Case Summary (G.R. No. 127759-60)
Petitioner
The People of the Philippine Islands
Respondent
Donato Bascos
Key Dates
- Trial court proceedings: prior to December 1922
- Supreme Court decision: December 19, 1922
Applicable Law
- Philippine Organic Act of 1902 (fundamental law in force)
- Spanish Penal Code as applied in the Philippine Islands
• Article 8(1): immunity from criminal liability for “an imbecile or lunatic, unless the latter has acted during a lucid interval,” with compulsory confinement for grave felonies
• Article 100: post-conviction insanity resulting in possible confinement
Procedural History
- Information filed in the Court of First Instance of Pangasinan charging Bascos with murder.
- Bascos pleads not guilty and interposes insanity defense.
- Trial court finds him guilty of homicide, imposes 17 years, 4 months, 1 day of reclusion temporal, orders indemnity of ₱1,000, and suspends execution under Article 100 with confinement in a mental hospital.
- Bascos appeals, assigning as error the application of Article 100 instead of Article 8(1).
Facts
- Bascos killed Romero while Romero was asleep.
- No discernible motive for the killing.
- Lay testimony (wife and cousin) attests to Bascos’s prolonged “out of his mind” condition.
- Dr. Montemayor’s examination and community inquiry conclude Bascos is a “violent maniac” who had been insane for years and “probably insane” at the time of the killing.
Issue
Whether the accused’s insanity at the time of the homicide exempts him from criminal liability under Article 8(1), making the trial court’s application of Article 100 improper.
Ruling
The Supreme Court holds that Bascos was a lunatic at the moment he committed the grave felony and therefore exempt from criminal liability under Article 8(1), rendering Article 100 inapplicable.
Reasoning
- The law presumes every person to be sane; the burden of proof on insanity rests on the accused once the prosecution establishes the act.
- Lay and expert evidence sufficiently rebutted the presumption of sanity and demonstrated Bascos’s mental incapacity at the time of the offense.
- Article 100 addresses insanity developed after final judgment; it does not apply where the accused was insane when the crime was committed.
- Legislative policy distinguishes bet
Case Syllabus (G.R. No. 127759-60)
Procedural Background
- Information for murder of Victoriano Romero filed in the Court of First Instance of Pangasinan against Donato Bascos.
- Accused entered a plea of not guilty upon arraignment.
- Trial court found him guilty of homicide and imposed seventeen years, four months, and one day of reclusion temporal, accessory penalties, indemnity of ₱1,000, and costs.
- Execution of sentence was suspended under Article 100 of the Penal Code; accused ordered confined in a hospital for the insane pending mental‐condition determination.
- Appellant assigned errors: misapplication of Article 100 and failure to apply Article 8, paragraph 1, of the Penal Code.
- The Attorney‐General concurred with the appellant’s position.
Material Facts
- Prosecution proof: Bascos killed Romero while the latter was sleeping.
- Defense plea: insanity.
- Testimony by wife and cousin: accused had been “more or less continuously out of his mind for many years.”
- Expert examination by Dr. Gonzalo Montemayor: found accused to be a “violent maniac,” insane for some time, likely insane at the time of the killing.
- Lack of any apparent motive for the killing supported the insanity defense.
Legal Issues
- Whether the accused’s insanity defense should be adjudicated under Article 8(1) of the Penal