these two requisites concur in the present case if we consider the intimate connection between the order given to the appellant
by Capt. Monsod, the showing to them of the telegram from Manila to get Balagtas who was with a bailarina named Irene, the conduct of said appellants
in questioning Brigida Mallari and giving a warning to the supposed criminal when both found him with Irene, and the statement made by Capt. Monsod
after the shooting.

If appellant Oanis is entitled to a reversal of the decision of the court below, there are more reasons in favor of the acquittal of appellant Galanta.
According to the evidence no bullet from the gun fired by this accused ever hit Serapio Tecson. Galanta was armed in the afternoon of December 24,
1938, with a .45 caliber revolver (Exhibit L). He so testified and was corroborated by the unchallenged testimony of his superior officer Sgt. Valeriano
Serafica. According to this witness, since Galanta was made a corporal of the Constabulary he was given, as part of his equipment, revolver Exhibit L
with a serial No. 37121. This gun had been constantly used by Galanta, and, according to Sgt. Pedro Marasigan, who accompanied said accused when
he took it from his trunk in the barracks on the night of December 24, 1938, upon order of Captain Monsod, it was the same revolver which was given to
the witness with five .45 caliber bullets and one empty shell. Fourteen unused bullets were also taken from Galanta by Sergeant Serafica, thus
completing his regular equipment of twenty bullets which he had on the morning of December 24, 1938, when Sergeant Serafica made the usual
inspection of the firearms in the possession of the non-commissioned officers and privates of the constabulary post at Cabanatuan. Galanta stated that
he had fired only one shot and missed. This testimony is corroborated by that of a ballistic expert who testified that bullets exhibits F and O, — the first
being extracted from the head of the deceased, causing wound No. 3 of autopsy report Exhibit C and the second found at the place of the shooting, —
had not been fired from revolver Exhibit L nor from any other revolver of the constabulary station in Cabanatuan. It was impossible for the accused
Galanta to have substituted his revolver because when Exhibit L was taken from him nobody in the barracks doubted that the deceased was none other
than Balagtas. Moreover, Exhibit L was not out of order and therefore there was no reason why Galanta should carry along another gun, according to
the natural course of things. On the other hand, aside from wound No. 3 as above stated, no other wound may be said to have been caused by a .45
caliber revolver bullet. Doctor Castro's record gives the conclusion that wound No. 2 must have been caused by a .45 caliber revolver bullet. Doctor
Castro's record gives the conclusion that wound No. 2 must have been caused by a .45 caliber bullet, but inasmuch as the diameter of the wound's
entrance was only 8 mm., the caliber should be .32 and not .45, because according to the medico-legal expert who testified in this case, a bullet of a .45
caliber will produce a wound entrance with either 11 mm. or 12 mm. diameter. All other wounds found by the surgeon who performed the autopsy
appeared to have been caused by bullets of a lesser caliber. In consequence, it can be stated that no bullet fired by Galanta did ever hit or kill Serapio
Tecson and therefore there is no reason why he should be declared criminally responsible for said death.
 Republic of the Philippines
SUPREME COURT
Manila

FIRST DIVISION

G.R. No. L-74324 November 17, 1988

THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, plaintiff-appellee,

vs.
FERNANDO PUGAY y BALCITA, & BENJAMIN SAMSON y MAGDALENA, accused-appellants.

The Solicitor General for plaintiff-appellee.

Citizens Legal Assistance Office for accused-appellants.

MEDIALDEA, J.:

For the death of Bayani Miranda, a retardate, FERNANDO PUGAY y BALCITA and BENJAMIN SAMSON y MAGDALENA were charged with the crime
of MURDER in Criminal Case No. L-175-82 of the Court of First Instance (now Regional Trial Court) of Cavite, under an information which reads as
follows:

That on or about May 19, 1982 at the town plaza of the Municipality of Rosario, Province of Cavite, Philippines, and within the
jurisdiction of this Honorable Court, the above-named accused, conspiring, confederating and mutually helping and assisting one
another, with treachery and evident premeditation, taking advantage of their superior strength, and with the decided purpose to kill,
poured gasoline, a combustible liquid to the body of Bayani Miranda and with the use of fire did then and there, wilfully, unlawfully
and feloniously, burn the whole body of said Bayani Miranda which caused his subsequent death, to the damage and prejudice of
the heirs of the aforenamed Bayani Miranda.

That the crime was committed with the qualifying circumstance of treachery and the aggravating circumstances of evident
premeditation and superior strength, and the means employed was to weaken the defense; that the wrong done in the commission
of the crime was deliberately augmented by causing another wrong, that is the burning of the body of Bayani Miranda.

CONTRARY TO LAW (p. 1, Records).

Upon being arraigned, both accused pleaded not guilty to the offense charged. After trial, the trial court rendered a decision finding both accused guilty
on the crime of murder but crediting in favor of the accused Pugay the mitigating circumstance of lack of intention to commit so grave a wrong, the
dispositive portion of which reads as follows:

WHEREFORE, the accused Fernando Pugay y Balcita and Benjamin Samson y Magdalena are pronounced guilty beyond
reasonable doubt as principals by direct participation of the crime of murder for the death of Bayani Miranda, and appreciating the
aforestated mitigating circumstance in favor of Pugay, he is sentenced to a prison term ranging from twelve (12) years of prision
mayor, as minimum, to twenty (20) years of reclusion temporal, as maximum, and Samson to suffer the penalty of reclusion
perpetua together with the accessories of the law for both of them. The accused are solidarily held liable to indemnify the heirs of
the victim in the amount of P13,940.00 plus moral damages of P10,000.00 and exemplary damages of P5,000.00.

Let the preventive imprisonment of Pugay be deducted from the principal penalty.

Cost against both accused.

SO ORDERED (p. 248, Records).

Not satisfied with the decision, both accused interposed the present appeal and assigned the following errors committed by the court a quo:

1. THE COURT A QUO ERRED IN UTILIZING THE STATEMENTS OF ACCUSED-APPELLANTS IN ITS APPRECIATION OF
FACTS DESPITE ITS ADMISSION THAT THE ACCUSED-APPELLANTS WERE NOT ASSISTED BY A COUNSEL DURING THE
CUSTODIAL INVESTIGATION.

2. THE COURT A QUO ERRED IN NOT FINDING THAT THE SUPPRESSION BY THE PROSECUTION OF SOME EVIDENCE IS
FATAL TO ITS CASE.

3. THE COURT A QUO ERRED IN LENDING CREDENCE TO THE INCREDIBLE TESTIMONY OF EDUARDO GABION WHO
WAS ONE OF THE MANY SUSPECTS ARRESTED BY THE POLICE (Accused-appellants' Brief, p. 48, Rollo).

The antecedent facts are as follows:

The deceased Miranda, a 25-year old retardate, and the accused Pugay were friends. Miranda used to run errands for Pugay and at times they slept
together. On the evening of May 19, 1982, a town fiesta fair was held in the public plaza of Rosario, Cavite. There were different kinds of ride and one
was a ferris wheel.

Sometime after midnight of the same date, Eduardo Gabion was sitting in the ferris wheel and reading a comic book with his friend Henry. Later, the
accused Pugay and Samson with several companions arrived. These persons appeared to be drunk as they were all happy and noisy. As the group saw
the deceased walking nearby, they started making fun of him. They made the deceased dance by tickling him with a piece of wood.

Not content with what they were doing with the deceased, the accused Pugay suddenly took a can of gasoline from under the engine of the ferns wheel
and poured its contents on the body of the former. Gabion told Pugay not to do so while the latter was already in the process of pouring the gasoline.
Then, the accused Samson set Miranda on fire making a human torch out of him.

The ferris wheel operator later arrived and doused with water the burning body of the deceased. Some people around also poured sand on the burning
body and others wrapped the same with rags to extinguish the flame.

The body of the deceased was still aflame when police officer Rolando Silangcruz and other police officers of the Rosario Police Force arrived at the
scene of the incident. Upon inquiring as to who were responsible for the dastardly act, the persons around spontaneously pointed to Pugay and Samson
as the authors thereof.

The deceased was later rushed to the Grace Hospital for treatment. In the meantime, the police officers brought Gabion, the two accused and five other
persons to the Rosario municipal building for interrogation. Police officer Reynaldo Canlas took the written statements of Gabion and the two accused,
after which Gabion was released. The two accused remained in custody.

After a careful review of the records, We find the grounds relied upon by the accused-appellants for the reversal of the decision of the court a quo to be
without merit.

It bears emphasis that barely a few hours after the incident, accused-appellants gave their written statements to the police. The accused Pugay admitted
in his statement, Exhibit F, that he poured a can of gasoline on the deceased believing that the contents thereof was water and then the accused
Samson set the deceased on fire. The accused Samson, on the other hand, alleged in his statement that he saw Pugay pour gasoline on Miranda but
did not see the person who set him on fire. Worthy of note is the fact that both statements did not impute any participation of eyewitness Gabion in the
commission of the offense.

While testifying on their defense, the accused-appellants repudiated their written statements alleging that they were extracted by force. They claimed
that the police maltreated them into admitting authorship of the crime. They also engaged in a concerted effort to lay the blame on Gabion for the
commission of the offense.

Thus, while it is true that the written statements of the accused-appellants were mentioned and discussed in the decision of the court a quo, the contents
thereof were not utilized as the sole basis for the findings of facts in the decision rendered. The said court categorically stated that "even without Exhibits
'F' and 'G', there is still Gabion's straightforward, positive and convincing testimony which remains unaffected by the uncorroborated, self-serving and
unrealiable testimonies of Pugay and Samson" (p. 247, Records).

Accused-appellants next assert that the prosecution suppressed the testimonies of other eyewitnesses to the incident. They claim that despite the fact
that there were other persons investigated by the police, only Gabion was presented as an eyewitness during the trial of the case. They argue that the
deliberate non- presentation of these persons raises the presumption that their testimonies would be adverse to the prosecution.

There is no dispute that there were other persons who witnessed the commission of the crime. In fact there appears on record (pp. 16-17, Records) the
written statements of one Abelardo Reyes and one Monico Alimorong alleging the same facts and imputing the respective acts of pouring of gasoline
and setting the deceased on fire to the accused-appellants as testified to by Gabion in open court. They were listed as prosecution witnesses in the
information filed. Considering that their testimonies would be merely corroborative, their non-presentation does not give rise to the presumption that
evidence wilfully suppressed would be adverse if produced. This presumption does not apply to the suppression of merely corroborative evidence (U.S.
vs. Dinola, 37 Phil. 797).<äre||anº•1àw>Besides, the matter as to whom to utilize as witness is for the prosecution to decide.

Accused-appellants also attack the credibility of the eyewitness Gabion alleging that not only was the latter requested by the mother of the deceased to
testify for the prosecution in exchange for his absolution from liability but also because his testimony that he was reading a comic book during an
unusual event is contrary to human behavior and experience.

Gabion testified that it was his uncle and not the mother of the deceased who asked him to testify and state the truth about the incident. The mother of
the deceased likewise testified that she never talked to Gabion and that she saw the latter for the first time when the instant case was tried. Besides, the
accused Pugay admitted that Gabion was his friend and both Pugay and the other accused Samson testified that they had no previous
misunderstanding with Gabion. Clearly, Gabion had no reason to testify falsely against them.

In support of their claim that the testimony of Gabion to the effect that he saw Pugay pour gasoline on the deceased and then Samson set him on fire is
incredible, the accused-appellants quote Gabion's testimony on cross-examination that, after telling Pugay not to pour gasoline on the deceased, he
(Gabion) resumed reading comics; and that it was only when the victim's body was on fire that he noticed a commotion.

However, explaining this testimony on re-direct examination, Gabion stated:

 Q. Mr. Gabion, you told the Court on cross-examination that you were reading comics when you saw Pugay
poured gasoline unto Bayani Miranda and lighted by Samson. How could you possibly see that incident while
you were reading comics?

A. I put down the comics which I am reading and I saw what they were doing.

Q. According to you also before Bayani was poured with gasoline and lighted and burned later you had a talk
with Pugay, is that correct?

A. When he was pouring gasoline on Bayani Miranda I was trying to prevent him from doing so.

Q. We want to clarify. According to you a while ago you had a talk with Pugay and as a matter of fact, you told
him not to pour gasoline. That is what I want to know from you, if that is true?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. Aside from Bayani being tickled with a stick on his ass, do you mean to say you come to know that Pugay
will pour gasoline unto him?

A. I do not know that would be that incident.

Q. Why did you as(k) Pugay in the first place not to pour gasoline before he did that actually?

A. Because I pity Bayani, sir.

Q. When you saw Pugay tickling Bayani with a stick on his ass you tried according to you to ask him not to and
then later you said you asked not to pour gasoline. Did Pugay tell you he was going to pour gasoline on
Bayani?

A. I was not told, sir.

Q. Did you come to know..... how did you come to know he was going to pour gasoline that is why you prevent
him?

A. Because he was holding on a container of gasoline. I thought it was water but it was gasoline.

Q. It is clear that while Pugay was tickling Bayani with a stick on his ass, he later got hold of a can of gasoline,
is that correct?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. And when he pick up the can of gasoline, was that the time you told him not to pour gasoline when he merely
pick up the can of gasoline.

A. I saw him pouring the gasoline on the body of Joe.

Q. So, it is clear when you told Pugay not to pour gasoline he was already in the process of pouring gasoline on
the body of Bayani?

A. Yes, sir (Tsn, July 30, 1983, pp. 32-33).

It is thus clear that prior to the incident in question, Gabion was reading a comic book; that Gabion stopped reading when the group of Pugay started to
make fun of the deceased; that Gabion saw Pugay get the can of gasoline from under the engine of the ferris wheel; that it was while Pugay was in the
process of pouring the gasoline on the body of the deceased when Gabion warned him not to do so; and that Gabion later saw Samson set the
deceased on fire.

However, there is nothing in the records showing that there was previous conspiracy or unity of criminal purpose and intention between the two accused-
appellants immediately before the commission of the crime. There was no animosity between the deceased and the accused Pugay or Samson. Their
meeting at the scene of the incident was accidental. It is also clear that the accused Pugay and his group merely wanted to make fun of the deceased.
Hence, the respective criminal responsibility of Pugay and Samson arising from different acts directed against the deceased is individual and not
collective, and each of them is liable only for the act committed by him (U.S. vs. Magcomot, et. al. 13, Phil. 386; U.S. vs. Abiog, et. al. 37 Phil. 1371).

The next question to be determined is the criminal responsibility of the accused Pugay. Having taken the can from under the engine of the ferris wheel
and holding it before pouring its contents on the body of the deceased, this accused knew that the can contained gasoline. The stinging smell of this
flammable liquid could not have escaped his notice even before pouring the same. Clearly, he failed to exercise all the diligence necessary to avoid
every undesirable consequence arising from any act that may be committed by his companions who at the time were making fun of the deceased. We
agree with the Solicitor General that the accused is only guilty of homicide through reckless imprudence defined in Article 365 of the Revised Penal
Code, as amended. In U.S. vs. Maleza, et. al. 14 Phil. 468, 470, this Court ruled as follows:

A man must use common sense and exercise due reflection in all his acts; it is his duty to be cautious, careful, and prudent, if not
from instinct, then through fear of incurring punishment. He is responsible for such results as anyone might foresee and for acts
which no one would have performed except through culpable abandon. Otherwise his own person, rights and property, all those of
his fellow-beings, would ever be exposed to all manner of danger and injury.

The proper penalty that the accused Pugay must suffer is an indeterminate one ranging from four (4) months ofarresto mayor, as minimum, to four (4)
years and two (2) months of prision correccional, as maximum. With respect to the accused Samson, the Solicitor General in his brief contends that "his
conviction of murder, is proper considering that his act in setting the deceased on fire knowing that gasoline had just been poured on him is
characterized by treachery as the victim was left completely helpless to defend and protect himself against such an outrage" (p. 57, Rollo). We do not
agree.

There is entire absence of proof in the record that the accused Samson had some reason to kill the deceased before the incident. On the contrary, there
is adequate evidence showing that his act was merely a part of their fun-making that evening. For the circumstance of treachery to exist, the attack must
be deliberate and the culprit employed means, methods, or forms in the execution thereof which tend directly and specially to insure its execution,
without risk to himself arising from any defense which the offended party might make.

There can be no doubt that the accused Samson knew very well that the liquid poured on the body of the deceased was gasoline and a flammable
substance for he would not have committed the act of setting the latter on fire if it were otherwise. Giving him the benefit of doubt, it call be conceded
that as part of their fun-making he merely intended to set the deceased's clothes on fire. His act, however, does not relieve him of criminal responsibility.
Burning the clothes of the victim would cause at the very least some kind of physical injuries on his person, a felony defined in the Revised Penal Code.
If his act resulted into a graver offense, as what took place in the instant case, he must be held responsible therefor. Article 4 of the aforesaid code
provides, inter alia, 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.

As no sufficient evidence appears in the record establishing any qualifying circumstances, the accused Samson is only guilty of the crime of homicide
defined and penalized in Article 249 of the Revised Penal Code, as amended. We are disposed to credit in his favor the ordinary mitigating circumstance
of no intention to commit so grave a wrong as that committed as there is evidence of a fact from which such conclusion can be drawn. The eyewitness
Gabion testified that the accused Pugay and Samson were stunned when they noticed the deceased burning (Tsn, June 1, 1983, pp. 16-
17).<äre||anº•1àw>

The proper penalty that the accused Samson must suffer is an indeterminate one ranging from eight (8) years ofprision mayor, as minimum, to fourteen
(14) years of reclusion temporal, as maximum.

The lower court held the accused solidarily liable for P13,940.00, the amount spent by Miranda's parents for his hospitalization, wake and interment. The
indemnity for death is P30,000.00. Hence, the indemnity to the heirs of the deceased Miranda is increased to P43,940.00.

Both accused shall be jointly and severally liable for the aforesaid amount plus the P10,000.00 as moral damages and P5,000.00 as exemplary
damages as found by the court a quo.

Accordingly, the judgment is affirmed with the modifications above-indicated. Costs against the accused-appellants.

SO ORDERED.

Narvasa, Cruz, Gancayco and Griño-Aquino, JJ., concur.

 Republic of the Philippines
SUPREME COURT
Manila

SECOND DIVISION

G.R. No. 172716 November 17, 2010

JASON IVLER y AGUILAR, Petitioner,

vs.
HON. MARIA ROWENA MODESTO-SAN PEDRO, Judge of the Metropolitan Trial Court, Branch 71, Pasig City, and EVANGELINE
PONCE, Respondents.

DECISION

CARPIO, J.:

The Case

The petition seeks the review1 of the Orders2 of the Regional Trial Court of Pasig City affirming sub-silencio a lower court’s ruling finding inapplicable the
Double Jeopardy Clause to bar a second prosecution for Reckless Imprudence Resulting in Homicide and Damage to Property. This, despite the
accused’s previous conviction for Reckless Imprudence Resulting in Slight Physical Injuries arising from the same incident grounding the second
prosecution.

The Facts

Following a vehicular collision in August 2004, petitioner Jason Ivler (petitioner) was charged before the Metropolitan Trial Court of Pasig City, Branch 71
(MeTC), with two separate offenses: (1) Reckless Imprudence Resulting in Slight Physical Injuries (Criminal Case No. 82367) for injuries sustained by
respondent Evangeline L. Ponce (respondent Ponce); and (2) Reckless Imprudence Resulting in Homicide and Damage to Property (Criminal Case No.
82366) for the death of respondent Ponce’s husband Nestor C. Ponce and damage to the spouses Ponce’s vehicle. Petitioner posted bail for his
temporary release in both cases.

On 7 September 2004, petitioner pleaded guilty to the charge in Criminal Case No. 82367 and was meted out the penalty of public censure. Invoking this
conviction, petitioner moved to quash the Information in Criminal Case No. 82366 for placing him in jeopardy of second punishment for the same offense
of reckless imprudence.

The MeTC refused quashal, finding no identity of offenses in the two cases. 3

After unsuccessfully seeking reconsideration, petitioner elevated the matter to the Regional Trial Court of Pasig City, Branch 157 (RTC), in a petition for
certiorari (S.C.A. No. 2803). Meanwhile, petitioner sought from the MeTC the suspension of proceedings in Criminal Case No. 82366, including the
arraignment on 17 May 2005, invoking S.C.A. No. 2803 as a prejudicial question. Without acting on petitioner’s motion, the MeTC proceeded with the
arraignment and, because of petitioner’s absence, cancelled his bail and ordered his arrest. 4 Seven days later, the MeTC issued a resolution denying
petitioner’s motion to suspend proceedings and postponing his arraignment until after his arrest. 5 Petitioner sought reconsideration but as of the filing of
this petition, the motion remained unresolved.

Relying on the arrest order against petitioner, respondent Ponce sought in the RTC the dismissal of S.C.A. No. 2803 for petitioner’s loss of standing to
maintain the suit. Petitioner contested the motion.

The Ruling of the Trial Court

In an Order dated 2 February 2006, the RTC dismissed S.C.A. No. 2803, narrowly grounding its ruling on petitioner’s forfeiture of standing to maintain
S.C.A. No. 2803 arising from the MeTC’s order to arrest petitioner for his non-appearance at the arraignment in Criminal Case No. 82366. Thus, without
reaching the merits of S.C.A. No. 2803, the RTC effectively affirmed the MeTC. Petitioner sought reconsideration but this proved unavailing.6

Hence, this petition.

Petitioner denies absconding. He explains that his petition in S.C.A. No. 2803 constrained him to forego participation in the proceedings in Criminal Case
No. 82366. Petitioner distinguishes his case from the line of jurisprudence sanctioning dismissal of appeals for absconding appellants because his
appeal before the RTC was a special civil action seeking a pre-trial relief, not a post-trial appeal of a judgment of conviction.7

Petitioner laments the RTC’s failure to reach the merits of his petition in S.C.A. 2803. Invoking jurisprudence, petitioner argues that his constitutional
right not to be placed twice in jeopardy of punishment for the same offense bars his prosecution in Criminal Case No. 82366, having been previously
convicted in Criminal Case No. 82367 for the same offense of reckless imprudence charged in Criminal Case No. 82366. Petitioner submits that the
multiple consequences of such crime are material only to determine his penalty.

Respondent Ponce finds no reason for the Court to disturb the RTC’s decision forfeiting petitioner’s standing to maintain his petition in S.C.A. 2803. On
the merits, respondent Ponce calls the Court’s attention to jurisprudence holding that light offenses (e.g. slight physical injuries) cannot be complexed
under Article 48 of the Revised Penal Code with grave or less grave felonies (e.g. homicide). Hence, the prosecution was obliged to separate the charge
in Criminal Case No. 82366 for the slight physical injuries from Criminal Case No. 82367 for the homicide and damage to property.

In the Resolution of 6 June 2007, we granted the Office of the Solicitor General’s motion not to file a comment to the petition as the public respondent
judge is merely a nominal party and private respondent is represented by counsel.

The Issues

Two questions are presented for resolution: (1) whether petitioner forfeited his standing to seek relief in S.C.A. 2803 when the MeTC ordered his arrest
following his non-appearance at the arraignment in Criminal Case No. 82366; and (2) if in the negative, whether petitioner’s constitutional right under the
Double Jeopardy Clause bars further proceedings in Criminal Case No. 82366.

The Ruling of the Court

We hold that (1) petitioner’s non-appearance at the arraignment in Criminal Case No. 82366 did not divest him of personality to maintain the petition in
S.C.A. 2803; and (2) the protection afforded by the Constitution shielding petitioner from prosecutions placing him in jeopardy of second punishment for
the same offense bars further proceedings in Criminal Case No. 82366.

Petitioner’s Non-appearance at the Arraignment in

Criminal Case No. 82366 did not Divest him of Standing
to Maintain the Petition in S.C.A. 2803

Dismissals of appeals grounded on the appellant’s escape from custody or violation of the terms of his bail bond are governed by the second paragraph
of Section 8, Rule 124,8 in relation to Section 1, Rule 125, of the Revised Rules on Criminal Procedure authorizing this Court or the Court of Appeals to
"also, upon motion of the appellee or motu proprio, dismiss the appeal if the appellant escapes from prison or confinement, jumps bail or flees to a
foreign country during the pendency of the appeal." The "appeal" contemplated in Section 8 of Rule 124 is a suit to review judgments of convictions.

The RTC’s dismissal of petitioner’s special civil action for certiorari to review a pre-arraignment ancillary question on the applicability of the Due Process
Clause to bar proceedings in Criminal Case No. 82366 finds no basis under procedural rules and jurisprudence. The RTC’s reliance on People v.
Esparas9 undercuts the cogency of its ruling because Esparas stands for a proposition contrary to the RTC’s ruling. There, the Court granted review to
an appeal by an accused who was sentenced to death for importing prohibited drugs even though she jumped bail pending trial and was thus tried and
convicted in absentia. The Court in Esparas treated the mandatory review of death sentences under Republic Act No. 7659 as an exception to Section 8
of Rule 124.10

The mischief in the RTC’s treatment of petitioner’s non-appearance at his arraignment in Criminal Case No. 82366 as proof of his loss of standing
becomes more evident when one considers the Rules of Court’s treatment of a defendant who absents himself from post-arraignment hearings. Under
Section 21, Rule 11411 of the Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure, the defendant’s absence merely renders his bondsman potentially liable on its bond
(subject to cancellation should the bondsman fail to produce the accused within 30 days); the defendant retains his standing and, should he fail to
surrender, will be tried in absentia and could be convicted or acquitted. Indeed, the 30-day period granted to the bondsman to produce the accused
underscores the fact that mere non-appearance does not ipso facto convert the accused’s status to that of a fugitive without standing.

Further, the RTC’s observation that petitioner provided "no explanation why he failed to attend the scheduled proceeding" 12 at the MeTC is belied by the
records. Days before the arraignment, petitioner sought the suspension of the MeTC’s proceedings in Criminal Case No. 82366 in light of his petition
with the RTC in S.C.A. No. 2803. Following the MeTC’s refusal to defer arraignment (the order for which was released days after the MeTC ordered
petitioner’s arrest), petitioner sought reconsideration. His motion remained unresolved as of the filing of this petition.

Petitioner’s Conviction in Criminal Case No. 82367

Bars his Prosecution in Criminal Case No. 82366

The accused’s negative constitutional right not to be "twice put in jeopardy of punishment for the same offense" 13protects him from, among others, post-
conviction prosecution for the same offense, with the prior verdict rendered by a court of competent jurisdiction upon a valid information. 14 It is not
disputed that petitioner’s conviction in Criminal Case No. 82367 was rendered by a court of competent jurisdiction upon a valid charge. Thus, the case
turns on the question whether Criminal Case No. 82366 and Criminal Case No. 82367 involve the "same offense." Petitioner adopts the affirmative view,
submitting that the two cases concern the same offense of reckless imprudence. The MeTC ruled otherwise, finding that Reckless Imprudence Resulting
in Slight Physical Injuries is an entirely separate offense from Reckless Imprudence Resulting in Homicide and Damage to Property "as the [latter]
requires proof of an additional fact which the other does not."15

We find for petitioner.

Reckless Imprudence is a Single Crime,

its Consequences on Persons and
Property are Material Only to Determine
the Penalty

The two charges against petitioner, arising from the same facts, were prosecuted under the same provision of the Revised Penal Code, as amended,
namely, Article 365 defining and penalizing quasi-offenses. The text of the provision reads:

Imprudence and negligence. — Any person who, by reckless imprudence, shall commit any act which, had it been intentional, would constitute a grave
felony, shall suffer the penalty of arresto mayor in its maximum period to prision correccional in its medium period; if it would have constituted a less
grave felony, the penalty of arresto mayor in its minimum and medium periods shall be imposed; if it would have constituted a light felony, the penalty of
arresto menor in its maximum period shall be imposed.

Any person who, by simple imprudence or negligence, shall commit an act which would otherwise constitute a grave felony, shall suffer the penalty of
arresto mayor in its medium and maximum periods; if it would have constituted a less serious felony, the penalty of arresto mayor in its minimum period
shall be imposed.

When the execution of the act covered by this article shall have only resulted in damage to the property of another, the offender shall be punished by a
fine ranging from an amount equal to the value of said damages to three times such value, but which shall in no case be less than twenty-five pesos.

A fine not exceeding two hundred pesos and censure shall be imposed upon any person who, by simple imprudence or negligence, shall cause some
wrong which, if done maliciously, would have constituted a light felony.

In the imposition of these penalties, the court shall exercise their sound discretion, without regard to the rules prescribed in Article sixty-four.

The provisions contained in this article shall not be applicable:

1. When the penalty provided for the offense is equal to or lower than those provided in the first two paragraphs of this article, in which case
the court shall impose the penalty next lower in degree than that which should be imposed in the period which they may deem proper to apply.

2. When, by imprudence or negligence and with violation of the Automobile Law, to death of a person shall be caused, in which case the
defendant shall be punished by prision correccional in its medium and maximum periods.

Reckless imprudence consists in voluntary, but without malice, doing or failing to do an act from which material damage results by reason of inexcusable
lack of precaution on the part of the person performing or failing to perform such act, taking into consideration his employment or occupation, degree of
intelligence, physical condition and other circumstances regarding persons, time and place.

Simple imprudence consists in the lack of precaution displayed in those cases in which the damage impending to be caused is not immediate nor the
danger clearly manifest.

The penalty next higher in degree to those provided for in this article shall be imposed upon the offender who fails to lend on the spot to the injured
parties such help as may be in this hand to give.

Structurally, these nine paragraphs are collapsible into four sub-groupings relating to (1) the penalties attached to the quasi-offenses of "imprudence"
and "negligence" (paragraphs 1-2); (2) a modified penalty scheme for either or both quasi-offenses (paragraphs 3-4, 6 and 9); (3) a generic rule for trial
courts in imposing penalties (paragraph 5); and (4) the definition of "reckless imprudence" and "simple imprudence" (paragraphs 7-8). Conceptually,
quasi-offenses penalize "the mental attitude or condition behind the act, the dangerous recklessness, lack of care or foresight, the imprudencia
punible,"16 unlike willful offenses which punish the intentional criminal act. These structural and conceptual features of quasi-offenses set them apart
from the mass of intentional crimes under the first 13 Titles of Book II of the Revised Penal Code, as amended.

Indeed, the notion that quasi-offenses, whether reckless or simple, are distinct species of crime, separately defined and penalized under the framework
of our penal laws, is nothing new. As early as the middle of the last century, we already sought to bring clarity to this field by rejecting in Quizon v.
Justice of the Peace of Pampanga the proposition that "reckless imprudence is not a crime in itself but simply a way of committing it x x x"17 on three
points of analysis: (1) the object of punishment in quasi-crimes (as opposed to intentional crimes); (2) the legislative intent to treat quasi-crimes as
distinct offenses (as opposed to subsuming them under the mitigating circumstance of minimal intent) and; (3) the different penalty structures for quasi-
crimes and intentional crimes:

The proposition (inferred from Art. 3 of the Revised Penal Code) that "reckless imprudence" is not a crime in itself but simply a way of committing it and
merely determines a lower degree of criminal liability is too broad to deserve unqualified assent. There are crimes that by their structure cannot be
committed through imprudence: murder, treason, robbery, malicious mischief, etc. In truth, criminal negligence in our Revised Penal Code is treated as a
mere quasi offense, and dealt with separately from willful offenses. It is not a mere question of classification or terminology. In intentional crimes, the act
itself is punished; in negligence or imprudence, what is principally penalized is the mental attitude or condition behind the act, the dangerous
recklessness, lack of care or foresight, the imprudencia punible. x x x x

Were criminal negligence but a modality in the commission of felonies, operating only to reduce the penalty therefor, then it would be absorbed in the
mitigating circumstances of Art. 13, specially the lack of intent to commit so grave a wrong as the one actually committed. Furthermore, the theory would
require that the corresponding penalty should be fixed in proportion to the penalty prescribed for each crime when committed willfully. For each penalty
for the willful offense, there would then be a corresponding penalty for the negligent variety. But instead, our Revised Penal Code (Art. 365) fixes the
penalty for reckless imprudence at arresto mayor maximum, to prision correccional [medium], if the willful act would constitute a grave felony,
notwithstanding that the penalty for the latter could range all the way from prision mayor to death, according to the case. It can be seen that the actual
penalty for criminal negligence bears no relation to the individual willful crime, but is set in relation to a whole class, or series, of crimes.18 (Emphasis
supplied)

This explains why the technically correct way to allege quasi-crimes is to state that their commission results in damage, either to person or property.19

Accordingly, we found the Justice of the Peace in Quizon without jurisdiction to hear a case for "Damage to Property through Reckless Imprudence," its
jurisdiction being limited to trying charges for Malicious Mischief, an intentional crime conceptually incompatible with the element of imprudence
obtaining in quasi-crimes.
Quizon, rooted in Spanish law20 (the normative ancestry of our present day penal code) and since repeatedly reiterated, 21 stands on solid conceptual
foundation. The contrary doctrinal pronouncement in People v. Faller22that "[r]eckless impudence is not a crime in itself x x x [but] simply a way of
committing it x x x,"23 has long been abandoned when the Court en banc promulgated Quizon in 1955 nearly two decades after the Court decided Faller
in 1939. Quizon rejected Faller’s conceptualization of quasi-crimes by holding that quasi-crimes under Article 365 are distinct species of crimes and not
merely methods of committing crimes. Faller found expression in post-Quizon jurisprudence24 only by dint of lingering doctrinal confusion arising from an
indiscriminate fusion of criminal law rules defining Article 365 crimes and the complexing of intentional crimes under Article 48 of the Revised Penal
Code which, as will be shown shortly, rests on erroneous conception of quasi-crimes. Indeed, the Quizonian conception of quasi-crimes undergirded a
related branch of jurisprudence applying the Double Jeopardy Clause to quasi-offenses, barring second prosecutions for a quasi-offense alleging one
resulting act after a prior conviction or acquittal of a quasi-offense alleging another resulting act but arising from the same reckless act or omission upon
which the second prosecution was based.

Prior Conviction or Acquittal of

Reckless Imprudence Bars
Subsequent Prosecution for the Same
Quasi-Offense

The doctrine that reckless imprudence under Article 365 is a single quasi-offense by itself and not merely a means to commit other crimes such that
conviction or acquittal of such quasi-offense bars subsequent prosecution for the same quasi-offense, regardless of its various resulting acts,
undergirded this Court’s unbroken chain of jurisprudence on double jeopardy as applied to Article 365 starting with People v. Diaz,25 decided in 1954.
There, a full Court, speaking through Mr. Justice Montemayor, ordered the dismissal of a case for "damage to property thru reckless imprudence"
because a prior case against the same accused for "reckless driving," arising from the same act upon which the first prosecution was based, had been
dismissed earlier. Since then, whenever the same legal question was brought before the Court, that is, whether prior conviction or acquittal of reckless
imprudence bars subsequent prosecution for the same quasi-offense, regardless of the consequences alleged for both charges, the Court unfailingly
and consistently answered in the affirmative in People v. Belga26(promulgated in 1957 by the Court en banc, per Reyes, J.), Yap v.
Lutero27 (promulgated in 1959, unreported, per Concepcion, J.), People v. Narvas 28 (promulgated in 1960 by the Court en banc, per Bengzon J.), People
v. Silva29 (promulgated in 1962 by the Court en banc, per Paredes, J.), People v. Macabuhay30 (promulgated in 1966 by the Court en banc, per
Makalintal, J.), People v. Buan31 (promulgated in 1968 by the Court en banc, per Reyes, J.B.L., acting C. J.), Buerano v. Court of
Appeals32 (promulgated in 1982 by the Court en banc, per Relova, J.), and People v. City Court of Manila33 (promulgated in 1983 by the First Division,
per Relova, J.). These cases uniformly barred the second prosecutions as constitutionally impermissible under the Double Jeopardy Clause.

The reason for this consistent stance of extending the constitutional protection under the Double Jeopardy Clause to quasi-offenses was best articulated
by Mr. Justice J.B.L. Reyes in Buan, where, in barring a subsequent prosecution for "serious physical injuries and damage to property thru reckless
imprudence" because of the accused’s prior acquittal of "slight physical injuries thru reckless imprudence," with both charges grounded on the same act,
the Court explained:34

Reason and precedent both coincide in that once convicted or acquitted of a specific act of reckless imprudence, the accused may not be prosecuted
again for that same act. For the essence of the quasi offense of criminal negligence under article 365 of the Revised Penal Code lies in the execution of
an imprudent or negligent act that, if intentionally done, would be punishable as a felony. The law penalizes thus the negligent or careless act, not the
result thereof. The gravity of the consequence is only taken into account to determine the penalty, it does not qualify the substance of the offense. And,
as the careless act is single, whether the injurious result should affect one person or several persons, the offense (criminal negligence) remains one and
the same, and can not be split into different crimes and prosecutions.35 x x x (Emphasis supplied)

Evidently, the Diaz line of jurisprudence on double jeopardy merely extended to its logical conclusion the reasoning of Quizon.

There is in our jurisprudence only one ruling going against this unbroken line of authority. Preceding Diaz by more than a decade, El Pueblo de Filipinas
v. Estipona,36 decided by the pre-war colonial Court in November 1940, allowed the subsequent prosecution of an accused for reckless imprudence
resulting in damage to property despite his previous conviction for multiple physical injuries arising from the same reckless operation of a motor vehicle
upon which the second prosecution was based. Estipona’s inconsistency with the post-war Diaz chain of jurisprudence suffices to impliedly overrule it. At
any rate, all doubts on this matter were laid to rest in 1982 in Buerano. 37 There, we reviewed the Court of Appeals’ conviction of an accused for "damage
to property for reckless imprudence" despite his prior conviction for "slight and less serious physical injuries thru reckless imprudence," arising from the
same act upon which the second charge was based. The Court of Appeals had relied on Estipona. We reversed on the strength of Buan:38

Th[e] view of the Court of Appeals was inspired by the ruling of this Court in the pre-war case of People vs. Estipona decided on November 14, 1940.
However, in the case of People vs. Buan, 22 SCRA 1383 (March 29, 1968), this Court, speaking thru Justice J. B. L. Reyes, held that –

Reason and precedent both coincide in that once convicted or acquitted of a specific act of reckless imprudence, the accused may not be prosecuted
again for that same act. For the essence of the quasi offense of criminal negligence under Article 365 of the Revised Penal Code lies in the execution of
an imprudent or negligent act that, if intentionally done, would be punishable as a felony. The law penalizes thus the negligent or careless act, not the
result thereof. The gravity of the consequence is only taken into account to determine the penalty, it does not qualify the substance of the offense. And,
as the careless act is single, whether the injurious result should affect one person or several persons, the offense (criminal negligence) remains one and
the same, and can not be split into different crimes and prosecutions.

xxxx

. . . the exoneration of this appellant, Jose Buan, by the Justice of the Peace (now Municipal) Court of Guiguinto, Bulacan, of the charge of slight
physical injuries through reckless imprudence, prevents his being prosecuted for serious physical injuries through reckless imprudence in the Court of
First Instance of the province, where both charges are derived from the consequences of one and the same vehicular accident, because the second
accusation places the appellant in second jeopardy for the same offense.39 (Emphasis supplied)

Thus, for all intents and purposes, Buerano had effectively overruled Estipona.
It is noteworthy that the Solicitor General in Buerano, in a reversal of his earlier stance in Silva, joined causes with the accused, a fact which did not
escape the Court’s attention:

Then Solicitor General, now Justice Felix V. Makasiar, in his MANIFESTATION dated December 12, 1969 (page 82 of the Rollo) admits that the Court of
Appeals erred in not sustaining petitioner’s plea of double jeopardy and submits that "its affirmatory decision dated January 28, 1969, in Criminal Case
No. 05123-CR finding petitioner guilty of damage to property through reckless imprudence should be set aside, without costs." He stressed that "if
double jeopardy exists where the reckless act resulted into homicide and physical injuries. then the same consequence must perforce follow where the
same reckless act caused merely damage to property-not death-and physical injuries. Verily, the value of a human life lost as a result of a vehicular
collision cannot be equated with any amount of damages caused to a motors vehicle arising from the same mishap."40 (Emphasis supplied)

Hence, we find merit in petitioner’s submission that the lower courts erred in refusing to extend in his favor the mantle of protection afforded by the
Double Jeopardy Clause. A more fitting jurisprudence could not be tailored to petitioner’s case than People v. Silva, 41 a Diaz progeny. There, the
accused, who was also involved in a vehicular collision, was charged in two separate Informations with "Slight Physical Injuries thru Reckless
Imprudence" and "Homicide with Serious Physical Injuries thru Reckless Imprudence." Following his acquittal of the former, the accused sought the
quashal of the latter, invoking the Double Jeopardy Clause. The trial court initially denied relief, but, on reconsideration, found merit in the accused’s
claim and dismissed the second case. In affirming the trial court, we quoted with approval its analysis of the issue following Diaz and its progeny People
v. Belga:42

On June 26, 1959, the lower court reconsidered its Order of May 2, 1959 and dismissed the case, holding: —

[T]he Court believes that the case falls squarely within the doctrine of double jeopardy enunciated in People v. Belga, x x x In the case cited, Ciriaco
Belga and Jose Belga were charged in the Justice of the Peace Court of Malilipot, Albay, with the crime of physical injuries through reckless imprudence
arising from a collision between the two automobiles driven by them (Crim. Case No. 88). Without the aforesaid complaint having been dismissed or
otherwise disposed of, two other criminal complaints were filed in the same justice of the peace court, in connection with the same collision one for
damage to property through reckless imprudence (Crim. Case No. 95) signed by the owner of one of the vehicles involved in the collision, and another
for multiple physical injuries through reckless imprudence (Crim. Case No. 96) signed by the passengers injured in the accident. Both of these two
complaints were filed against Jose Belga only. After trial, both defendants were acquitted of the charge against them in Crim. Case No. 88. Following his
acquittal, Jose Belga moved to quash the complaint for multiple physical injuries through reckless imprudence filed against him by the injured
passengers, contending that the case was just a duplication of the one filed by the Chief of Police wherein he had just been acquitted. The motion to
quash was denied and after trial Jose Belga was convicted, whereupon he appealed to the Court of First Instance of Albay. In the meantime, the case
for damage to property through reckless imprudence filed by one of the owners of the vehicles involved in the collision had been remanded to the Court
of First Instance of Albay after Jose Belga had waived the second stage of the preliminary investigation. After such remand, the Provincial Fiscal filed in
the Court of First Instance two informations against Jose Belga, one for physical injuries through reckless imprudence, and another for damage to
property through reckless imprudence. Both cases were dismissed by the Court of First Instance, upon motion of the defendant Jose Belga who alleged
double jeopardy in a motion to quash. On appeal by the Prov. Fiscal, the order of dismissal was affirmed by the Supreme Court in the following
language: .

The question for determination is whether the acquittal of Jose Belga in the case filed by the chief of police constitutes a bar to his subsequent
prosecution for multiple physical injuries and damage to property through reckless imprudence.

In the case of Peo[ple] v. F. Diaz, G. R. No. L-6518, prom. March 30, 1954, the accused was charged in the municipal court of Pasay City with reckless
driving under sec. 52 of the Revised Motor Vehicle Law, for having driven an automobile in a ῾fast and reckless manner ... thereby causing an accident.’
After the accused had pleaded not guilty the case was dismissed in that court ῾for failure of the Government to prosecute’. But some time thereafter the
city attorney filed an information in the Court of First Instance of Rizal, charging the same accused with damage to property thru reckless imprudence.
The amount of the damage was alleged to beP249.50. Pleading double jeopardy, the accused filed a motion, and on appeal by the Government we
affirmed the ruling. Among other things we there said through Mr. Justice Montemayor —

The next question to determine is the relation between the first offense of violation of the Motor Vehicle Law prosecuted before the Pasay City Municipal
Court and the offense of damage to property thru reckless imprudence charged in the Rizal Court of First Instance. One of the tests of double jeopardy is
whether or not the second offense charged necessarily includes or is necessarily included in the offense charged in the former complaint or information
(Rule 113, Sec. 9). Another test is whether the evidence which proves one would prove the other that is to say whether the facts alleged in the first
charge if proven, would have been sufficient to support the second charge and vice versa; or whether one crime is an ingredient of the other. x x x

xxxx

The foregoing language of the Supreme Court also disposes of the contention of the prosecuting attorney that the charge for slight physical injuries
through reckless imprudence could not have been joined with the charge for homicide with serious physical injuries through reckless imprudence in this
case, in view of the provisions of Art. 48 of the Revised Penal Code, as amended. The prosecution’s contention might be true. But neither was the
prosecution obliged to first prosecute the accused for slight physical injuries through reckless imprudence before pressing the more serious charge of
homicide with serious physical injuries through reckless imprudence. Having first prosecuted the defendant for the lesser offense in the Justice of the
Peace Court of Meycauayan, Bulacan, which acquitted the defendant, the prosecuting attorney is not now in a position to press in this case the more
serious charge of homicide with serious physical injuries through reckless imprudence which arose out of the same alleged reckless imprudence of
which the defendant have been previously cleared by the inferior court. 43

Significantly, the Solicitor General had urged us in Silva to reexamine Belga (and hence, Diaz) "for the purpose of delimiting or clarifying its
application."44 We declined the invitation, thus:

The State in its appeal claims that the lower court erred in dismissing the case, on the ground of double jeopardy, upon the basis of the acquittal of the
accused in the JP court for Slight Physical Injuries, thru Reckless Imprudence. In the same breath said State, thru the Solicitor General, admits that the
facts of the case at bar, fall squarely on the ruling of the Belga case x x x, upon which the order of dismissal of the lower court was anchored. The
Solicitor General, however, urges a re-examination of said ruling, upon certain considerations for the purpose of delimiting or clarifying its application.
We find, nevertheless, that further elucidation or disquisition on the ruling in the Belga case, the facts of which are analogous or similar to those in the
present case, will yield no practical advantage to the government. On one hand, there is nothing which would warrant a delimitation or clarification of the
applicability of the Belga case. It was clear. On the other, this Court has reiterated the views expressed in the Belga case, in the identical case of Yap v.
Hon. Lutero, etc., L-12669, April 30, 1959.45 (Emphasis supplied)

Article 48 Does not Apply to Acts Penalized

Under Article 365 of the Revised Penal Code

The confusion bedeviling the question posed in this petition, to which the MeTC succumbed, stems from persistent but awkward attempts to harmonize
conceptually incompatible substantive and procedural rules in criminal law, namely, Article 365 defining and penalizing quasi-offenses and Article 48 on
complexing of crimes, both under the Revised Penal Code. Article 48 is a procedural device allowing single prosecution of multiple felonies falling under
either of two categories: (1) when a single act constitutes two or more grave or less grave felonies (thus excluding from its operation light felonies46); and
(2) when an offense is a necessary means for committing the other. The legislature crafted this procedural tool to benefit the accused who, in lieu of
serving multiple penalties, will only serve the maximum of the penalty for the most serious crime.

In contrast, Article 365 is a substantive rule penalizing not an act defined as a felony but "the mental attitude x x x behind the act, the dangerous
recklessness, lack of care or foresight x x x,"47 a single mental attitude regardless of the resulting consequences. Thus, Article 365 was crafted as one
quasi-crime resulting in one or more consequences.

Ordinarily, these two provisions will operate smoothly. Article 48 works to combine in a single prosecution multiple intentional crimes falling under Titles
1-13, Book II of the Revised Penal Code, when proper; Article 365 governs the prosecution of imprudent acts and their consequences. However, the
complexities of human interaction can produce a hybrid quasi-offense not falling under either models – that of a single criminal negligence resulting in
multiple non-crime damages to persons and property with varying penalties corresponding to light, less grave or grave offenses. The ensuing
prosecutorial dilemma is obvious: how should such a quasi-crime be prosecuted? Should Article 48’s framework apply to "complex" the single quasi-
offense with its multiple (non-criminal) consequences (excluding those amounting to light offenses which will be tried separately)? Or should the
prosecution proceed under a single charge, collectively alleging all the consequences of the single quasi-crime, to be penalized separately following the
scheme of penalties under Article 365?

Jurisprudence adopts both approaches. Thus, one line of rulings (none of which involved the issue of double jeopardy) applied Article 48 by
"complexing" one quasi-crime with its multiple consequences48 unless one consequence amounts to a light felony, in which case charges were split by
grouping, on the one hand, resulting acts amounting to grave or less grave felonies and filing the charge with the second level courts and, on the other
hand, resulting acts amounting to light felonies and filing the charge with the first level courts. 49 Expectedly, this is the approach the MeTC impliedly
sanctioned (and respondent Ponce invokes), even though under Republic Act No. 7691, 50 the MeTC has now exclusive original jurisdiction to impose the
most serious penalty under Article 365 which is prision correccional in its medium period.

Under this approach, the issue of double jeopardy will not arise if the "complexing" of acts penalized under Article 365 involves only resulting acts
penalized as grave or less grave felonies because there will be a single prosecution of all the resulting acts. The issue of double jeopardy arises if one of
the resulting acts is penalized as a light offense and the other acts are penalized as grave or less grave offenses, in which case Article 48 is not deemed
to apply and the act penalized as a light offense is tried separately from the resulting acts penalized as grave or less grave offenses.

The second jurisprudential path nixes Article 48 and sanctions a single prosecution of all the effects of the quasi-crime collectively alleged in one charge,
regardless of their number or severity,51 penalizing each consequence separately. Thus, in Angeles v. Jose,52 we interpreted paragraph three of Article
365, in relation to a charge alleging "reckless imprudence resulting in damage to property and less serious physical injuries," as follows:

[T]he third paragraph of said article, x x x reads as follows:

When the execution of the act covered by this article shall have only resulted in damage to the property of another, the offender shall be punished by a
fine ranging from an amount equal to the value of said damage to three times such value, but which shall in no case be less than 25 pesos.

The above-quoted provision simply means that if there is only damage to property the amount fixed therein shall be imposed, but if there are also
physical injuries there should be an additional penalty for the latter. The information cannot be split into two; one for the physical injuries, and another for
the damage to property, x x x.53(Emphasis supplied)

By "additional penalty," the Court meant, logically, the penalty scheme under Article 365.

Evidently, these approaches, while parallel, are irreconcilable. Coherence in this field demands choosing one framework over the other. Either (1) we
allow the "complexing" of a single quasi-crime by breaking its resulting acts into separate offenses (except for light felonies), thus re-conceptualize a
quasi-crime, abandon its present framing under Article 365, discard its conception under the Quizon and Diaz lines of cases, and treat the multiple
consequences of a quasi-crime as separate intentional felonies defined under Titles 1-13, Book II under the penal code; or (2) we forbid the application
of Article 48 in the prosecution and sentencing of quasi-crimes, require single prosecution of all the resulting acts regardless of their number and
severity, separately penalize each as provided in Article 365, and thus maintain the distinct concept of quasi-crimes as crafted under Article 365,
articulated in Quizon and applied to double jeopardy adjudication in the Diaz line of cases.1avvphi1

A becoming regard of this Court’s place in our scheme of government denying it the power to make laws constrains us to keep inviolate the conceptual
distinction between quasi-crimes and intentional felonies under our penal code. Article 48 is incongruent to the notion of quasi-crimes under Article 365.
It is conceptually impossible for a quasi-offense to stand for (1) a single act constituting two or more grave or less grave felonies; or (2) anoffense which
is a necessary means for committing another. This is why, way back in 1968 in Buan, we rejected the Solicitor General’s argument that double jeopardy
does not bar a second prosecution for slight physical injuries through reckless imprudence allegedly because the charge for that offense could not be
joined with the other charge for serious physical injuries through reckless imprudence following Article 48 of the Revised Penal Code:
The Solicitor General stresses in his brief that the charge for slight physical injuries through reckless imprudence could not be joined with the accusation
for serious physical injuries through reckless imprudence, because Article 48 of the Revised Penal Code allows only the complexing of grave or less
grave felonies. This same argument was considered and rejected by this Court in the case of People vs. [Silva] x x x:

[T]he prosecution’s contention might be true. But neither was the prosecution obliged to first prosecute the accused for slight physical injuries through
reckless imprudence before pressing the more serious charge of homicide with serious physical injuries through reckless imprudence. Having first
prosecuted the defendant for the lesser offense in the Justice of the Peace Court of Meycauayan, Bulacan, which acquitted the defendant, the
prosecuting attorney is not now in a position to press in this case the more serious charge of homicide with serious physical injuries through reckless
imprudence which arose out of the same alleged reckless imprudence of which the defendant has been previously cleared by the inferior court.

[W]e must perforce rule that the exoneration of this appellant x x x by the Justice of the Peace x x x of the charge of slight physical injuries through
reckless imprudence, prevents his being prosecuted for serious physical injuries through reckless imprudence in the Court of First Instance of the
province, where both charges are derived from the consequences of one and the same vehicular accident, because the second accusation places the
appellant in second jeopardy for the same offense.54 (Emphasis supplied)

Indeed, this is a constitutionally compelled choice. By prohibiting the splitting of charges under Article 365, irrespective of the number and severity of the
resulting acts, rampant occasions of constitutionally impermissible second prosecutions are avoided, not to mention that scarce state resources are
conserved and diverted to proper use.

Hence, we hold that prosecutions under Article 365 should proceed from a single charge regardless of the number or severity of the consequences. In
imposing penalties, the judge will do no more than apply the penalties under Article 365 for each consequence alleged and proven. In short, there shall
be no splitting of charges under Article 365, and only one information shall be filed in the same first level court. 55

Our ruling today secures for the accused facing an Article 365 charge a stronger and simpler protection of their constitutional right under the Double
Jeopardy Clause. True, they are thereby denied the beneficent effect of the favorable sentencing formula under Article 48, but any disadvantage thus
caused is more than compensated by the certainty of non-prosecution for quasi-crime effects qualifying as "light offenses" (or, as here, for the more
serious consequence prosecuted belatedly). If it is so minded, Congress can re-craft Article 365 by extending to quasi-crimes the sentencing formula of
Article 48 so that only the most severe penalty shall be imposed under a single prosecution of all resulting acts, whether penalized as grave, less grave
or light offenses. This will still keep intact the distinct concept of quasi-offenses. Meanwhile, the lenient schedule of penalties under Article 365, befitting
crimes occupying a lower rung of culpability, should cushion the effect of this ruling.

WHEREFORE, we GRANT the petition. We REVERSE the Orders dated 2 February 2006 and 2 May 2006 of the Regional Trial Court of Pasig City,
Branch 157. We DISMISS the Information in Criminal Case No. 82366 against petitioner Jason Ivler y Aguilar pending with the Metropolitan Trial Court
of Pasig City, Branch 71 on the ground of double jeopardy.

Let a copy of this ruling be served on the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

SO ORDERED.
 Republic of the Philippines
SUPREME COURT
Manila

EN BANC

G.R. No. L-42288 February 16, 1935

THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS, plaintiff-appellee,

vs.
CORNELIO BAYONA, defendant-appellant.

Gervasio Diaz for appellant.

Office of the Solicitor-General Hilado for appellee.

VICKERS, J.:

This is an appeal from a decision of Judge Braulio Bejasa in the Court of First Instance of Capiz, finding the defendant guilty of a violation of section 416
of the Election Law and sentencing him to suffer imprisonment for thirty days and to pay a fine of P50, with subsidiary imprisonment in case of
insolvency, and to pay the costs.

The facts as found by the trial judge are as follows:

A eso de las once de la mañana del dia 5 de junio de 1934, mientras se celebrahan las elecciones generales en el precinto electoral numero
4, situado en el Barrio de Aranguel del Municipio de Pilar, Provincia de Capiz, el aqui acusado fue sorprendido por Jose E. Desiderio, que era
entonces el representante del Departamento del Interior para inspecionar las elecciones generales en la Provincia de Capiz, y por el
comandante de la Constabularia F.B. Agdamag que iba en aquella ocasion con el citado Jose E. Desiderio, portando en su cinto el
revolver Colt de calibre 32, No. 195382, Exhibit A, dentro del cerco que rodeaba el edificio destinado para el citado colegio electoral numero 4
y a una distancia de 22 metros del referido colegio electoral. Inmediatament Jose E. Desiderio se incauto del revolver en cuestion.

La defensa, por medio del testimonio de Jose D. Benliro y de Dioscoro Buenvenida, trato de establecer que el aqui acusado paro en la calle
que daba frente al colegio electoral numero 4 a invitacion de dicho Jose D. Benliro y con el objeto de suplicarle al mencionado acusado para
llevar a su casa a los electores del citado Jose D. Benliro que ya habian terminado de votar, y que cuando llegaron Jose E. Desidierio y el
comadante F.B. Agdamag, el aqui acusado estaba en la calle. Desde el colegio electoral hasta el sitio en que, segun dichos testigos, estaba
el acusado cuando se le quito el revolver Exhibit a, hay una distancia de 27 metros.

Appellant's attorney makes the following assignments of error:

1. El Juzgado a quo erro al declarar que el apelante fue sorprendido con su revolver dentro del cerco de la casa escuela del Barrio de
Aranguel, Municipio de Pilar, que fue habilitado como colegio electoral.

2. El Juzgado a quo erro al declarar al apelante culpable de la infraccion de la Ley Electoral querrellada y, por consiguiente, al condenarle a
prision y multa.

As to the question of fact raised by the first assignment of error, it is sufficient to say that the record shows that both Jose E. Desiderio, a representative
of the Department of the Interior, and Major Agdamag of the Philippine Constabulary, who had been designated to supervise the elections in the
Province of Capiz, testified positively that the defendant was within the fence surrounding the polling place when Desiderio took possession of the
revolver the defendant was carrying. This also disposes of that part of the argument under the second assignment of error based on the theory that the
defendant was in a public road, where he had a right to be, when he was arrested. The latter part of the argument under the second assignment of error
is that if it be conceded that the defendant went inside of the fence, he is nevertheless not guilty of a violation of the Election Law, because he was
called by a friend and merely approached him to find out what he wanted and had no interest in the election; that there were many people in the public
road in front of the polling place, and the defendant could not leave his revolver in his automobile, which he himself was driving, without running the risk
of losing it and thereby incurring in a violation of the law.

As to the contention that the defendant could not leave his revolver in his automobile without the risk of losing it because he was alone, it is sufficient to
say that under the circumstances it was not necessary for the defendant to leave his automobile merely because somebody standing near the polling
place had called him, nor does the record show that it was necessary for the defendant to carry arms on that occasion.

The Solicitor-General argues that since the Government does not especially construct buildings for electoral precincts but merely utilizes whatever
building there may be available, and all election precincts are within fifty meters from some road, a literal application of the law would be absurd,
because members of the police force or Constabulary in pursuit of a criminal would be included in that prohibition and could not use the road in question
if they were carrying firearms; that people living in the vicinity of electoral precincts would be prohibited from cleaning or handling their firearms within
their own residences on registration and election days;

That the object of the Legislature was merely to prohibit the display of firearms with intention to influence in any way the free and voluntary exercise of
suffrage;

That if the real object of the Legislature was to insure the free exercise of suffrage, the prohibition in question should only be applied when the facts
reveal that the carrying of the firearms was intended for the purpose of using them directly or indirectly to influence the free choice of the electors (citing
the decision of this court in the case of People vs. Urdeleon [G.R. No. 31536, promulgated November 20, 1929, not reported], where a policeman, who
had been sent to a polling place to preserve order on the request of the chairman of the board of election inspectors, was acquitted); that in the case at
bar there is no evidence that the defendant went to the election precinct either to vote or to work for the candidacy of anyone, but on the other hand the
evidence shows that the defendant had no intention to go to the electoral precinct; that he was merely passing along the road in front of the building
where the election was being held when a friend of his called him; that while in the strict, narrow interpretation of the law the defendant is guilty, it would
be inhuman and unreasonable to convict him.

We cannot accept the reasons advanced by the Solicitor-General for the acquittal of the defendant. The law which the defendant violated is a statutory
provision, and the intent with which he violated it is immaterial. It may be conceded that the defendant did not intend to intimidate any elector or to violate
the law in any other way, but when he got out of his automobile and carried his revolver inside of the fence surrounding the polling place, he committed
the act complained of, and he committed it willfully. The act prohibited by the Election Law was complete. The intention to intimidate the voters or to
interfere otherwise with the election is not made an essential element of the offense. Unless such an offender actually makes use of his revolver, it would
be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to prove that he intended to intimidate the voters.

The rule is that in acts mala in se there must be a criminal intent, but in those mala prohibita it is sufficient if the prohibited act was intentionally done.
"Care must be exercised in distinguishing the difference between the intent to commit the crime and the intent to perpetrate the act. ..." (U.S. vs. Go
Chico, 14 Phil., 128.)

While it is true that, as a rule and on principles of abstract justice, men are not and should not be held criminally responsible for acts
committed by them without guilty knowledge and criminal or at least evil intent (Bishop's New Crim. Law, vol. I, sec. 286), the courts have
always recognized the power of the legislature, on grounds of public policy and compelled by necessity, "the great master of things", to forbid
in a limited class of cases the doing of certain acts, and to make their commission criminal without regard to the intent of the doer. (U.S. vs. Go
Chico, 14 Phil., 128; U.S. vs. Ah Chong, 15 Phil., 488.) In such cases no judicial authority has the power to require, in the enforcement of the
law, such knowledge or motive to be shown. (U.S. vs. Siy Cong Bieng and Co Kong, 30 Phil., 577.)

The cases suggested by the Solicitor-General do not seem to us to present any difficulty in the enforcement of the law. If a man with a revolver merely
passes along a public road on election day, within fifty meters of a polling place, he does not violate the provision of law in question, because he had no
intent to perpetrate the act prohibited, and the same thing would be true of a peace officer in pursuing a criminal; nor would the prohibition extend to
persons living within fifty meters of a polling place, who merely clean or handle their firearms within their own residences on election day, as they would
not be carrying firearms within the contemplation of the law; and as to the decision in the case of People vs. Urdeleon, supra, we have recently held in
the case of People vs. Ayre, and Degracia (p. 169, ante), that a policeman who goes to a polling place on the request of the board of election inspectors
for the purpose of maintaining order is authorized by law to carry his arms.

If we were to adopt the specious reasoning that the appellant should be acquitted because it was not proved that he tried to influence or intended to
influence the mind of any voter, anybody could sell intoxicating liquor or hold a cockfight or a horse race on election day with impunity.

As to the severity of the minimum penalty provided by law for a violation of the provision in question, that is a matter for the Chief Executive or the
Legislature.

For the foregoing reasons, the decision appealed from is affirmed, with the costs against the appellant.

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

 Republic of the Philippines
SUPREME COURT
Manila

THIRD DIVISION

G.R. No. 72964 January 7, 1988

FILOMENO URBANO, petitioner,

vs.
HON. INTERMEDIATE APPELLATE COURT AND PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, respondents.

GUTIERREZ, JR., J.:

This is a petition to review the decision of the then Intermediate Appellate Court which affirmed the decision of the then Circuit Criminal Court of
Dagupan City finding petitioner Filomeno Urban guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the crime of homicide.

The records disclose the following facts of the case.

At about 8:00 o'clock in the morning of October 23, 1980, petitioner Filomeno Urbano went to his ricefield at Barangay Anonang, San Fabian,
Pangasinan located at about 100 meters from the tobacco seedbed of Marcelo Javier. He found the place where he stored his palay flooded with water
coming from the irrigation canal nearby which had overflowed. Urbano went to the elevated portion of the canal to see what happened and there he saw
Marcelo Javier and Emilio Erfe cutting grass. He asked them who was responsible for the opening of the irrigation canal and Javier admitted that he was
the one. Urbano then got angry and demanded that Javier pay for his soaked palay. A quarrel between them ensued. Urbano unsheathed his bolo
(about 2 feet long, including the handle, by 2 inches wide) and hacked Javier hitting him on the right palm of his hand, which was used in parrying the
bolo hack. Javier who was then unarmed ran away from Urbano but was overtaken by Urbano who hacked him again hitting Javier on the left leg with
the back portion of said bolo, causing a swelling on said leg. When Urbano tried to hack and inflict further injury, his daughter embraced and prevented
him from hacking Javier.

Immediately thereafter, Antonio Erfe, Emilio Erfe, and Felipe Erfe brought Javier to his house about 50 meters away from where the incident happened.
Emilio then went to the house of Barangay Captain Menardo Soliven but not finding him there, Emilio looked for barrio councilman Felipe Solis instead.
Upon the advice of Solis, the Erfes together with Javier went to the police station of San Fabian to report the incident. As suggested by Corporal Torio,
Javier was brought to a physician. The group went to Dr. Guillermo Padilla, rural health physician of San Fabian, who did not attend to Javier but instead
suggested that they go to Dr. Mario Meneses because Padilla had no available medicine.

After Javier was treated by Dr. Meneses, he and his companions returned to Dr. Guillermo Padilla who conducted a medico-legal examination. Dr.
Padilla issued a medico-legal certificate (Exhibit "C" dated September 28, 1981) which reads:

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

This is to certify that I have examined the wound of Marcelo Javier, 20 years of age, married, residing at Barangay Anonang, San
Fabian, Pangasinan on October 23, 1980 and found the following:

1 -Incised wound 2 inches in length at the upper portion of the lesser palmar prominence, right.

As to my observation the incapacitation is from (7-9) days period. This wound was presented to me only for medico-legal
examination, as it was already treated by the other doctor. (p. 88, Original Records)

Upon the intercession of Councilman Solis, Urbano and Javier agreed to settle their differences. Urbano promised to pay P700.00 for the medical
expenses of Javier. Hence, on October 27, 1980, the two accompanied by Solis appeared before the San Fabian Police to formalize their amicable
settlement. Patrolman Torio recorded the event in the police blotter (Exhibit A), to wit:

xxx xxx xxx

Entry Nr 599/27 Oct '80/103OH/ Re entry Nr 592 on page 257 both parties appeared before this Station accompanied by brgy.
councilman Felipe Solis and settled their case amicably, for they are neighbors and close relatives to each other. Marcelo Javier
accepted and granted forgiveness to Filomeno Urbano who shoulder (sic) all the expenses in his medical treatment, and promising
to him and to this Office that this will never be repeated anymore and not to harbour any grudge against each other. (p. 87, Original
Records.)

Urbano advanced P400.00 to Javier at the police station. On November 3, 1980, the additional P300.00 was given to Javier at Urbano's house in the
presence of barangay captain Soliven.

At about 1:30 a.m. on November 14, 1980, Javier was rushed to the Nazareth General Hospital in a very serious condition. When admitted to the
hospital, Javier had lockjaw and was having convulsions. Dr. Edmundo Exconde who personally attended to Javier found that the latter's serious
condition was caused by tetanus toxin. He noticed the presence of a healing wound in Javier's palm which could have been infected by tetanus.
On November 15, 1980 at exactly 4:18 p.m., Javier died in the hospital. The medical findings of Dr. Exconde are as follows:

Date Diagnosis

11-14-80 ADMITTED due to trismus

adm. at DX TETANUS

1:30 AM Still having frequent muscle spasm. With diffi-

#35, 421 culty opening his mouth. Restless at times. Febrile

11-15-80 Referred. Novaldin 1 amp. inj. IM. Sudden cessa-

tion of respiration and HR after muscular spasm.

02 inhalation administered. Ambo bag resuscita-

tion and cardiac massage done but to no avail.

Pronounced dead by Dra. Cabugao at 4:18 P.M.

PMC done and cadaver brought home by rela-

tives. (p. 100, Original Records)

In an information dated April 10, 1981, Filomeno Urbano was charged with the crime of homicide before the then Circuit Criminal Court of Dagupan City,
Third Judicial District.

Upon arraignment, Urbano pleaded "not guilty." After trial, the trial court found Urbano guilty as charged. He was sentenced to suffer an indeterminate
prison term of from TWELVE (12) YEARS of prision mayor, as minimum to SEVENTEEN (17) years, FOUR (4) MONTHS and ONE (1) DAY of reclusion
temporal, as maximum, together with the accessories of the law, to indemnify the heirs of the victim, Marcelo Javier, in the amount of P12,000.00 without
subsidiary imprisonment in case of insolvency, and to pay the costs. He was ordered confined at the New Bilibid Prison, in Muntinlupa, Rizal upon finality
of the decision, in view of the nature of his penalty.

The then Intermediate Appellate Court affirmed the conviction of Urbano on appeal but raised the award of indemnity to the heirs of the deceased to
P30,000.00 with costs against the appellant.

The appellant filed a motion for reconsideration and/or new trial. The motion for new trial was based on an affidavit of Barangay Captain Menardo
Soliven (Annex "A") which states:

That in 1980, I was the barrio captain of Barrio Anonang, San Fabian, Pangasinan, and up to the present having been re-elected to
such position in the last barangay elections on May 17, 1982;

That sometime in the first week of November, 1980, there was a typhoon that swept Pangasinan and other places of Central Luzon
including San Fabian, a town of said province;

That during the typhoon, the sluice or control gates of the Bued irrigation dam which irrigates the ricefields of San Fabian were
closed and/or controlled so much so that water and its flow to the canals and ditches were regulated and reduced;

That due to the locking of the sluice or control gates of the dam leading to the canals and ditches which will bring water to the
ricefields, the water in said canals and ditches became shallow which was suitable for catching mudfishes;

That after the storm, I conducted a personal survey in the area affected, with my secretary Perfecto Jaravata;

That on November 5, 1980, while I was conducting survey, I saw the late Marcelo Javier catching fish in the shallow irrigation canals
with some companions;

That few days there after,or on November l5, l980, I came to know that said Marcelo Javier died of tetanus. (p. 33, Rollo)

The motion was denied. Hence, this petition.

In a resolution dated July 16, 1986, we gave due course to the petition.
The case involves the application of Article 4 of the Revised Penal Code which provides that "Criminal liability shall be incurred: (1) By any person
committing a felony (delito) although the wrongful act done be different from that which he intended ..." Pursuant to this provision "an accused is
criminally responsible for acts committed by him in violation of law and for all the natural and logical consequences resulting therefrom." (People v.
Cardenas, 56 SCRA 631).

The record is clear that Marcelo Javier was hacked by the petitioner who used a bolo as a result of which Javier suffered a 2-inch incised wound on his
right palm; that on November 14, 1981 which was the 22nd day after the incident, Javier was rushed to the hospital in a very serious condition and that
on the following day, November 15, 1981, he died from tetanus.

Under these circumstances, the lower courts ruled that Javier's death was the natural and logical consequence of Urbano's unlawful act. Hence, he was
declared responsible for Javier's death. Thus, the appellate court said:

The claim of appellant that there was an efficient cause which supervened from the time the deceased was wounded to the time of
his death, which covers a period of 23 days does not deserve serious consideration. True, that the deceased did not die right away
from his wound, but the cause of his death was due to said wound which was inflicted by the appellant. Said wound which was in
the process of healing got infected with tetanus which ultimately caused his death.

Dr. Edmundo Exconde of the Nazareth General Hospital testified that the victim suffered lockjaw because of the infection of the
wound with tetanus. And there is no other way by which he could be infected with tetanus except through the wound in his palm
(tsn., p. 78, Oct. 5, 1981). Consequently, the proximate cause of the victim's death was the wound which got infected with tetanus.
And the settled rule in this jurisdiction is that an accused is liable for all the consequences of his unlawful act. (Article 4, par. 1,
R.P.C. People v. Red, CA 43 O.G. 5072; People v. Cornel 78 Phil. 418).

Appellant's allegation that the proximate cause of the victim's death was due to his own negligence in going back to work without his
wound being properly healed, and lately, that he went to catch fish in dirty irrigation canals in the first week of November, 1980, is an
afterthought, and a desperate attempt by appellant to wiggle out of the predicament he found himself in. If the wound had not yet
healed, it is impossible to conceive that the deceased would be reckless enough to work with a disabled hand. (pp. 20-21, Rollo)

The petitioner reiterates his position that the proximate cause of the death of Marcelo Javier was due to his own negligence, that Dr. Mario Meneses
found no tetanus in the injury, and that Javier got infected with tetanus when after two weeks he returned to his farm and tended his tobacco plants with
his bare hands exposing the wound to harmful elements like tetanus germs.

The evidence on record does not clearly show that the wound inflicted by Urbano was infected with tetanus at the time of the infliction of the wound. The
evidence merely confirms that the wound, which was already healing at the time Javier suffered the symptoms of the fatal ailment, somehow got infected
with tetanus However, as to when the wound was infected is not clear from the record.

In Vda. de Bataclan, et al. v. Medina (102 Phil. 1181), we adopted the following definition of proximate cause:

xxx xxx xxx

... A satisfactory definition of proximate cause is found in Volume 38, pages 695-696 of American Jurisprudence, cited by plaintiffs-
appellants in their brief. It is as follows:

... "that cause, which, in natural and continuous sequence, unbroken by any efficient intervening cause, produces the injury, and
without which the result would not have occurred."And more comprehensively, "the proximate legal cause is that acting first and
producing the injury, either immediately or by setting other events in motion, all constituting a natural and continuous chain of
events, each having a close causal connection with its immediate predecessor, the final event in the chain immediately effecting the
injury as a natural and probable result of the cause which first acted, under such circumstances that the person responsible for the
first event should, as an ordinarily prudent and intelligent person, have reasonable ground to expect at the moment of his act or
default that an injury to some person might probably result therefrom." (at pp. 185-186)

The issue, therefore, hinges on whether or not there was an efficient intervening cause from the time Javier was wounded until his death which would
exculpate Urbano from any liability for Javier's death.

We look into the nature of tetanus-

The incubation period of tetanus, i.e., the time between injury and the appearance of unmistakable symptoms, ranges from 2 to 56
days. However, over 80 percent of patients become symptomatic within 14 days. A short incubation period indicates severe disease,
and when symptoms occur within 2 or 3 days of injury the mortality rate approaches 100 percent.

Non-specific premonitory symptoms such as restlessness, irritability, and headache are encountered occasionally, but the
commonest presenting complaints are pain and stiffness in the jaw, abdomen, or back and difficulty swallowing. As the progresses,
stiffness gives way to rigidity, and patients often complain of difficulty opening their mouths. In fact, trismus in the commonest
manifestation of tetanus and is responsible for the familiar descriptive name of lockjaw. As more muscles are involved, rigidity
becomes generalized, and sustained contractions called risus sardonicus. The intensity and sequence of muscle involvement is
quite variable. In a small proportion of patients, only local signs and symptoms develop in the region of the injury. In the vast
majority, however, most muscles are involved to some degree, and the signs and symptoms encountered depend upon the major
muscle groups affected.
 Reflex spasm usually occur within 24 to 72 hours of the first symptom, an interval referred to as the onset time. As in the case of the
incubation period, a short onset time is associated with a poor prognosis. Spasms are caused by sudden intensification of afferent
stimuli arising in the periphery, which increases rigidity and causes simultaneous and excessive contraction of muscles and their
antagonists. Spasms may be both painful and dangerous. As the disease progresses, minimal or inapparent stimuli produce more
intense and longer lasting spasms with increasing frequency. Respiration may be impaired by laryngospasm or tonic contraction of
respiratory muscles which prevent adequate ventilation. Hypoxia may then lead to irreversible central nervous system damage and
death.

Mild tetanus is characterized by an incubation period of at least 14 days and an onset time of more than 6 days. Trismus is usually
present, but dysphagia is absent and generalized spasms are brief and mild. Moderately severe tetanus has a somewhat shorter
incubation period and onset time; trismus is marked, dysphagia and generalized rigidity are present, but ventilation remains
adequate even during spasms. The criteria for severe tetanus include a short incubation time, and an onset time of 72 hrs., or less,
severe trismus, dysphagia and rigidity and frequent prolonged, generalized convulsive spasms. (Harrison's Principle of Internal
Medicine, 1983 Edition, pp. 1004-1005; Emphasis supplied)

Therefore, medically speaking, the reaction to tetanus found inside a man's body depends on the incubation period of the disease.

In the case at bar, Javier suffered a 2-inch incised wound on his right palm when he parried the bolo which Urbano used in hacking him. This incident
took place on October 23, 1980. After 22 days, or on November 14, 1980, he suffered the symptoms of tetanus, like lockjaw and muscle spasms. The
following day, November 15, 1980, he died.

If, therefore, the wound of Javier inflicted by the appellant was already infected by tetanus germs at the time, it is more medically probable that Javier
should have been infected with only a mild cause of tetanus because the symptoms of tetanus appeared on the 22nd day after the hacking incident
or more than 14 days after the infliction of the wound. Therefore, the onset time should have been more than six days. Javier, however, died on the
second day from the onset time. The more credible conclusion is that at the time Javier's wound was inflicted by the appellant, the severe form of
tetanus that killed him was not yet present. Consequently, Javier's wound could have been infected with tetanus after the hacking incident. Considering
the circumstance surrounding Javier's death, his wound could have been infected by tetanus 2 or 3 or a few but not 20 to 22 days before he died.

The rule is that the death of the victim must be the direct, natural, and logical consequence of the wounds inflicted upon him by the accused. (People v.
Cardenas, supra) And since we are dealing with a criminal conviction, the proof that the accused caused the victim's death must convince a rational
mind beyond reasonable doubt. The medical findings, however, lead us to a distinct possibility that the infection of the wound by tetanus was an efficient
intervening cause later or between the time Javier was wounded to the time of his death. The infection was, therefore, distinct and foreign to the crime.
(People v. Rellin, 77 Phil. 1038).

Doubts are present. There is a likelihood that the wound was but the remote cause and its subsequent infection, for failure to take necessary
precautions, with tetanus may have been the proximate cause of Javier's death with which the petitioner had nothing to do. As we ruled in Manila
Electric Co. v. Remoquillo, et al. (99 Phil. 118).

"A prior and remote cause cannot be made the be of an action if such remote cause did nothing more than furnish the condition or
give rise to the occasion by which the injury was made possible, if there intervened between such prior or remote cause and the
injury a distinct, successive, unrelated, and efficient cause of the injury, even though such injury would not have happened but for
such condition or occasion. If no danger existed in the condition except because of the independent cause, such condition was not
the proximate cause. And if an independent negligent act or defective condition sets into operation the instances which result in
injury because of the prior defective condition, such subsequent act or condition is the proximate cause." (45 C.J. pp. 931-932). (at
p. 125)

It strains the judicial mind to allow a clear aggressor to go scot free of criminal liability. At the very least, the records show he is guilty of inflicting slight
physical injuries. However, the petitioner's criminal liability in this respect was wiped out by the victim's own act. After the hacking incident, Urbano and
Javier used the facilities of barangay mediators to effect a compromise agreement where Javier forgave Urbano while Urbano defrayed the medical
expenses of Javier. This settlement of minor offenses is allowed under the express provisions of Presidential Decree G.R. No. 1508, Section 2(3). (See
also People v. Caruncho, 127 SCRA 16).

We must stress, however, that our discussion of proximate cause and remote cause is limited to the criminal aspects of this rather unusual case. It does
not necessarily follow that the petitioner is also free of civil liability. The well-settled doctrine is that a person, while not criminally liable, may still be civilly
liable. Thus, in the recent case of People v. Rogelio Ligon y Tria, et al. (G.R. No. 74041, July 29, 1987), we said:

xxx xxx xxx

... While the guilt of the accused in a criminal prosecution must be established beyond reasonable doubt, only a preponderance of
evidence is required in a civil action for damages. (Article 29, Civil Code). The judgment of acquittal extinguishes the civil liability of
the accused only when it includes a declaration that the facts from which the civil liability might arise did not exist. (Padilla v. Court of
Appeals, 129 SCRA 559).

The reason for the provisions of article 29 of the Civil Code, which provides that the acquittal of the accused on the ground that his
guilt has not been proved beyond reasonable doubt does not necessarily exempt him from civil liability for the same act or omission,
has been explained by the Code Commission as follows:

The old rule that the acquittal of the accused in a criminal case also releases him from civil liability is one of the
most serious flaws in the Philippine legal system. It has given use to numberless instances of miscarriage of
justice, where the acquittal was due to a reasonable doubt in the mind of the court as to the guilt of the accused.
 The reasoning followed is that inasmuch as the civil responsibility is derived from the criminal offense, when the
latter is not proved, civil liability cannot be demanded.

This is one of those causes where confused thinking leads to unfortunate and deplorable consequences. Such
reasoning fails to draw a clear line of demarcation between criminal liability and civil responsibility, and to
determine the logical result of the distinction. The two liabilities are separate and distinct from each other. One
affects the social order and the other, private rights. One is for the punishment or correction of the offender
while the other is for reparation of damages suffered by the aggrieved party. The two responsibilities are so
different from each other that article 1813 of the present (Spanish) Civil Code reads thus: "There may be a
compromise upon the civil action arising from a crime; but the public action for the imposition of the legal
penalty shall not thereby be extinguished." It is just and proper that, for the purposes of the imprisonment of or
fine upon the accused, the offense should be proved beyond reasonable doubt. But for the purpose of
indemnity the complaining party, why should the offense also be proved beyond reasonable doubt? Is not the
invasion or violation of every private right to be proved only by a preponderance of evidence? Is the right of the
aggrieved person any less private because the wrongful act is also punishable by the criminal law?

"For these reasons, the Commission recommends the adoption of the reform under discussion. It will correct a
serious defect in our law. It will close up an inexhaustible source of injustice-a cause for disillusionment on the
part of the innumerable persons injured or wronged."

The respondent court increased the P12,000.00 indemnification imposed by the trial court to P30,000.00. However, since the indemnification was based
solely on the finding of guilt beyond reasonable doubt in the homicide case, the civil liability of the petitioner was not thoroughly examined. This aspect of
the case calls for fuller development if the heirs of the victim are so minded.

WHEREFORE, the instant petition is hereby GRANTED. The questioned decision of the then Intermediate Appellate Court, now Court of Appeals, is
REVERSED and SET ASIDE. The petitioner is ACQUITTED of the crime of homicide. Costs de oficio.

SO ORDERED.

Fernan, (Chairman), Feliciano, Bidin and,Cortes, JJ., concur.

 Republic of the Philippines
SUPREME COURT
Manila

SECOND DIVISION

G.R. No. 103119 October 21, 1992

SULPICIO INTOD, petitioner,

vs.
HONORABLE COURT OF APPEALS and PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, respondents.

CAMPOS, JR., J.:

Petitioner, Sulpicio Intod, filed this petition for review of the decision of the Court of Appeals 1 affirming in toto the judgment of the Regional Trial Court,
Branch XIV, Oroquieta City, finding him guilty of the crime of attempted murder.

From the records, we gathered the following facts.

In the morning of February 4, 1979, Sulpicio Intod, Jorge Pangasian, Santos Tubio and Avelino Daligdig went to Salvador Mandaya's house in
Katugasan, Lopez Jaena, Misamis Occidental and asked him to go with them to the house of Bernardina Palangpangan. Thereafter, Mandaya and Intod,
Pangasian, Tubio and Daligdig had a meeting with Aniceto Dumalagan. He told Mandaya that he wanted Palangpangan to be killed because of a land
dispute between them and that Mandaya should accompany the four (4) men, otherwise, he would also be killed.

At about 10:00 o'clock in the evening of the same day, Petitioner, Mandaya, Pangasian, Tubio and Daligdig, all armed with firearms, arrived at
Palangpangan's house in Katugasan, Lopez Jaena, Misamis Occidental. At the instance of his companions, Mandaya pointed the location of
Palangpangan's bedroom. Thereafter, Petitioner, Pangasian, Tubio and Daligdig fired at said room. It turned out, however, that Palangpangan was in
another City and her home was then occupied by her son-in-law and his family. No one was in the room when the accused fired the shots. No one was
hit by the gun fire.

Petitioner and his companions were positively identified by witnesses. One witness testified that before the five men left the premises, they shouted: "We
will kill you (the witness) and especially Bernardina Palangpangan and we will come back if (sic) you were not injured". 2

After trial, the Regional Trial Court convicted Intod of attempted murder. The court (RTC), as affirmed by the Court of Appeals, holding that Petitioner
was guilty of attempted murder. Petitioner seeks from this Court a modification of the judgment by holding him liable only for an impossible
crime, citing Article 4(2) of the Revised Penal Code which provides:

Art. 4(2). CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY. — Criminal Responsibility shall be incurred:

xxx xxx xxx

2. By any person performing an act which would be an offense against persons or property, were it not for the inherent impossibility
of its accomplishment or on account of the employment of inadequate or ineffectual means.

Petitioner contends that, Palangpangan's absence from her room on the night he and his companions riddled it with bullets made the crime
inherently impossible.

On the other hand, Respondent People of the Philippines argues that the crime was not impossible. Instead, the facts were sufficient to constitute an
attempt and to convict Intod for attempted murder. Respondent alleged that there was intent. Further, in its Comment to the Petition, respondent pointed
out that:

. . . The crime of murder was not consummated, not because of the inherent impossibility of its accomplishment (Art. 4(2), Revised
Penal Code), but due to a cause or accident other than petitioner's and his accused's own spontaneous desistance (Art. 3., Ibid.)
Palangpangan did not sleep at her house at that time. Had it not been for this fact, the crime is possible, not impossible. 3

Article 4, paragraph 2 is an innovation 4 of the Revised Penal Code. This seeks to remedy the void in the Old Penal Code where:

. . . it was necessary that the execution of the act has been commenced, that the person conceiving the idea should have set about
doing the deed, employing appropriate means in order that his intent might become a reality, and finally, that the result or end
contemplated shall have been physically possible. So long as these conditions were not present, the law and the courts did not hold
him criminally liable. 5
This legal doctrine left social interests entirely unprotected. 6 The Revised Penal Code, inspired by the Positivist School, recognizes in the offender his
formidability, 7 and now penalizes an act which were it not aimed at something quite impossible or carried out with means which prove inadequate, would
constitute a felony against person or against property. 8 The rationale of Article 4(2) is to punish such criminal tendencies. 9

Under this article, the act performed by the offender cannot produce an offense against person or property because: (1) the commission of the offense is
inherently impossible of accomplishment: or (2) the means employed is either (a) inadequate or (b) ineffectual. 10

That the offense cannot be produced because the commission of the offense is inherently impossible of accomplishment is the focus of this petition. To
be impossible under this clause, the act intended by the offender must be by its nature one impossible of accomplishment. 11 There must be either
impossibility of accomplishing the intended act 12 in order to qualify the act an impossible crime.

13
Legal impossibility occurs where the intended acts, even if completed, would not amount to a crime. Thus:

Legal impossibility would apply to those circumstances where (1) the motive, desire and expectation is to perform an act in violation
of the law; (2) there is intention to perform the physical act; (3) there is a performance of the intended physical act; and (4) the
consequence resulting from the intended act does not amount to a crime. 14

The impossibility of killing a person already dead 15 falls in this category.

On the other hand, factual impossibility occurs when extraneous circumstances unknown to the actor or beyond his control prevent the consummation of
the intended crime. 16 One example is the man who puts his hand in the coat pocket of another with the intention to steal the latter's wallet and finds the
pocket empty. 17

The case at bar belongs to this category. Petitioner shoots the place where he thought his victim would be, although in reality, the victim was not present
in said place and thus, the petitioner failed to accomplish his end.

One American case had facts almost exactly the same as this one. In People vs. Lee Kong, 18 the accused, with intent to kill, aimed and fired at the spot
where he thought the police officer would be. It turned out, however, that the latter was in a different place. The accused failed to hit him and to achieve
his intent. The Court convicted the accused of an attempt to kill. It held that:

The fact that the officer was not at the spot where the attacking party imagined where he was, and where the bullet pierced the roof,
renders it no less an attempt to kill. It is well settled principle of criminal law in this country that where the criminal result of an
attempt is not accomplished simply because of an obstruction in the way of the thing to be operated upon, and these facts are
unknown to the aggressor at the time, the criminal attempt is committed.

In the case of Strokes vs. State, 19 where the accused failed to accomplish his intent to kill the victim because the latter did not pass by the place where
he was lying-in wait, the court held him liable for attempted murder. The court explained that:

It was no fault of Strokes that the crime was not committed. . . . It only became impossible by reason of the extraneous circumstance
that Lane did not go that way; and further, that he was arrested and prevented from committing the murder. This rule of the law has
application only where it is inherently impossible to commit the crime. It has no application to a case where it becomes impossible
for the crime to be committed, either by outside interference or because of miscalculation as to a supposed opportunity to commit
the crime which fails to materialize; in short it has no application to the case when the impossibility grows out of extraneous acts not
within the control of the party.

In the case of Clark vs. State, 20 the court held defendant liable for attempted robbery even if there was nothing to rob. In disposing of the case, the court
quoted Mr. Justice Bishop, to wit:

It being an accepted truth that defendant deserves punishment by reason of his criminal intent, no one can seriously doubt that the
protection of the public requires the punishment to be administered, equally whether in the unseen depths of the pocket, etc., what
was supposed to exist was really present or not. The community suffers from the mere alarm of crime. Again: Where the thing
intended (attempted) as a crime and what is done is a sort to create alarm, in other words, excite apprehension that the evil;
intention will be carried out, the incipient act which the law of attempt takes cognizance of is in reason committed.

In State vs. Mitchell, 21 defendant, with intent to kill, fired at the window of victim's room thinking that the latter was inside. However, at that moment, the
victim was in another part of the house. The court convicted the accused of attempted murder.

The aforecited cases are the same cases which have been relied upon by Respondent to make this Court sustain the judgment of attempted murder
against Petitioner. However, we cannot rely upon these decisions to resolve the issue at hand. There is a difference between the Philippine and the
American laws regarding the concept and appreciation of impossible crimes.

In the Philippines, the Revised Penal Code, in Article 4(2), expressly provided for impossible crimes and made the punishable. Whereas, in the United
States, the Code of Crimes and Criminal Procedure is silent regarding this matter. What it provided for were attempts of the crimes enumerated in the
said Code. Furthermore, in said jurisdiction, the impossibility of committing the offense is merely a defense to an attempt charge. In this regard,
commentators and the cases generally divide the impossibility defense into two categories: legal versus factual impossibility. 22 In U.S. vs. Wilson 23 the
Court held that:

. . . factual impossibility of the commission of the crime is not a defense. If the crime could have been committed had the
circumstances been as the defendant believed them to be, it is no defense that in reality the crime was impossible of commission.
Legal impossibility, on the other hand, is a defense which can be invoked to avoid criminal liability for an attempt. In U.S. vs. Berrigan, 24 the accused
was indicated for attempting to smuggle letters into and out of prison. The law governing the matter made the act criminal if done without knowledge and
consent of the warden. In this case, the offender intended to send a letter without the latter's knowledge and consent and the act was performed.
However, unknown to him, the transmittal was achieved with the warden's knowledge and consent. The lower court held the accused liable for attempt
but the appellate court reversed. It held unacceptable the contention of the state that "elimination of impossibility as a defense to a charge of criminal
attempt, as suggested by the Model Penal Code and the proposed federal legislation, is consistent with the overwhelming modern view". In disposing of
this contention, the Court held that the federal statutes did not contain such provision, and thus, following the principle of legality, no person could be
criminally liable for an act which was not made criminal by law. Further, it said:

Congress has not yet enacted a law that provides that intent plus act plus conduct constitutes the offense of attempt irrespective of
legal impossibility until such time as such legislative changes in the law take place, this court will not fashion a new non-statutory
law of criminal attempt.

To restate, in the United States, where the offense sought to be committed is factually impossible or accomplishment, the offender cannot escape
criminal liability. He can be convicted of an attempt to commit the substantive crime where the elements of attempt are satisfied. It appears, therefore,
that the act is penalized, not as an impossible crime, but as an attempt to commit a crime. On the other hand, where the offense is legally impossible of
accomplishment, the actor cannot be held liable for any crime — neither for an attempt not for an impossible crime. The only reason for this is that in
American law, there is no such thing as an impossible crime. Instead, it only recognizes impossibility as a defense to a crime charge — that is, attempt.

This is not true in the Philippines. In our jurisdiction, impossible crimes are recognized. The impossibility of accomplishing the criminal intent is not
merely a defense, but an act penalized by itself. Furthermore, the phrase "inherent impossibility" that is found in Article 4(2) of the Revised Penal Code
makes no distinction between factual or physical impossibility and legal impossibility. Ubi lex non distinguit nec nos distinguere debemos.

The factual situation in the case at bar present a physical impossibility which rendered the intended crime impossible of accomplishment. And under
Article 4, paragraph 2 of the Revised Penal Code, such is sufficient to make the act an impossible crime.

To uphold the contention of respondent that the offense was Attempted Murder because the absence of Palangpangan was a supervening cause
independent of the actor's will, will render useless the provision in Article 4, which makes a person criminally liable for an act "which would be an offense
against persons or property, were it not for the inherent impossibility of its accomplishment . . ." In that case all circumstances which prevented the
consummation of the offense will be treated as an accident independent of the actor's will which is an element of attempted and frustrated felonies.

WHEREFORE, PREMISES CONSIDERED. the petition is hereby GRANTED, the decision of respondent Court of Appeals holding Petitioner guilty of
Attempted Murder is hereby MODIFIED. We hereby hold Petitioner guilty of an impossible crime as defined and penalized in Articles 4, paragraph 2, and
59 of the Revised Penal Code, respectively. Having in mind the social danger and degree of criminality shown by Petitioner, this Court sentences him to
suffer the penalty of six (6) months ofarresto mayor, together with the accessory penalties provided by the law, and to pay the costs.

SO ORDERED.

Feliciano, Regalado and Nocon, JJ., concur.

Narvasa, C.J., is on leave.