People vs. Canja, 86 Phil. 518, 522-523

For having killed her husband Pedro Jongque, the appellant Teopista Canja was convicted of parricide by the court of first instance of Antique, and was sentenced to imprisonment for life, plus indemnity of P2,000, and costs.chanroblesvir

The pertinent part of Exhibit C reads as follows:

That on Tuesday, May 25, 1948 at about six o'clock in the evening, my husband Pedro arrived from the tuba-drinking place and he was very drunk. And when he was already inside our house, because he was drunk, he immediately boxed in my stomach and I immediately fainted. When I gained consciousness, I asked him why he boxed me. And he answered me that if I will resist he will do it again. So I just kept quiet and immediately prepared our supper. While we were eating our supper with our children, he did not eat but instead threw away the rice from the plate. After we had eaten, he went down according to him to look for tobacco-to-chew in the house of my brother. In a short while, he returned, he again boxed me because according to him I am always jealous of him. From that moment, a felt a resentment moreover because he sold all our lands to other people and gambled and I knew he was keeping a mistress. That is why while our children and he (Pedro) were sleeping, I immediately got the hammer and chisel near his head and struck his head and face until he was dead. When I knew that he was no longer breathing, I immediately wrapped him with a mat where he slept and went to my daughter who is the eldest of all who was still sleeping. She was reluctant to help me but I threatened her.

Appellant must be declared to have feloniously extinguished the life of her husband. He may have been unworthy. He may have been a rascal and a bully; but that is no excuse for murdering him. His badness is not even a mitigating circumstance.chanroblesvirtualawlibrary chanrobles virtual law library

Wherefore, inasmuch as the penalty imposed on appellant is in accordance with the law ( Article 246, Revised Penal Code), the appealed judgment is affirmed, with costs.chanroblesvirtualawlibrary chanrobles virtual law library

Ozaeta, Pablo, Tuason and Reyes, JJ., concur.

Montemayor, J., concurring

Her deceased husband not content with squandering away the family substance, and not satisfied with keeping a mistress upon whom he must have spent some of the money that properly belonged to his own family including his wife, got into the habit of drinking until he became a habitual drunkard. * * * On the very day that she killed her husband, according to her own confession on which her conviction was based, he came home drunk, forthwith laid hands on her, striking her on the stomach until she fainted, and when she recovered consciousness and asked for the reason for the unprovoked attack, he threatened to renew the beating. At the supper table instead of eating the meal set before him, he threw the rice from his plate, thus adding insult to injury. Then he left the house and when he returned he again boxed his wife, the herein appellant. The violence with which appellant killed her husband  reveals the pent-up righteous anger and rebellion against years of abuse, insult, and tyranny seldom heard of. Considering all these circumstances and provocations including the fact as already stated that her conviction was based on her own confession, the appellant is deserving of executive clemency, not of full pardon but of a substantial if not a radical reduction or commutation of her life sentence.