Title
People vs. Mawallil y Kars
Case
G.R. No. 63154
Decision Date
Jun 19, 1984
Sukarno Mawallil, driven by jealousy, killed his wife Sophia in 1980. Convicted of parricide, he was sentenced to reclusion perpetua after a trial revealing his threats, inconsistent alibi, and lack of remorse.
parricide
circumstantial evidence
jealousy

Case Summary (G.R. No. 63154)

Factual Background

Sukarno and Sophia were married in 1978 and had a four-month-old son. They lived with Sophia’s parents in Baliwasan Grande, Zamboanga City. The record portrayed Sukarno as jobless and prone to jealousy, which repeatedly provoked quarrels with Sophia. During their quarrels, Sukarno repeatedly threatened Sophia with a Batangas knife (Exh. A).

On November 21, 1980, the couple had a serious quarrel. Sukarno left the house with their son and went to his aunt’s place, but returned later when Sophia and his sister-in-law fetched him. Two days later, on Sunday, November 23, 1980, Sukarno again left the house, telling Sophia he was going to Isabela, Basilan.

In the afternoon of the same day, Sophia entered the Rizal Theater. She saw Sukarno seated in front of her inside the theater. Sukarno left about fifteen minutes later. When Sophia and her sister returned home at about six o’clock, Sukarno was already seated in the sala. He laughed when Sophia remarked that he had not gone to Isabela but had instead been at the moviehouse. He told her that he would take her out to have dinner at the barbecue stand on Cawa-Cawa Boulevard, then known as R. T. Lim Boulevard.

At around past nine o’clock that Sunday night, the Sera family heard over the radio that Sophia’s dead body was at the funeral parlor (Exh. L). Earlier, at about nine o’clock, Leovigildo Aquino, a security guard of the Western Mindanao State University, heard a woman’s voice shriek “Ay” while walking on R. T. Lim Boulevard and passing the fenced campus. Shortly thereafter, Aquino saw a half-naked man who stopped a jeep. Aquino and another security guard, Said Lim, proceeded to Pitul road near the Arts and Sciences Building, where they saw a slain woman and the same shirtless man standing by. The man was identified as Sukarno (as shown in sketches Exh. H and O).

Aquino shone his flashlight on Sukarno and asked what happened. Sukarno told him he had been held up and begged Aquino not to use the flashlight. Police and the mayor arrived after Aquino alerted them. The police found Sophia’s body with seventeen incised, punctured and lacerated wounds. The record specified fatal injuries, including: (a) an incised wound below the left nipple; (b) four punctured wounds in the abdomen; (c) three incised wounds in the sternomastoid muscle; (d) two lacerated wounds on the head (occipital and parietal bones); and (e) an incised wound of four by two inches in the neck, cutting a large blood vessel and nerve (Exh. K).

At the scene, the police recovered a bloodstained Batangas knife (Exh. A and P), found about six feet from Sophia’s body. The same knife had been used by Sukarno to threaten Sophia earlier. Police also recovered Sukarno’s “Citron” wristwatch (Exh. B), which Sukarno denied owning, although he initially claimed he had been robbed of a watch and money. On Sukarno’s person, the police found Sophia’s purse with eight pesos in coins (Exh. N). Sukarno was shirtless and wearing denim pants, with his own shirt covering Sophia’s dead body.

Sukarno volunteered that he and Sophia had been held up. He accompanied the police as they took the body to the funeral parlor. He requested that he be allowed to stay in the funeral parlor office and to contact his parents, expressing fear of reprisals from Sophia’s parents. At the police station and at the funeral parlor, he reportedly did not interact with Sophia’s in-laws except to tell his sister-in-law that Sophia was dead. He did not join them in crying or mourning. He never returned to Sophia’s house and did not attend Sophia’s funeral rites or the prayers conducted on the seventh, twentieth, fortieth, and one hundredth day, held in accordance with Muslim customs. During the trial, when his mother-in-law and her companions passed near him in court, he told them: “Go ahead. You proceed with the case. I will kill all of you.”

The Accused’s Version and Its Rejection

Sukarno offered an elaborate account to explain the death as the result of a robbery. His counsel de oficio did not include this story in the brief, but in his testimony he claimed that on Sunday, November 23, 1980, he boarded the M/V Don Julio in Zamboanga City at noontime, arriving in Isabela, Basilan at around one-thirty. He said he was engaged in a buy-and-sell of gold and carried P10,000. He allegedly borrowed P3,000 from Abdulgafar, then used the P13,000 to buy two gold coins at P6,500 each. He claimed that he returned to Zamboanga City on the M/V Don Julio at six o’clock and sold the coins for P13,500 to Abdul Putal in Sta. Maria. He then stated that at seven-thirty in the evening, he and Sophia went to a discotheque at the Sunset Barbecue Stand, and at eight forty-five they left. He claimed they boarded a tricycle with a “back rider” and transferred via another tricycle near Pitul road separating the Trade School and the university. There, he asserted that four persons held him up, boxed and stabbed him, and that he gave Sophia the money tied in cloth around his waist, telling her to run. He claimed that the assailants continued assaulting him until he became unconscious, and when he regained consciousness he heard Sophia shouting for help. He claimed that he went to the back of the university, found Sophia dead, and then sought assistance from jeep drivers who refused. He said he returned and met Aquino, who had already called the mayor and police, and he narrated the robbery and killing. He also claimed that he was not a jealous husband and that he loved Sophia while hating his mother-in-law. He disclaimed ownership of the knife and watch.

The trial court rejected this narrative as inherently incredible, un-corroborated, and contradicted by the evidence. It found the alleged travel and trading trips on the M/V Don Julio untrue, noting that the ship went to Basilan in the morning and returned to the city at two o’clock on November 23, 1980, as shown in its logbooks (Exh. U and V). It also relied on the fact that Sophia and her sister saw Sukarno at the Rizal Theater at three o’clock in the afternoon, when he had supposedly been in Basilan.

The trial court further found no basis for a robbery because it found nothing to be taken from Sukarno. It also viewed Sukarno’s claim of assault as unbelievable, characterizing it as “miraculous and fantastic,” noting that his only injury was a scratch, which the court considered insufficient to match the supposed helpless attack described. The trial court therefore concluded that “it was the accused who attacked and killed his wife” (p. 125, Record).

The Parties’ Contentions on Appeal

On appeal, counsel de oficio argued that the offense should not be parricide, primarily because Sophia and Sukarno were allegedly not married in accordance with Article 17 of Presidential Decree No. 1083, the Code of Muslim Personal Laws of the Philippines, and because Sophia allegedly had not been divorced under the Code. The argument was framed to deny the essential marital relationship required by Article 246 of the Revised Penal Code for parricide.

The defense position, however, was undermined in the appellate discussion because Sukarno did not question in the lower court the validity of his marriage or Sophia’s divorce. The record showed that Sukarno’s lawyer admitted the marriage during trial (2 tsn August 12, 1981). The decision recounted that Sophia was previously married to Nusi Munib, who she divorced on March 7, 1977, before Hadji Yasin Sakaluran, a Muslim leader who, as indicated, had officiated in more than a thousand similar divorces. The decision stated that the divorce was in accordance with Muslim customs as authorized under Presidential Decree No. 793, effective June 19, 1969. It recognized that the decree allowed divorce on the ground of incompatibility, a ground said to be recognized in section 52(g) of the Code of Muslim Personal Laws of the Philippines. After the divorce, Sophia, then nineteen, allegedly eloped with Sukarno to Siasi, Sulu, where Sukarno’s parents resided. They were later married there on April 4, 1978 by Imam Karimuddin Jamiudin, after Sophia’s parents consented and a dowry of P5,000 was paid by Sukarno’s parents. The record further stated that later they returned to Zamboanga City and lived with Sophia’s parents, and that their marriage conformed to Muslim customs. It noted that Sukarno admitted the marriage in his testimony and referred to Sophia as his wife (20–21 tsn January 21, 1982).

As to the enforceability of the Code of Muslim Personal Laws despite the alleged absence of organized Shari’a Courts, the appellate reasoning cited Vda. de Maraug vs. Silapan, G.R. No. 64519, March 29, 1984, to address the operative effect of the Code in that circumstance.

Regarding the penalty, counsel de oficio also argued that evident premeditation was not proven. The appellate ruling accepted that this circumstance was unproven, while it also addressed whether passion or obfuscation could mitigate the liability and whether voluntary surrender should be considered extenuating.

Ruling of the Court

The Court affirmed the conviction for parricide, but modified the award of damages by increasing the indemnity to P30,000 from the trial court’s P20,000. Costs de oficio were also ordered.

The Court likewise clarified the penalty implications. It held that the finding of evident premeditation could not stand for lack of proof, and it corrected the treatment of mitigating circumstances. It ruled that voluntary surrender was extenuating. Given one mitigating circumstance and no aggravating circumstances, the Court imposed the lesser penalty for parricide, still reclusion perpetua, pursuant to Article 63[3] of the Revised Penal Code.

Legal Basis and Reasoning

On the marital relationship required for parricide, the Court applied the presumption of marriage. It invoked Sec. 5[bb], Rule 131, Rules of Court, embodying the doctrine semper praesumitur pro matrimonio, and also referenced Article 220 of the Civil Code,

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