GR L 19238; (July, 1966) (Digest)
G.R. No. L-19238 July 26, 1966
People of the Philippines, plaintiff and appellee, vs. Marincho Castillo, et al., defendants. Carlos Castillo, defendant and appellant.
FACTS
Carlos Castillo and his son Marincho Castillo were charged with murder. Only Carlos Castillo appealed his conviction. The prosecution evidence established that in October 1959, Marincho was slapped by Juan Vargas after Marincho’s cow destroyed Vargas’s plants. Marincho then told Vargas, “You, Manong Juan, will have your own day.” On December 28, 1959, in Barrio Malibago, Pola, Oriental Mindoro, Carlos Castillo, holding a gun in his right hand, was talking face-to-face with Juan Vargas when Marincho came from behind and hacked Vargas on the head. As Marincho was about to strike a second time, Carlos said, “You kill him.” Vargas died instantaneously from severe hemorrhage due to multiple wounds. That evening, Marincho, accompanied by Carlos, surrendered to authorities. The prosecution presented testimony from Jose Ilagan to prove conspiracy, claiming he saw both appellant and his son walking fast toward the poblacion, Carlos with a revolver and Marincho with a bolo, presumably looking for Vargas. The court found little credibility in this testimony, noting the two-month interval between the altercation and the killing and that the incident occurred only twenty meters from Carlos’s house, suggesting Vargas may have been the one who approached.
ISSUE
Whether Carlos Castillo can be found guilty of murder by inducement based on his utterance, “You kill him,” made after Marincho had already fatally hacked the victim.
RULING
The Supreme Court reversed the judgment of conviction and acquitted Carlos Castillo. Applying the principle from People vs. Caimbre and similar precedents, the Court held that for inducement to make one guilty as a co-principal, it must be of such nature and made in such a way as to be the determining cause of the crime, and uttered with the intention of producing the result. Here, Carlos’s words were uttered only after Marincho had already inflicted a fatal wound on Vargas, making the inducement unnecessary to commit the crime. His guilt was not established beyond reasonable doubt.