GR 127441; (October, 2001) (Digest)
G.R. No. 127441 ; October 5, 2001
DOROTEO TOBES @ DOTING, petitioner, vs. COURT OF APPEALS, and PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, respondents.
FACTS
On the evening of July 8, 1990, in Bobon, Northern Samar, an altercation occurred outside the AM Disco house. Wilfredo Pollentes confronted Joel Escareal, boxed him, and caused him to fall. As Pollentes poised to strike again, Escareal drew a .38 caliber revolver and shot Pollentes. Pollentes then walked away. Escareal stood near the door, holding the gun and watching Pollentes leave, with his back to the disco entrance.
At this moment, petitioner Doroteo Tobes emerged from the disco, placed his arm around Escareal’s neck from behind, and hurled him to the ground, causing the revolver to fall. While Escareal lay face-up, Tobes picked up the firearm and shot Escareal in the left temporal area, causing his death. Tobes was charged with murder but was convicted by the trial court of the lesser crime of homicide, a decision affirmed by the Court of Appeals with a modification increasing the civil indemnity.
ISSUE
The primary issue is whether petitioner can validly invoke the justifying circumstance of defense of a stranger to exonerate himself from criminal liability for the killing of Joel Escareal.
RULING
The Supreme Court denied the petition and affirmed the conviction. The legal logic is centered on the essential element of unlawful aggression. For defense of a relative or stranger to be valid, there must be unlawful aggression on the part of the victim at the very moment the defensive act is undertaken. The facts established that when petitioner Tobes attacked Escareal, the initial aggression by Escareal against Pollentes had already ceased. Escareal was merely standing still, watching Pollentes walk away, and was no longer posing an imminent threat to anyone. Consequently, there was no ongoing unlawful aggression to justify Tobes’s intervention.
Since the requisite unlawful aggression was absent, the plea of defense of a stranger must fail. The Court also rejected petitioner’s claim of mitigating circumstances like passion or obfuscation, as there was no provocation directed at him. However, the mitigating circumstance of voluntary surrender was correctly appreciated by the lower courts. The increase in civil indemnity to P50,000.00 was upheld as consistent with prevailing jurisprudence. Thus, petitioner was correctly held liable as a principal for the crime of homicide.