Criminal Law: People vs Gutual Case Digest (Self Defense, Defense of Strangers or Relatives)

G.R. No. 115233. February 22, 1996

PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, plaintiff-appellee, 

vs. 

WILSON GUTUAL y REMOLLENA and JOAQUIN NADERA y APOSTOL, accused. 

WILSON GUTUAL y REMOLLENA, accused-appellant.

Facts: The accused are members of the Civilian Armed Forces Geographic Unit (CAFGU) in the Municipality of San Vicente, Davao. On 29 December 1990, at around 1:30 p.m.,The defense claims that the killing was committed in self-defense or defense of a relative or stranger. It tried to prove that on the aforementioned date and time, the victim was running amuck or berserk, chasing Barangay Captain Wayne Gutual in front of the latters house. Drawn by shouts for help from onlookers, accused Gutual and Nadera rushed to the scene, with Gutual firing warning shots into the air. Maglinte stopped pursuing the barangay captain, turned towards the accused, then started approaching them. Although Gutual continued to fire warning shots, Maglinte kept walking towards him, while Gutual kept retreating to put some distance between him and the victim. The two moved some ten meters, crossed the road in front of the barangay captains house, and ended up near the barangay hall. Finally, Gutual was pinned against the staircase of the barangay hall. Maglinte was now about one to three meters from Gutual and pressing on, unceasingly hacking away at Gutual, who, however, managed to evade the blows. Nadera fired warning shots into the air, but Maglinte continued his attack. Gutual then fired at the victims hand to disarm him, but unfortunately the bullet pierced Maglintes bolo-wielding arm, went through his chest, and came out his back.

Issues: 

1. WON Wilson Gutual has sufficiently proved defense of a relative or of a stranger
2. WON Wilson Gutual has sufficiently proved self-defense 

Held: 

1. NO, As correctly posited by the Appellee, the defense of a relative or a stranger is unavailing in this case. The accused-appellant shot the victim while the latter, after having stopped chasing the barangay captain, was approaching the former. At that instance then, the barangay captains life was no longer in danger as the accused-appellant admitted. Clearly then, what might have been unlawful aggression on the part of the victim against the barangay captain had ceased, and there was nothing more to prevent or repel. Hence, the second requisite of the defense of a relative or a stranger under Article 11 of the Revised Penal Code, viz., reasonable necessity of the means employed to prevent or repel the unlawful aggression, cannot be present.

2. YES, The requisites of self-defense are: (1) unlawful aggression; (2) reasonable necessity of the means employed to prevent or repel it; and (3) lack of sufficient provocation on the part of the person defending himself. It was sufficiently established that the unlawful aggression came from the victim. Indeed, since he was running amuck, he did not care anymore whom to attack or whether the person to be attacked was unarmed or armed with a high-powered rifle. 

Significantly, the entry in the Death Certificate corroborates the theory of the defense that the victim was in the act of hacking the accused-appellant when the latter shot deceased's right hand for the purpose only of throwing the bolo out of his hand, but the bullet pierced through and hit the deceased's breast. There can be, as well, no doubt in the mind of the Court that there was lack of sufficient provocation on the part of the accused-appellant. Whether the means employed by the accused-appellant were reasonable depends on the circumstances of this case.

Plainly, the accused-appellant could no longer retreat from the continuing assault by the victim who, as inexorably shown by his relentless advance towards the accused-appellant, was poised to kill the latter. The danger to the accused-appellants life was clearly imminent. It would not then be proper nor reasonable to claim that he should have fled or selected a less deadly weapon, because in the emergency in which, without any reason whatever, he was placed, there was nothing more natural than to use the weapon he had to defend himself. In the natural order of things, following the instinct of self-preservation, he was compelled to resort to a proper defense.

 It is settled that reasonable necessity of the means employed does not imply material commensurability between the means of attack and defense. What the law requires is rational equivalence, in the consideration of which will enter the principal factors the emergency, the imminent danger to which the person attacked is exposed, and the instinct, more than the reason, that moves or impels the defense, and the proportionateness thereof does not depend upon the harm done, but rests upon the imminent danger of such injury