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PHILIPPINE SUPREME COURT DECISIONS

EN BANC

[G.R. No. 40140. November 27, 1933. ]

THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. ANSELMO IGNACIO Y VELASCO, Defendant-Appellant.

Alfonso E. Mendoza, for Appellant.

Solicitor-General Hilado, for Appellee.

SYLLABUS


1. HOMICIDE; SELF-DEFENSE. — Although under ordinary conditions the use of a knife in repelling an aggression when one has been assaulted by another with his fists is not sanctioned by law, nevertheless under the special circumstances of this case there was reasonable necessity of the means employed by the accused to protect his life.

2. ID.; ID. — All the essential elements of self-defense, namely, lack of sufficient provocation on the part of the accused, unlawful aggression, and reasonable necessity of the means employed to repel it, were present when the accused stabbed the deceased.


D E C I S I O N


VICKERS, J.:


This is an appeal from a decision of the Court of First Instance of Manila, finding the defendant guilty of the crime of homicide and sentencing him to suffer fourteen years, eight months, and one day of reclusion temporal, with the accessory penalties provided by law, to indemnify the heirs of the deceased Jose Vizcarra in the sum of P1,000, and to pay the costs.

From this judgment the defendant appealed to this court, and his attorney now makes the following assignments of error:jgc:chanrobles.com.ph

"1. The trial court erred in not giving due weight and credit to the evidence presented by the accused Anselmo Ignacio y Velasco, not successfully contradicted by the prosecution, to the effect that he acted in defense of his person or rights.

"2. The trial court likewise erred in finding the accused Anselmo Ignacio y Velasco guilty of the crime of homicide imputed to him in the information, and sentencing him to suffer fourteen (14) years, eight (8) months and one (1) day of reclusion temporal, to indemnify the heirs of the deceased Jose Vizcarra in the sum of P1,000 and to pay the costs, notwithstanding the fact that his guilt was not proven beyond a reasonable doubt."cralaw virtua1aw library

It appears from the evidence that on the evening of April 25, 1933 Jose Vizcarra, the deceased, was at the Paco railroad station attending to the unloading of some boxes of fish belonging to his father which had arrived about half past six that evening. Anselmo Ignacio, the accused, was one of the two laborers that unloaded the boxes, one of which dropped to the ground and was damaged. This provoked Jose Vizcarra, and he addressed some injurious epithets to the accused. A fight ensued, but they were separated after Jose Vizcarra had received a blow in the face. The accused was then hired by a woman to take a box of fish to the Quinta Market in Quiapo, and left with her in a carretela. Jose Vizcarra sent a messenger to inform his father, Felix Vizcarra, in Baclaran, Parañaque, as to what had occurred. Upon receiving the message, Felix Vizcarra notified his brothers, Julian and Fernando, and the three of them set out for the Paco station in an automobile of Sebastian Vizcarra, driven by Sabino Morento. When they reached the station the accused had not yet returned from the Quinta Market.

There is a sharp conflict in the evidence as to what subsequently took place. The trial judge, accepting the prosecution’s version of the incident, found that Julian Vizcarra asked a laborer named Totoy where the accused was, while Felix Vizcarra went towards a carretela where Jose Vizcarra was watching the boxes of fish; that Felix Vizcarra took charge of the loading of the boxes, and while he was thus engaged the accused arrived and began to wrangle with Julian Vizcarra; that a fight ensued, but that after they had exchanged a few blows they were separated; that Julian Vizcarra, who used only his fist, was wounded in the left arm with a cutting instrument; that the accused then attacked Felix Vizcarra and wounded him twice in the shoulder, causing him to lose consciousness and fall to the ground; that when Jose Vizcarra saw what had happened to his father he ran to help him, but before he could reach his father, the accused attacked Jose Vizcarra and stabbed him in the back with a knife, and that as a consequence thereof the injured man died three days later; that when the accused saw that Jose Vizcarra had also fallen to the ground he began to run, and meeting Fernando Vizcarra coming out of a shop in the station where he had gone to buy cigarettes the accused attacked him with a pocketknife, wounding him in the left shoulder; that Julian Vizcarra, as well as Felix and Fernando Vizcarra, struck the defendant in the face and on the head with their fists.

The court further found that if it be granted that the accused was provoked by Julian Vizcarra when he asked the accused why he had assaulted Jose Vizcarra, and that if it be also conceded that the first aggression in the form of blows with the fist came from Julian Vizcarra, nevertheless the accused was not justified in making use of his pocketknife, and still less in attacking the other Vizcarras, because there was no reasonable necessity of the means employed to repel the aggression.

The case for the prosecution rests upon the testimony of the chauffeur, Sabino Morento, and of Julian, Fernando, and Felix Vizcarra. This chauffeur, who was employed by Sebastian Vizcarra, can scarcely be regarded as a disinterested witness. The attorney for the appellant points out this man’s name was not included in the prosecution’s list of witnesses, but that he was the first witness called. The evidence shows that he had been examined in the fiscal’s office. His name ought to have been included in the list of witnesses furnished by the fiscal to the attorney for the defendant.

The defendant and his witnesses, Marcelino Baltazar and Jose Torno, testified on the other hand that the Vizcarras were the aggressors; that Felix Vizcarra struck the accused, and that when he ran, the Vizcarras pursued him; that the accused retreated until he reached the iron railing of the station, where he was cornered by the Vizcarras and struck by them with their fists and with sticks; that believing his life to be in danger and remembering his knife he snatched it out and struck at his assailants until he was able to free himself.

Jose Torno, 49 years old, married, and a watchman at the Paco station, who would appear to be the most disinterested of the eyewitnesses, testified as follows:jgc:chanrobles.com.ph

"P. En la tarde de ese dia 25 de abril de 1933
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