PEOPLE v. LOPEZ @ "DODONG,"G.R. No. 232247 | 2018
830 Phil. 771
114 OG No. 52, 8853 (December 24, 2018)
G.R. No. 232247. April 23, 2018
PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE,
V.
RONILLO LOPEZ, JR. Y MANTALABA @ "DODONG", ACCUSED-APPELLANT.
Ponente: PERALTA, J.:
Nature of Petition:
This is an appeal from the January 6, 2017 Decision[1] of the Court of Appeals (CA) in CA-G.R. CR-HC No. 07936, which affirmed the December 1, 2015 Decision[2] of the Regional Trial Court, Branch 197, Las Piñas City (RTC), finding accused-appellant Ronillo Lopez, Jr. y Mantalaba (Ronillo), alias "Dodong" guilty beyond reasonable doubt of Parricide as defined and penalized under Article 246 of the Revised Penal Code (RPC), as amended.
Dispositive portion:
WHEREFORE, the appeal is DISMISSED. The Decision of the Court of Appeals dated January 6, 2017 in CA-G.R. CR-HC No. 07936 is hereby AFFIRMED with MODIFICATION. Accused-appellant Ronillo Lopez, Jr. y Mantalaba @ "Dodong" is found GUILTY beyond reasonable doubt of Parricide and is sentenced to suffer the penalty of Reclusion Perpetua. He is ORDERED to PAY the heirs of Ronillo Lopez, Sr. y Madroño the amounts of P60,000.00 as actual damages, P75,000.00 as civil indemnity, P75,000.00 as moral damages, and P75,000.00 by way of exemplary damages.
Accused-appellant is also ORDERED to PAY interest at the rate of six percent (6%) per annum from the time of finality of this Decision until fully paid, to be imposed on the actual damages, civil indemnity, moral damages and exemplary damages.
SO ORDERED.
Doctrines:
(1) In pleading self-defense, petitioner in effect admitted that he stabbed the victim. It was then incumbent upon him to prove that justifying circumstance to the satisfaction of the court, relying on the strength of his evidence and not on the weakness of the prosecution. The reason is that even if the prosecution evidence were weak, such could not be disbelieved after petitioner admitted the fact of stabbing the victim.
(2) In criminal cases, the burden lies upon the prosecution to prove the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt rather than upon the accused that he was in fact innocent. If the accused, however, admits killing the victim, but pleads self-defense, it now becomes incumbent upon him to prove by clear, satisfactory and convincing evidence all the elements of said justifying circumstance in order to escape liability. In the case at bench, Ronillo failed to discharge his burden.
(3) Self-defense is appreciated as a justifying circumstance only if the following requisites were present, namely:
(1) the victim committed unlawful aggression amounting to actual or imminent threat to the life and limb of the person acting in self-defense;(2) there was reasonable necessity of the means employed to prevent or repel the unlawful aggression; and(3) there was lack of sufficient provocation on the part of the person claiming self-defense, or, at least, any provocation executed by the person claiming self-defense was not the proximate and immediate cause of the victim's aggression.
(4) The justifying circumstance of self-defense must be established with certainty through satisfactory and convincing evidence that excludes any vestige of criminal aggression on the part of the persons invoking it. Self-defense cannot be appreciated where it was uncorroborated by competent evidence, or is patently doubtful.
(5) At the heart of the claim for self-defense is the element of unlawful aggression committed by the victim against the accused, which is the condition sine qua non for upholding the same as a justifying circumstance. xxxx The test for the presence of unlawful aggression under the circumstances is whether the aggression from the victim put in real peril the life or personal safety of the person defending himself; the peril must not be an imagined or imaginary threat. Accordingly, the accused must establish the concurrence of three elements of unlawful aggression, namely:
(a) there must be a physical or material attack or assault;(b) the attack or assault must be actual, or at least, imminent; and(c) the attack or assault must be unlawful.
Synopsis:
In the case of People of the Philippines vs. Ronillo Lopez Jr. y Mantalaba @ "Dodong," accused-appellant, the defendant was charged with the crime of Parricide under Article 246 of the Revised Penal Code for killing his father, Ronillo Lopez Sr. Ronillo admitted that he stabbed his father but maintained that he acted in self-defense. The victim's mother heard her grandson, the accused, call for help, saying that he stabbed his father. Lopez then went back to the house with his grandmother and found the victim lying on the ground, already dead. Ronillo's plea of self-defense was belied by physical evidence, and the court ruled that there was no valid act of self-defense on his part.
The court held that self-defense is appreciated as a justifying circumstance only if certain requisites are present. These include the victim committing unlawful aggression amounting to an actual or imminent threat to the life and limb of the person making the defense, reasonable necessity of the means employed to prevent or repel the unlawful aggression, and a lack of sufficient provocation on the part of the person claiming the defense. At the heart of the claim for self-defense is the element of unlawful aggression, which is the condition sine qua non for upholding the same as a justifying circumstance.
The test for the presence of unlawful aggression under the circumstances is whether the aggression from the victim put in real peril the life or personal safety of the person defending himself. Unlawful aggression on the part of the victim is the primordial element of the justifying circumstance of self-defense. Without unlawful aggression, there can be no justified killing in defense of oneself. The court found that Ronillo's plea of self-defense was not justified because there was no evidence of unlawful aggression on the part of the victim.
The court ruled that there was no valid act of self-defense on the part of the accused, Ronillo Lopez Jr. y Mantalaba @ "Dodong," for killing his father, Ronillo Lopez Sr. The court held that the victim was not the unlawful aggressor, and therefore, Ronillo's plea of self-defense was belied by physical evidence.