PEOPLE vs. GENOSA (Criminal Law Review 1)

G.R. No. 135981             January 15, 2004

PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, appellee,

vs.

MARIVIC GENOSA, appellant.

FACTS:

Ben Genosa and Marivic Genosa are husband and wife. During their first year of marriage, Marivic and Ben lived happily but apparently thereafter, Ben changed and the couple would always quarrel and sometimes their quarrels became violent. Appellant testified that every time her husband came home drunk, he would provoke her and sometimes beat her. Whenever beaten by her husband, she consulted medical doctors who testified during the trial. On the night of the killing, appellant and the victim were quarreled and the victim beat the appellant. However, appellant was able to run to another room. Appellant admitted having killed the victim with the use of a gun. The information for parricide against appellant, however, alleged that the cause of death of the victim was by beating through the use of a lead pipe. Appellant invoked self defense and defense of her unborn child.

After trial, the Regional Trial Court found appellant guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the crime of parricide.

On automatic review before the Supreme Court, appellant filed an URGENT OMNIBUS MOTION praying that the Honorable Court allow (1) the exhumation of Ben Genosa and the re-examination of the cause of his death; (2) the examination of Marivic Genosa by qualified psychologists and psychiatrists to determine her state of mind at the time she killed her husband; and finally, (3) the inclusion of the said experts’ reports in the records of the case for purposes of the automatic review or, in the alternative, a partial re-opening of the case a quo to take the testimony of said psychologists and psychiatrists.

The Supreme Court partly granted the URGENT OMNIBUS MOTION of the appellant. It remanded the case to the trial court for reception of expert psychological and/or psychiatric opinion on the “battered woman syndrome” plea. Testimonies of two expert witnesses on the “battered woman syndrome”, Dra. Dayan and Dr. Pajarillo, were presented and admitted by the trial court and subsequently submitted to the Supreme Court as part of the records.

ISSUE:

Whether or not appellant herein can validly invoke the “battered woman syndrome” as constituting self defense.

RULING:

NO. the battered woman syndrome is characterized by the so-called “cycle of violence,” which has three phases: (1) the tension-building phase; (2) the acute battering incident; and (3) the tranquil, loving (or, at least, nonviolent) phase.

Taken altogether, these circumstances could satisfy the requisites of self-defense. Under the existing facts of the present case, however, not all of these elements were duly established.

The defense fell short of proving all three phases of the “cycle of violence” supposedly characterizing the relationship of Ben and Marivic Genosa. No doubt there were acute battering incidents but appellant failed to prove that in at least another battering episode in the past, she had gone through a similar pattern. Neither did appellant proffer sufficient evidence in regard to the third phase of the cycle.

In any event, the existence of the syndrome in a relationship does not in itself establish the legal right of the woman to kill her abusive partner. Evidence must still be considered in the context of self-defense. Settled in our jurisprudence, is the rule that the one who resorts to self-defense must face a real threat on one’s life; and the peril sought to be avoided must be imminent and actual not merely imaginary. Thus, the Revised Penal Code provides that the following requisites of self-defense must concur: (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.

Unlawful aggression is the most essential element of self-defense. It presupposes actual, sudden and unexpected attack -- or an imminent danger thereof -- on the life or safety of a person. In the present case, however, according to the testimony of Marivic herself, there was a sufficient time interval between the unlawful aggression of Ben and her fatal attack upon him. She had already been able to withdraw from his violent behavior and escape to their children’s bedroom. During that time, he apparently ceased his attack and went to bed. The reality or even the imminence of the danger he posed had ended altogether. He was no longer in a position that presented an actual threat on her life or safety.