prior to the stabbing, Amado had been courting her in vain. On Sept.13, Amado suddenly embraced and kissed Avelina and touched her breasts, Avelina slapped Amado, gave him fist blows and kicked him. Since then, she armed herself with a long fan knife for self-protection.
On Sept.15, about midnight, Amado climbed up the room of Avelina. He felt her forehead, evidently with the intention of abusing her. She immediately screamed for help, which awakened her parents and brought them to her side. Amado came out from where he had hidden under a bed in Avelina's room and kissed the hand of Nicolas, her father, asking for forgiveness.
In the morning of Sept. 20, Avelina received information that Amado had been falsely boasting in the neighbourhood of having taken liberties with her person and that she had even asked him to elope with her and that if he should not marry her, she would take poison; and that Avelina again received information of Amado's bragging at about 5 o'clock in the afternoon of that same day.
At about 8 o'clock in the evening of the same day, Nicolas went to the chapel of the Seventh Day Adventists to attend religious services, and sat on the front bench . Avelina entered the chapel shortly after the arrival of her father and sat on the bench next to the last one nearest the door. Amado was seated on the other side of the chapel. Upon observing the presence of Avelina , Amado went to the bench on which Avelina was sitting and sat by her right side, and, without saying a word, Amado, with the greatest of impudence, placed his hand on the upper part of her right thigh. On observing this highly improper and offensive conduct of Amado, Avelina, conscious of her personal dignity and honor, pulled out with her right hand the fan knife, which she had in a pocket of her dress, with the intention of punishing Amado's offending hand. Amado
seized Avelina's right hand, but she quickly grabbed the knife with her left hand and stabbed Amado once at the base of the left side of the neck.
HELD:The claim of the prosecution that the offense was committed by Avelina with the aggravating circumstance that the killing was done in a place dedicated to religious worship, cannot be legally sustained; as there is no evidence to show that the defendant and appellant had murder in her heart when she entered the chapel that fatal night. Avelina is not a criminal by nature. She happened to kill under the greatest provocation. In the mind of the court, Avelina committed the crime of homicide, with no aggravating circumstance whatsoever, but with at least three mitigating circumstances of a qualified character to be considered in her favor; she is entitled to a reduction by one or two degrees in the penalty to be imposed upon her. And considering the circumstances of the instant case, Avelina should be accorded the most liberal consideration possible under the law.
UNINHABITED PLACE PEOPLE v DAMASO 86 SCRA 370 NATURE: Automatic review.
PROSECUTION‟S CASE:Donata Rebolledo and Victoriano de la Cruz heard the barkings of dogs outside their house. 2 men armed with guns, entered, pointed their weapons at them and asked Donata for the wereabouts of her daughter Catalina. Donata was ordered to open an "aparador" from which the two men took valuables.
They could hear the movements and voices of 3-4 other persons beneath the house. The 2 men brought Catalina down from the house and then asked where they could find Susana .Thereafter, Donata heard the men opening the door to Susana's store. After several minutes, feeling that the intruders had left, Donata untied the hands of Victoriano and asked him to go to the store to see if her daughters were there. Donata sent Victoriano to the barrio lieutenant to report the incident.The following morning the two women were found already dead with wounds in several parts of their bodies. They were found in a sugar plantation 100 meters from Donata's house. The deaths were caused by profuse hemorrhage due to a fatal, big, wide, gaping and deep lacerated wound.
CONTENTION OF THE ACCUSED:Damaso stated that he was with his co-accused Gregorio, Eugenio, Alviar and Espejo on the night the Sabado sisters were killed; that he never went into the house of Donata Rebolledo as Eugenio and Gregorio were the ones who did; that it was Gregorio and Eugenio who actually did the killing while he, Alviar and Espejo merely stood by; that the victims were stabbed and their throats cut with a reaping knife (pangapas or lait); that the killing was motivated by the failure of the older woman (Catalina) to pay for a carabao bought from Gregorio; and that on that evening, Gregorio, Eugenio, Alviar and Espejo were carrying caliber .45 pistols while he was unarmed.
ISSUE:WON the trial court erred in its appreciation of the aggravating circumstances of armed band, treachery and uninhabited place.
Anent the circumstances of uninhabited place, counsel disclaims its existence by pointing to the proximity of the sugarcane field where the victims were killed to the national highway as well as to certain houses in the barrio. The uninhabitedness of a place is determined not by the distance of the nearest house to the scene of the crime, but whether or not in the place of commission, there was reasonable possibility of the victim receiving some help. Considering that the killing was done during nighttime and the sugarcane in the field was tall enough to obstruct the view of neighbors and passersby, there was no reasonable possibility for the victims to receive any assistance. That the accused deliberately sought the solitude of the place is clearly shown by the fact that they brought the victims to the sugarcane field although they could have disposed of them right in the house of Donata Rebolledo where they were found. Thus, in People v.
Saguing, the Court considered the crime as having been committed in an uninhabited place
because the killing was done in a secluded place at the foot of a hill, forested, and uninhabited. The trial court considered separately the three circumstances of armed band, treachery and uninhabited place where under other situations one may be considered absorbed or inherent in the other. There is ample justification for this. The elements of each circumstance subsist
independently and can be distinctly perceived thereby revealing a greater degree of perversity on the part of the accused.
IN VIEW OF THE FOREGOING CONSIDERATIONS, We hereby affirm in toto the decision of the trial court in the two cases.
PEOPLE v CODERES 130 SCRA 134