US v. Orduna - Case

Republic of the Philippines
SUPREME COURT
Manila
EN BANC
G.R. No. L-6614
February 14, 1912
THE UNITED STATES, plaintiff-appellee,
vs.
ONOFRE ODRUA, ET AL., defendants-appellants.
W. A. Kincaid & Thomas L. Hartigan for appellants.
Attorney-General Villamor for appellee.
CARSON, J.:
Appellants in this case were convicted in the court below of the crime of
robbery in an armed band, committed on or about the 11th day of May, 1900.
The trial court found, and the record clearly discloses:
That on May 11, 1900, one Elias Oro, president of the municipality of Sapian,
Province of Capiz, Philippine Islands, was engaged with a large number of other
citizens of said town in the celebration of a religious festival at a place in said
town known as Matavia and situated on the seashore; that some time during
the forenoon of said day one Leocadio Pajarillo, accompanied by the accused
and a number of other persons, appeared upon the scene, many of them armed
with guns, revolvers, bolos, and other arms; that said Leocadio Pajarillo was
chief of the band, the members of which acted under his orders in the
commission of the depredations hereinafter mentioned; that Elias Oro
attempted to escape, but was captured and brought back to the beach, where
he was severely beaten by Pajarillo for the purpose of making him reveal his
personal property; that because of said beating Elias Oro caused to be brought
to the beach at Matavia a trunk containing the sum of $700 Mexican currency,
and certain jewelry of the value of $150 Mexican currency, the property of Elias
Oro, which property was, by intimidation and violence, taken from said Elias
Oro by said Pajarillo and the accused; that said Pajarillo and the accused also,
by force and intimidation, took from the store-house of said Elias Oro in
Matavia 800cavanes of rice, the property of said Elias Oro and of the value of
$2,500 Mexican currency; that said Pajarillo and the accused caused the said
Elias Oro to be bound and detained on the beach at Matavia from shortly
before noon on the morning of the 11th day of May, 1900, to about dawn of the
following day, when he made his escape; that on the same occasion and that at
the same place said Pajarillo and the accused, by force and violence, took from
the wife of Elias Oro the sum of $300 Mexican currency, the property of Elias
Oro; that after securing the above-described property, some of the accused, at
the command of Leocadio Pajarillo, by force and violence, appropriated and

took away from the agents of said Elias Oro, 36 carabaos, the property of Elias
Oro, of the value of $1,920 Mexican currency; also 2 carabaos valued at $120
Mexican currency, in money, the property of Gregorio Nuez. The court finds
that the value of the property of Elias Oro, taken as above mentioned, is
P7,414.27 Philippine currency, and that the value of that taken from Gregorio
Nuez is P235.95 Philippine currency; that the taking of all of the property
heretofore mentioned was a part of the same raid or expedition of Leocadio
Pajarillo, the accused, and other persons to the court unknown.
Appellants contend that they are entitled to the benefits of the Amnesty
Proclamation of July 4, 1902, and we think that this claim must be sustained.
In our decision in the case of U. S. vs. Pajarillo (19 Phil. Rep., 288) filed April 5,
1911, we had occasion to consider a plea of amnesty entered on behalf of the
appellants in that case who were convicted of the crime assassination
committed on the same day, and in the course of the very raid upon which the
robbery now under consideration was committed.
In that opinion we held as follows:
Accepting, as we do, the material testimony for the prosecution, and
rejecting, as we do, the material testimony prosecution, and rejecting, as
we do, the material testimony offered by the defense, the judgment of the
court below, convicting and sentencing these defendants must be
affirmed, with the costs of this instance against the appellants, unless
they are entitled to the benefit of the Amnesty Proclamation by the
President of the United States, dated July 4, 1902. In the court below the
protection afforded by the plea of amnesty was claimed on behalf of
Leocadio Pajarillo; and in this court, counsel urges on behalf of all the
appellants that even if the court be of opinion that the evidence sustains
the contention of the prosecution that these defendants and appellants
are the four individuals who fired upon and killed Ciriaco Occeo,
deceased, as charge in the information, nevertheless, upon the facts
developed by the whole record, they are entitled to the benefits of the
Amnesty Proclamation.
The declarative portion of the Amnesty Proclamation is as follows:
"Now, therefore, be it known that I, Theodore Roosevelt, President
of the United States of America, by virtue of the power and
authority vested in me by the Constitution, do hereby proclaim and
declare, without reservation or condition, except as hereinafter
provided a full and complete pardon and amnesty to all persons in
the Philippine Archipelago who have participated in the
insurrections aforesaid or who have given aid and comfort to
person participating in said insurrections, for the offenses of

treason or sedition and for all offenses political in their character
committed in the course of such insurrections pursuant to orders
issued by the civil or military insurrectionary authorities or which
grew out of internal political feuds or dissensions between Filipinos
and Spaniards or the Spanish authorities or which resulted from
internal political feuds or dissensions among he Filipinos
themselves during either of said insurrections.
"Provided, however, That the pardon and amnesty hereby granted
shall not include such persons committing crimes since May first,
nineteen hundred and two, in any province of the Archipelago in
which at the time civil government was established, nor shall it
include such persons as have been heretofore finally convicted of
the crimes of murder, rape, arson, or robbery by any military or
civil tribunal organized under the authority of Spain or of the
United States of America, but special application may be made to
the proper authority for pardon by any person belonging to the
exempted classes, and such clemency as is consistent with
humanity and justice will be liberally extended."
In the case of the United States vs. Luzon (2 Phil. Rep., 380), this court
laid down the following proposition (p. 381):
"To entitle a person to the benefits of this proclamation two things,
at least, must concur: (1) He must have participated in the
insurrections against Spain or the United States. (2) The crime
with which he is charged must be political in its nature. Common
crimes, such as murder and robbery, are not included within the
amnesty unless they were committed under circumstances which
clothe them with a political character. This court has constantly
adhered to this doctrine."
While we are of opinion that the crime of murder committed by these
appellants is not one of those included in the Amnesty Proclamation, we
are not entirely agreed with the judge of the trial court as to the precise
grounds upon which the claims of its benefits should be denied.
We base our denial of the benefits of the Amnesty Proclamation strictly
upon the proposition that not only is there nothing in the record which
would sustain a finding that the crime of murder of which these
appellants are convicted was political in charter, but that on the contrary
the evidence strongly tends to disclose a motive for the slaying of the
deceased wholly inconsistent with such a characterization of the offense.
The trial judge seems to have laid considerable stress on his finding of a
failure of proof that at the time when the crime was committed these
appellants were participating in an insurrection or in a seditious
uprising against Spain or the United States. He was of opinion that the
movement headed by Leocadio Pajarillo, which, resulted in the overthrow
of the local municipal officers on the day of the murder was directed
rather against the government set up by the leaders of the insurrection
than against the sovereignty of the United States, and that it had for its
object merely his own material profit, selfish aggrandizement, and
political advancement in the municipality where he resided. From these
premises the trial judge concluded that whatever political character the
offenses committed on that occasion may have had, it did not bring them
within the terms of the Amnesty Proclamation.
We think, however, that under the liberal construction which should be
given that instrument, the offenses committed by Leocadio Pajarillo and
his partisans, which were incident to their attempt to seize control of the
municipal insurrectionary government, must fairly be held to have
"resulted from internal political feuds or dissensions among the Filipinos
themselves" during the insurrection then pending, and that the
participants in the overthrow of the local municipal insurrectionary
governments were at the same time participants in one of the
insurrectionary movements against the United States contemplated in
the proclamation. In applying the provisions of the Amnesty
Proclamation we have never stopped to inquire to what degree particular
leaders of the various insurrectionary movements may have been
impelled by the lust of personal aggrandizement and political
advancement, nor have we sought to discover the reasons for the
"internal political feuds or dissensions among the Filipinos themselves"
to which reference is made in the proclamation, provided it affirmatively
appears that such feuds or dissensions could fairly be characterized as
political. We are of opinion, therefore, that all was done by Leocadio
Pajarillo and his partisants on the day of the murder, which under the
most liberal construction of the evidence of record can be said to have
been an incident to the movement to seize the local municipal officials
and set up a new municipal government must fairly be held to be
included within the provisions of the Amnesty Proclamation.
The question then present itself, whether the shooting of Occeo was or
was not an incident of the political movement participated in by Leocadio
Pajarillo and his partisans on the day the shooting took place. This
question, we think, must be answered in the negative, and in this
conclusion we agreed with the trial judge who rested his denial of the
plea of amnesty not only on the ground that the political movement led
by Leocadio Pajarillo was not such a movement as was contemplated in
the Amnesty Proclamation, but that the shooting of Occeo had no
political significance whatever, and was merely the outcome of a personal
difference with the deceased.
Accepting as true all the evidence of record, including the testimony of
the witnesses for the defense, which tends to disclose that on the day of
the murder, Leocadio Pajarillo was at the head of a movement looking to
the capture of the local municipal officers and the seizure of control of
the local municipal government, and accepting as true his claim that at
that time he was a member of the branch of the insurrectionary forces
known as macheteros, and that he joined in the movement against the
local officials because he had heard that the acting president of the town
was contemplating a surrender to the American forces, we still do not
think the evidence is sufficient to maintain a finding that the coldblooded murder of Occeo was committed in furtherance of that
movement. None of the other officials were killed and it does not appear
that any attempt was made to kill them. Even the president, against
whom it is alleged the suspicion of disloyalty was especially directed was
merely captured, apparently for the purpose of bringing him before
higher authority for discipline, or least to hold him in detention until his
captors had secured control of the town. Aside from the personal motive
attributed to Leocadio Pajarillo by the witnesses for the prosecution, no
reason suggests itself or has been suggested for the adoption of extreme
measures in the case of Occeo. Navarra, whose soldiers were placed at
the disposition of Pajarillo on that occasion, testified that Pajarillo
reported to him that Occeo had been shot while attempting to escape,
thus indicating that no excuse could be found at that time for the
deliberate shooting of the deceased. The shooting did not take place
under the strain of excitement incident to the movement, or in the heat
of an altercation arising out of the unusual incidents of the day. Occeo
was shot unarmed at the cold, gray dawn of the day, in his own house,
through his partially opened door, without being given an opportunity to
recognize his assailant, much less to enter into a discussion with them,
or to learn their object in attacking him. The attacking party did not
contain any of the revolutionary soldiers who were operating under the
orders of Leocadio Pajarillo, but consisted only of Pajarillo himself, his
two brothers and his brother-in-law, and it is manifest that they had
agreed upon his death before they sought him out at his home. The
evidence strongly tends to disclose, if it does not conclusively establish,

the fact that the leader of that party was the paramour of the wife of the
victim the tragedy. It is fair to assume that he had reason to fear the
enmity of the man had wronged on the discovery of the illicit relations
with his wife. In any event the personal motive for the commission of the
crime stands out strongly from the pages of the record, and nothing that
is contained therein justifies the conclusion that it was induced by any
demand of political necessity or expediency.
We are of opinion, therefore, that the defendants and appellants have not
shown that the crime which they committed was political in character;
that, while it is true that it was committed on the occasion of an internal
dissension among Filipinos during the course of an insurrection, it did
not result from such dissension, and that these defendants and
appellants are not, therefore, entitled to the benefits of the President's
Proclamation of Amnesty.
The facts proven in the present case are very similar to those proven in the
Pajarillo case; in this case, however, there is a total lack of evidence of "the
personal motive for the commission of the crime" which was developed in the
record in the former case. Upon the evidence submitted in this case, and giving
the defendants the benefit of any doubt which may arise as to the political
character of the raid described in the opinion of the court below we are of
opinion that they must be held to be entitled to the benefit of the Amnesty
Proclamation. There is evidence in the record which at least tends to prove that
some if not all of the property seized during the raid was ostensibly intended
for the use and support of the soldiers and other adherents of the revolutionary
movement.
The sentence imposed by the trial court should therefore be and hereby
reversed, and the information filed in this case should be and is hereby
dismissed with the costs of this instance de oficio. The defendants and
appellants will be set at liberty forthwith.
Mapa, Moreland and Trent, JJ., concur.

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Republic of the Philippines

the command of Leocadio Pajarillo, by force and violence, appropriated and

person participating in said insurrections, for the offenses of

evidence strongly tends to disclose, if it does not conclusively establish,

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