Today is Thursday, August 15, 2019

Custom Search

Constitution Statutes Executive Issuances Judicial Issuances Other Issuances Jurisprudence International Legal Resources AUSL Exclusive

Republic of the Philippines

IN BANC

GR No. L-37271 July 1, 1933

THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS, plaintiff-appellee,

Juan Sumulong for appellant.

ABAD SANTOS, J .:

The appellant in this case was convicted of the crime of murder by the Court of First Instance of Occidental Negros,
and sentenced to suffer the penalty of reclusion perpetua , to indemnify the parents of the deceased in the sum of
P1,000, with the accessory penalties prescribed by law, and to pay the costs. On this appeal, her counsel de officio
attacks the findings of fact of the trial court, but does not raise any question of law.

The questions of fact involved in this case are fully discussed in well considered decision of the trial court, presided
over by then Judge Quirico Abeto, which decision reads as follows:

Magdalena Caliso is accused of the crime of murder of a 9-month-old boy, in La Carlota, Negros Occidental,
on February 8 of this year, 1932. The complaint alleges that the accused, being a servant of the Messrs.
Emerald (Emilio), voluntarily, illegally and criminally and with the purpose of satisfying a vengeance, I
administer a certain amount of concentrated acetic acid, which is a poisonous substance, to Emilio
Esmeralda, Jr., a 9-month-old boy, causing him burns in the mouth, throat, intestines and other vital parts of
the internal organs that necessarily caused the death of the victim, who succumbed a few hours later; that in
the commission of this crime, the aggravating circumstances of alevosia have concurred,

After presenting the evidence, both of the accusation, as well as of the defense, and after hearing the brilliant
reports adduced both by the Provincial Prosecutor and by the ex officio lawyerof the accused, the Court has
reserved the decision for this day, but not before congratulating both the accusation and the defense, the first
for the conscientious in the meeting and presentation of their evidence, and the second for the great interest
with which has shown in favor of the accused. The Court has wanted to take time to decide this cause,
because it realizes how serious the crime is and the circumstances of both the accused and those offended in
this case. On the one hand, there is the accused, who is a woman who belongs to the weak sex, in the spring
of her life, whom a sentence could deprive of all the benefits that life offers her. On the other hand, a mother
mad with pain who has lost the only male son of the family and who considers the cause as the person who
has taken her only love.

And of the evidence presented, the Court finds that on the afternoon of February 8, 1932, while the spouses.
Messrs. Emilio Esmeralda and Flora Gonzalez were sleeping taking a nap, suddenly Mrs. Esmeralda woke
up because she heard a sharp cry from her son Emilio Esmeralda, 9 months old, who was sleeping in a bed
opposite the place where She was sleeping with her husband. When Mrs. Esmeralda arrived, followed by her
husband, to the bed where she had left her son asleep, when she lifted the bed net, she immediately
perceived a strong smell of acetic acid and found her son, who was still crying loudly , with blank eyes,
swollen and whitish lips and bruised face, and when raised, he perceived the smell of acetic acid in the child's
breathing. Then she shouted asking who had put acetic acid in her son's mouth, and since she is a
pharmacist by profession, she immediately remembered an antidote that could neutralize the effects of acetic
acid and she herself took out lime water and wetting a hydrophilic cotton, clean the child's mouth, while
sending her husband to call the doctor. A few moments later Dr. Augusto Locsin arrived, who according to his
statement, immediately noticed the smell of acetic acid in the child's breathing, and wanted to make the first
cure, washing the child's stomach, but the mother did not want the washing to come to the stomach, for fear
of hurting the throat of the child with the 'catheter', and for this reason the washing could only be done to the
throat of the child. After some time, they arrived, from Bacolod, Drs. Orosa and Ochoa, who by phone had
also been called by the victim's father. Dr. Orosa is the chief medical officer of the Provincial Hospital of this
province, and Dr. Ochoa is one of the doctors residing in that hospital, a specialist in diseases of the five
senses. Both doctors stated positively that they had perceived the smell of acetic acid in the child's breathing,
and having concluded that the boy had taken acetic acid, applied the cure to remove said substance from the
child's organism, and after making the first cures, They took the child to the Provincial Hospital and died there
a few minutes after arriving. Orosa is the chief medical officer of the Provincial Hospital of this province, and
Dr. Ochoa is one of the doctors residing in that hospital, a specialist in diseases of the five senses. Both
doctors stated positively that they had perceived the smell of acetic acid in the child's breathing, and having
concluded that the boy had taken acetic acid, applied the cure to remove said substance from the child's
organism, and after making the first cures, They took the child to the Provincial Hospital and died there a few
minutes after arriving. Orosa is the chief medical officer of the Provincial Hospital of this province, and Dr.
Ochoa is one of the doctors residing in that hospital, a specialist in diseases of the five senses. Both doctors
stated positively that they had perceived the smell of acetic acid in the child's breathing, and having
concluded that the boy had taken acetic acid, applied the cure to remove said substance from the child's
organism, and after making the first cures, They took the child to the Provincial Hospital and died there a few
minutes after arriving.

Both doctors, as well as Dr. Locsin, are unanimous in the claim that the boy's death was due to poisoning by
acetic acid, and everyone, especially Dr. Ochoa, agrees in the opinion that death has been due to suffocation,
because acetic acid has wreaked havoc on the child's larynx and he could not breathe. Dr. Ochoa, who, as
said, is a specialist in all five senses, examined the child's mouth and throat and found burns caused,
according to him, by acetic acid. And so sure are the doctors that the child had taken acetic acid and that the
death of it was due to this substance, that Dr. Orosa himself, who is a very long-standing doctor and an expert
surgeon, I assure the Prosecutor that there was no need for an autopsy to reach a conclusion on the safety of
the cause of the chiquillio's death, and that even when the autopsy showed that there was no acetic acid in
the intestines of, child, because this had been absorbed by the organism, or because the stomach had been
washed, he was sure that death was due to acetic acid poisoning, because he had smelled that substance,
whose smell is unmistakable, in the child's breathing and has seen the ravages of the substance in the throat
and mouth of the deceased. Both doctors, in a positive way, without hesitation, assured the Court that the
cause of death, as has been repeated several times, is due to acetic acid poisoning. And the Court agrees
that in such circumstances,

The Court has no doubt of the competence of these two doctors, especially in the opinion of Dr. Ochoa, who
is a specialist in the five senses and has recognized the throat and mouth of the child, in which he found
burns induced by acetic acid.

Apart from this, the mother of the deceased, who is a pharmacist, accustomed to smell and distinguish
substances, perceived the smell of acetic acid in the first moments in which she raised her son from the bed.
This lady's husband, Mr. Emilio Esmeralda, is also a chemist and I also assure that I have smelled the strong
smell of acetic acid from the first moments. Apart from these two people who may be mistaken, whether for
their passion or for the concerns at the moment of being interested in their son, is Mr. Julian Gomeri, another
chemist who lived in the same house, who assured the Court that when entering the room where the boy was
in his mother's arms, immediately smelled the suffocating smell of acetic acid,

That is why the Court repeats that it is proven beyond all rational doubt that the boy Emilio Esmeralda, Jr.,
died as a result of acetic acid poisoning, and it is unsustainable the theory that he published having had an
indigestion for having ingested orange juice from California after drinking milk, and that the smell of acetic
acid could be derived from the vomiting of the kid by mixing it with orange juice and milk. Three doctors and
three chemicals are impossible to confuse the smell of orange juice that has become acidic when mixed with
milk, with the strong smell of concentrated acetic acid.

Having reached this conclusion that the death of the child Emilio Esmeralda, Jr., was due to acetic acid
poisoning, the other issue that the Court has to solve is: who administered this substance.

From this point the tests are all circumstantial only.

It is a proven fact that days before this event, when Mr. Emilio Esmeralda returned to his house, from the
factory of the Central La Carlota, at about dawn, not a certain lump that moved in the bottom of his bed in the
room-room of him and his lady when she spent some days in La Carlota. Fearing that some thief had entered
under the bed, he picked up his gun and threatened to shoot him who was there if he did not leave. Indeed, a
man came out of there and, all trembling, he told Mr. Esmeralda that he was not a thief, but that he was there
because he had been called by the accused with whom he was in love. Mr. Esmeralda then recriminated him
for his act and let him go, telling him not to repeat the act again. When mrs. Flora Gonzalez arrived in La
Carlota a few days later, that is, on the day of the car, Mr. Esmeralda, after breakfast and then being absent
the accused for having gone to the market, he told his wife what had happened in one of the past few days,
that is, having surprised a man in his own room and under his bed, attending an appointment he had with the
accused. Mrs. Esmeralda, given her education and being a woman at last, felt very offended and outraged by
the act of her maid and, very nervous, I await the return of the accused, and when she arrived, Mrs.
Esmeralda I search in the kitchen, he began to insult her from head to toe, recriminating her for her immoral
act and for allowing herself to hide her lover in her master's own room, and after scolding the accused, she
returned to her room, and the recrimination that he had just done to the defendant seemed little to him, Mrs.
Esmeralda again returned to the kitchen to reprimand her again, and as Mrs. Esmeralda's nerves did not calm
down on these two occasions, as He returned to the kitchen, undertook new insults to the accused, in terms
that when Mrs. Esmeralda put her son to sleep in the bed, when she found something dirty the pillow covers,
again she went to the kitchen and returned to admonish the accused by recriminating her and saying that she
only knew how to have lovers and did not know how to fulfill her duties as a maid. Hardly two hours scarce to
occur these insults, the event occurred that gave rise to the death of the boy Emilio Esmeralda, Jr. and as
Mrs. Esmeralda's nerves did not calm down on these two occasions, as she returned to the kitchen, she
made new insults to the accused, in terms that when Mrs. Esmeralda put her son to sleep in the When he
found something dirty on the pillow covers, he went to the kitchen again and reprimanded the accused
recriminating her and saying that she only knew how to have lovers and did not know how to fulfill her duties
as a maid. Hardly two hours scarce to occur these insults, the event occurred that gave rise to the death of
the boy Emilio Esmeralda, Jr. and as Mrs. Esmeralda's nerves did not calm down on these two occasions, as
she returned to the kitchen, she made new insults to the accused, in terms that when Mrs. Esmeralda put her
son to sleep in the When he found something dirty on the pillow covers, he went to the kitchen again and
reprimanded the accused recriminating her and saying that she only knew how to have lovers and did not
know how to fulfill her duties as a maid. Hardly two hours scarce to occur these insults, the event occurred
that gave rise to the death of the boy Emilio Esmeralda, Jr. When he found something dirty on the pillow
covers, he went to the kitchen again and reprimanded the accused recriminating her and saying that she only
knew how to have lovers and did not know how to fulfill her duties as a maid. Hardly two hours scarce to
occur these insults, the event occurred that gave rise to the death of the boy Emilio Esmeralda, Jr. When he
found something dirty on the pillow covers, he went to the kitchen again and reprimanded the accused
recriminating her and saying that she only knew how to have lovers and did not know how to fulfill her duties
as a maid. Hardly two hours scarce to occur these insults, the event occurred that gave rise to the death of
the boy Emilio Esmeralda, Jr.

Proceeding by elimination, the Prosecutor's Office has tried to prove to the Court, and thus alleges in its
report, that at the time of the incident of the child's poisoning, only ten people were living in the house where
the event occurred, , namely: the Esmeralda spouses, their two daughters, Lilia and Elsa, the boy Emilio
Esmeralda, Jr., Julai Gomeri, Jose Colmenares, Catalino Ramos, a maid about 12 years old, named
Magdalena Soriano, and the one accused here . The Prosecutor says they cannot be the perpetrators of the
poisoning, neither Mr. Esmeralda, nor his wife. The Court, of course, agrees with this elimination. It is not
possible that these are the authors of such poisoning; In addition to being parents, the mother's attitude, mad
with pain at the death of her son, removes all doubt. It would be absurd the most remote assumption that
these people were the authors of such poisoning. It could not be Elsa Esmeralda because this, apart from her
few years, was sleeping with her little brother in the same bed where the incident occurred. It could not be
Lilia, nor the maid Magdalena Soriano, because both were then in the toilet, according to the evidence; also
that the assumption could not fit that, or Magdalena Soriano, or Lilia mistakenly administered acetic acid to
the sleeping child, because the bottle that contained it was in the kitchen, according to the accused herself,
near the water jug where she She had put, and the accused, according to herself, was in the kitchen all
afternoon washing dishes, so that if Magdalena Soriano or Lilia had wanted to reach the bottle of acetic acid,
The accused would have seen them. Julian Gomeri was asleep in his room; He was a companion of Mr.
Esmeralda at work, an unfriendly friend of the family and has had no dislike with any member of her and there
is no reason to attribute that he has put acetic acid in the child's mouth. Jose Colmenares was in the plant of
the Central, which is half a kilometer from the house occupied by Messrs. Esmeralda, occupied in his work as
an employee of said Central. Catalino Ramos was absent then in the town, because he was in the town of
Talisay. Once these people have been eliminated, only the accused remains as the possible author of the act
of administering acetic acid to the child Emilio Esmeralda, Jr. Intomo friend of the family and has not had any
disgust with any member of her and there is no reason to attribute that he has put in the mouth of the child
acetic acid. Jose Colmenares was in the plant of the Central, which is half a kilometer from the house
occupied by Messrs. Esmeralda, occupied in his work as an employee of said Central. Catalino Ramos was
absent then in the town, because he was in the town of Talisay. Once these people have been eliminated,
only the accused remains as the possible author of the act of administering acetic acid to the child Emilio
Esmeralda, Jr. Intomo friend of the family and has not had any disgust with any member of her and there is
no reason to attribute that he has put in the mouth of the child acetic acid. Jose Colmenares was in the plant
of the Central, which is half a kilometer from the house occupied by Messrs. Esmeralda, occupied in his work
as an employee of said Central. Catalino Ramos was absent then in the town, because he was in the town of
Talisay. Once these people have been eliminated, only the accused remains as the possible author of the act
of administering acetic acid to the child Emilio Esmeralda, Jr. occupied in his work as an employee of said
Central. Catalino Ramos was absent then in the town, because he was in the town of Talisay. Once these
people have been eliminated, only the accused remains as the possible author of the act of administering
acetic acid to the child Emilio Esmeralda, Jr. occupied in his work as an employee of said Central. Catalino
Ramos was absent then in the town, because he was in the town of Talisay. Once these people have been
eliminated, only the accused remains as the possible author of the act of administering acetic acid to the child
Emilio Esmeralda, Jr.

Of course, the evidence that the accused, a few hours before the event, was the only one in the house who
had received insults from the child's mother, is circumstantial evidence against her. None had grounds for
resentment towards any member of the deceased's family other than the accused. She herself admitted
during her testimony that on that day she had been rebuked by her mistress. When the boy Emilio
Esmeralda, Jr., gave a high-pitched scream that woke his mother, Julian Gomeri, who was asleep in the other
room, he could open his eyes and saw the accused coming out of the living room door and heading towards
the kitchen. This room had to go out of the room where the child was asleep, to go to the kitchen; and the
distance from the door of this room to the place where the child was sleeping was only 4 or 5 meters. The
defendant has not been able to deny this statement by Julian Gomeri, nor has she been able to give any
explanation because at that moment she was leaving the room to go to the kitchen. It is possible that after
having put the acetic acid in the child's mouth, he could not scream immediately, but a few seconds later
when he felt the effects of the acid, so that the accused had time to leave the site and return to the cooking
and being in the room, the boy gave the first shout that made Julian Gomeri open his eyes. This fact is
another quite strong circumstantial evidence, according to the Court, against the accused. When the child's
mother was healing him, he ordered the accused and Magdalena Soriano to boil water in the kitchen, and
while these two maids fulfilled the order, the defendant, without any plausible reason, He put his hands under
Magdalena Soriano's nose and said: "My hands are smelling acetic acid because something has been spilled
there when I made vinegar this morning with acetic acid." This unsolicited explanation made by the accused
does not seem to indicate anything other than some fear she had in case someone could smell acetic acid on
her hands. Another circumstantial evidence against the accused is the fact that in the house she was the only
one who had in her custody this Exhibit A bottle that contained acetic acid. Magdalena Soriano did not even
know where this bottle was placed. When Mrs. Esmeralda searched for this bottle, whose memory she
remembered when she smelt the acetic acid in her son's mouth, the defendant was the one who took the
bottle from the kitchen and handed it to Mrs. Esmeralda, saying it ,

The defendant, when declaring in the testimony chair as a witness in his favor, when asked by the Court if he
has smelled acetic acid when entering the room, did so much; but he immediately replaced himself and
strongly denied having smelled acetic acid. The Court addressed this question several times, and the
accused insisted on her refusal. The Court asked him if he knew the acetic acid and the smell of it, and
affirmed that he did and returned to affirm that he had not perceived such smell in the room upon entering and
for as long as he had remained there. Now, three impartial doctors, chemists and a pharmacist, apart from
Magdalena Soriano, have smelled the unmistakable smell of acetic acid in the room. The only one who has
not been able to smell this substance is the accused. In the commission of a crime, the only one who has an
interest in denying the existence of a body of crime is almost always, or almost without, the author of it. And
this attitude of the accused of denying such an obvious thing and about which the Court has no doubt,
corroborates, in the judgment of the Court, all the circumstantial evidence that has been presented by the
accusation.

The defense emphasizes the fact that the accused, far from escaping, entered the room to help the child's
mother to save this, and so much so that the same accused, according to Julian Gomeri, as soon as Ms.
Esmeralda asked for cotton, it was the one that took the cotton from Julian Gomeri and handed it to Mrs.
Esmeralda. This fact is not, in the opinion of the Court, sufficient to prove the innocence of the accused. How
many times has it happened that he who has performed a criminal act repents his crime and tries to remedy
it! The one who has just hurt a man, after the first moment of obcecation has passed, if he could heal him, he
would undoubtedly not find a better doctor for the injured. It can also happen that the accused, having wanted
to cause damage only to the creature, He wanted to use all his ability so that the effects of the damage were
not so great. The defendant's attitude, therefore, is perfectly explainable and not incompatible with her guilt.
Another attitude of the accused that seems to have a lot of weight is her attitude when she returned in the
afternoon of the day after the event at the police station when the Chief of Police told her to return in that
afternoon. And the defendant's lawyer is right to emphasize this circumstance. The defendant has been
arrested almost midnight the same day as the event. She was released at 11 a.m. the next day, given that no
arrest warrant was coming against her; but the Chief of Police told him to return at 3 o'clock in the afternoon,
and at 3 o'clock that afternoon the defendant returned to the municipal building. The defendant's lawyer
argues that a criminal conscience would not proceed as the defendant has proceeded; She would have
escaped. The Court has carefully considered this aspect of the matter; he has meditated long on this act of
the accused; but the conclusion of the Court is that if the defendant returned in the afternoon of that day to
the municipal building, it was because the defendant did not know that the child Emilio Esmeralda, Jr., had
died. In addition, she should know that, woman she was, she could not go anywhere without being reached
by the corresponding authorities and, therefore, it was better for her to appear before the authorities
pretending to have a clear conscience and preparing her future defense in that way. .
 It may be said that it is not usual that, having the mother of the child offended by the accused, this, instead of
taking revenge of the mother, that many opportunities she would have had because, as the defense lawyer
has tried to highlight, the accused slept in the same room of the Esmeralda husbands and prepared their
food, directed her avenging action to an innocent creature, especially considering that the accused is a
woman and women, as a rule, are more charitable than the men. In the first place, be it a man, be it a woman,
when they are obscured by hatred and revenge, they no longer consider the circumstances and seek to direct
their revenge to those who have offended them there where it is easier to execute. In this case, the boy Emilio
Esmeralda, Jr., He was the one who slept closest to the door entering immediately, coming from the kitchen,
and he was the one who, by his tender age, could immediately feel the effects of acetic acid, thus being able
to execute his revenge with greater certainty on his part. Causing damage to the child, who, being the only
male in the family, was the most beloved by Messrs. Esmeralda, caused greater damage to Mrs. Esmeralda.
The Court, of course, accepts the theory that women are much more charitable than men and much weaker
than common consensus; but precisely because she is more charitable, because she is weaker, when the
woman becomes bad and wants revenge, her revenge seeks the weakest too and on this makes that revenge
fall, and daily experience teaches us that the weakest beings, be men or women, when they become bad,
they are worse enemies; and it is not strange, therefore, that the accused, fearing to attack Mr. Esmeralda
and Mrs. Esmeralda, because against them he was not assured of the execution of his revenge, has chosen
as a victim a defenseless creature of 9 months age.

Based on the above considerations, the Court finds it beyond reasonable doubt that 9-month-old Emilio
Esmeralda, Jr. died on February 8, 1932, as a result of concentrated acetic acid poisoning, and that the
accused, Taking advantage of the occasion in which their masters were sleeping, I administer a small amount
of this substance to said child, thus burning his mouth and throat, as a result of which said child died.

Therefore, the accused Magdalena Caliso is found guilty of the crime of murder, and considering in the
commission of the crime the concurrence of the aggravating circumstance of alevosia, because it is a
defenseless being, and the circumstance of having performed the act in the own residence of the victim's
parents, whose circumstances are compensated with the mitigating circumstances of lack of instruction and
having acted on the basis of impulses of a feeling that has caused her outburst and obsession, condemns her
to the penalty of life imprisonment , to compensate the parents of the deceased in the sum of P1,000, with the
accessory of the law, and to pay the costs of the trial. That's how it is ordered.

We agree to the conclusions of fact reached by the trial court. As to the application of the law to the facts of the
case, we are inclined to the proposition advanced by the Attorney-General that in the commission of the crime the
aggravating circumstance of grave abuse of confidence was present since the appellant was the domestic servant
of the family and was sometimes the deceased child's amah. The circumstance of the crime having been committed
in the dwelling of the offended party, considered by the lower court as another aggravating circumstance, should be
disregarded as both the victim and the appellant were living in the same house. (US vs. Rodriguez, 9 Phil., 136; US
vs.. Destrito and De Ocampo, 23 Phil., 28.) Likewise, threachery cannot be considered to aggravate the penalty as it
is inherent in the offense of murder by means of poisoning (3 Viada, p. 29). Similarly the finding of the trial court that
the appellant acted under an impulse so powerful as naturally to have produced passion and obfuscation should be
discarded because the accused, in poisoning the child, was actuated more by a spirit of lawlessness and revenge
than by any sudden impulse of natural and uncontrollable fury (People vs. Hernandez, 43 Phil., 104, 111) and
because such sudden burst of passion was not provoked by prior unjust or improper acts of the victim or of his
parents (US vs. Taylor, 6 Phil., 162), since Flora Gonzalez had the perfect right to reprimand the defendant for
indecently converting the family's bedroom into a rendezvous of herself and her lover.

The aggravating circumstance of abuse of confidence being offset by the extenuating circumstance of defendant's
lack of instruction considered by the lower court, the medium degree of the prescribed penalty should, therefore, be
imposed, which, in this case, is perpetual reclusion .

The penalty imposed by the lower court upon the appellant being thus within the limits fixed by law, the judgment
appealed from is affirmed with costs. So ordered.

Street, Malcolm, Hull, and Imperial, JJ., Concur.

The Lawphil Project - Arellano Law Foundation