View full case

RODOLFO BELBIS v. PEOPLE

FACTS:

The case involves a petition for review on certiorari filed by Rodolfo Belbis, Jr. and Alberto Brucales. The petition seeks to reverse and set aside the decision of the Court of Appeals affirming the decision of the Regional Trial Court finding the petitioners guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the crime of Homicide. The case revolves around the events that transpired on December 9, 1997, wherein the victim, Jose Bahillo, was stabbed by the petitioners. The victim later passed away on January 8, 1998, and the cause of death was determined to be multiple organ failure due to septicemia and renal inflammatory disease. Autopsy report supported this cause of death.

Petitioners claimed self-defense, alleging that they were attacked by the victim with a nightstick, which led to a struggle wherein petitioner Rodolfo ended up holding the wooden scabbard of a bolo, injuring the victim's hand. Petitioner Rodolfo maintained his grip on the scabbard while the victim attempted to stab him with the blade.

After the incident, Rodolfo went home accompanied by Alberto due to a hand injury. Rodolfo sought medical treatment and reported the incident to the police, surrendering the bolo used. The Regional Trial Court convicted the petitioners with the mitigating circumstance of incomplete self-defense, and the Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction but modified the penalty.

The petitioners raised several issues on appeal, including the admissibility of the victim's dying declaration, their entitlement to self-defense and the mitigating circumstance of incomplete self-defense, the cause of the victim's death, and the presence of the mitigating circumstance of voluntary surrender. The Court of Appeals ruled that the victim's statements shortly after being stabbed and before his death constituted a dying declaration, which is admissible in a criminal case where the subject of inquiry is the declarant's death. The fact that the victim died a month after being stabbed does not negate the admissibility of the dying declaration.

In another case, the accused, Domingo Daria, was charged with murder for allegedly killing Venancio Dimanalata on January 8, 1998. The prosecution presented the dying declaration of the victim's wife, Lolita Dimanalata, wherein the victim told her that it was the accused who stabbed him. The defense argued that the dying declaration was inadmissible because there was no evidence that the victim made the statement under the consciousness of an impending death. The trial court ruled in favor of the prosecution, convicting the accused of murder. The Supreme Court was then tasked to determine the admissibility of the dying declaration as evidence.

ISSUES:

  1. Whether the statement made by the victim can be considered as a dying declaration.

  2. Whether the statement can be admitted as part of the res gestae.

  3. Whether there was unlawful aggression on the part of the victim.

  4. Whether the means employed by the accused were commensurate to the attack sought to be averted.

  5. Whether the accused can avail of the mitigating circumstance of incomplete self-defense.

  6. Whether the stab wounds sustained by the victim caused his death

  7. Whether the petitioners are entitled to the mitigating circumstance of voluntary surrender

RULING:

  1. The statement made by the victim cannot be considered as a dying declaration. Although the victim died one month after being stabbed, the fact that the victim did not die immediately does not prove that he made the statement under the consciousness of an impending death. The test for admissibility of a dying declaration is whether the declarant has abandoned all hopes of survival and looked on death as certainly impending.

  2. The statement made by the victim can be admitted as part of the res gestae. It meets the requisites for admissibility as part of the res gestae, which include being made under the influence of a startling event witnessed by the declarant before he had time to think and make up a story or fabricate an account. The statement concerns the immediate attending circumstances of the stabbing incident.

  3. The Court found that there was no unlawful aggression on the part of the victim when he was stabbed. Petitioner Rodolfo was already in possession of the bladed weapon used in the stabbing, making him the unlawful aggressor.

  4. The Court held that four stab wounds, caused by direct thrusting of the bladed weapon, was not commensurate to the alleged continuous unlawful aggression from the victim. This disproves the claim of self-defense.

  5. Petitioners cannot avail of the mitigating circumstance of incomplete self-defense since there was no unlawful aggression on the part of the victim.

  6. Yes, the stab wounds sustained by the victim caused his death. The testimonies of other doctors who attended to the victim's wounds and the autopsy report indicated that the stab wounds affected the kidneys and caused multiple organ failure, leading to the victim's death. The offender is therefore criminally liable for the death of the victim.

  7. No, the petitioners are not entitled to the mitigating circumstance of voluntary surrender. For voluntary surrender to be appreciated as a mitigating circumstance, it must be spontaneous and voluntary. In this case, the surrender of the petitioners only occurred after a warrant for their arrest had been issued, and there was no spontaneity in their surrender. Therefore, their surrender does not meet the requirements for the mitigating circumstance of voluntary surrender.

PRINCIPLES:

  • Dying declaration is a statement made by the victim under a fixed belief that death is impending and is certain to follow immediately or in a very short time, without an opportunity of retraction and in the absence of all hopes of recovery.

  • Requisites for the admissibility of a dying declaration are: (a) the declaration is made by the deceased under the consciousness of his impending death, (b) the deceased was at the time competent as a witness, (c) the declaration concerns the cause and surrounding circumstances of the declarant's death, and (d) the declaration is offered in a criminal case wherein the declarant's death is the subject of inquiry.

  • The admissibility of a statement as part of the res gestae requires that it be made under the influence of a startling event witnessed by the person who made the declaration before he had time to think and make up a story or fabricate an account. The statement must concern the occurrence in question and its immediate attending circumstances.

  • The essential requisites of self-defense are unlawful aggression, reasonable necessity of the means employed, and lack of sufficient provocation.

  • To invoke self-defense successfully, there must have been an unlawful and unprovoked attack that endangered the life of the accused.

  • Retaliation is not the same as self-defense. In retaliation, the aggression has already ceased when the accused attacked, while in self-defense the aggression still exists when the aggressor is injured by the accused.

  • The means employed by a person claiming self-defense must be commensurate to the nature and extent of the attack sought to be averted and must be rationally necessary to prevent or repel an unlawful aggression.

  • Proximate cause is that cause which, in natural and continuous sequence, unbroken by any efficient intervening cause, produces the injury, and without which the result would not have occurred.

  • A delictual act that causes, accelerates, or contributes to the death of a victim makes the offender criminally liable for the death.

  • For voluntary surrender to be considered a mitigating circumstance, it must be spontaneous and voluntary, and the surrendering individual must have the intent to acknowledge guilt or save the authorities the trouble and expense of searching for and capturing the offender.