People v. Genosa G.R. No. 135981

 

G.R. No. 135981             

January 15, 2000

PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, appellee,

vs.

MARIVIC GENOSA, appellant.

Facts:

Marivic was married to Ben Genosa. They lived with Ben's family but they eventually moved out and rented a house in Leyte. In the first year of their marriage, Marivic and Ben 'lived happily'. But after a while, they would often fight and it would get violent. Ben, a heavy drinker, became cruel to Marivic, provoking her, slapping her, pinning her down on the bed, or beating her. These incidents occurred several times, and Marivic would frequently flee to her parents' house. She had tried at least five times to leave her husband, but Ben would also convince her to get back together.

One time, Ben and Arturo went to a cockfight after receiving their salary. They went home drunk and when they arrived at Ben's house, he found out that Marivic had gone to Isabel, Leyte to look for him. Ben went inside his house, while Arturo went to a store across the house. After a while, Arturo heard that the couple were arguing and the other witnesses saw that they were grappling each other. Arturo said that it was the last day that he had seen Ben alive.

They had a quarrel and Ben beat her. There was no provocation on her part. She was able to flee to another room. On that same night, she admitted to killing the victim, who was sleeping at the time, with a gun. But the examination should that Ben died through a cardiopulmonary arrest secondary to severe intracranial hemorrhage due to a depressed fracture of the occipital bone that was allegedly caused by a severe beating of a metallic object where in fact on the night of the killing, the appellant also defended herself using a pipe.

The experts then opined that the appellant fits the profile of a battered woman syndrome at the time she killed her husband it was found out that she was re- experiencing the past trauma and abuses that her husband made to her that prompted her to kill her husband.

Issue:

Is the aggravating circumstance of treachery present?

Ruling:

No. The above testimony is insufficient to establish the presence of treachery. There is no showing of the victim's position relative to appellant's at the time of the shooting. Besides, equally axiomatic is the rule that when a killing is preceded by an argument or a quarrel, treachery cannot be appreciated as a qualifying circumstance, because the deceased may be said to have been forewarned and to have anticipated aggression from the assailant.

Moreover, in order to appreciate alevosia, the method of assault adopted by the aggressor must have been consciously and deliberately chosen for the specific purpose of accomplishing the unlawful act without risk from any defense that might be put up by the party attacked. There is no showing, though, that the present appellant intentionally chose a specific means of successfully attacking her husband without any risk to herself from any retaliatory act that he might make. To the contrary, it appears that the thought of using the gun occurred to her only at about the same moment when she decided to kill her batterer-spouse. In the absence of any convincing proof that she consciously and deliberately employed the method by which she committed the crime in order to ensure its execution, this Court resolves the doubt in her favor.