PEOPLE vs. LAMAHANG (Criminal Law Review 1)

G.R. No. L-43530             August 3, 1935

THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS, plaintiff-appellee,

vs.

AURELIO LAMAHANG, defendant-appellant.

FACTS:

Policeman Jose Tomambing, who was patrolling his beat on Delgado and C.R. Fuentes streets of the City of Iloilo, caught the accused in the act of making an opening with an iron bar on the wall of a store of cheap goods located on the last named street. At that time the owner of the store, Tan Yu, was sleeping inside with another Chinaman.

The accused had only succeeded in breaking one board and in unfastening another from the wall, when the policeman showed up, who instantly arrested him and placed him under custody.

The defendant Aurelio Lamahang is  on appeal from a decision finding him guilty of attempted robbery. 

ISSUE:

Whether the crime committed is attempted robbery.

RULING:

NO.

It is necessary to establish its unavoidable connection, like the logical and natural relation of the cause and its effect, with the deed which, upon its consummation, will develop into one of the offenses defined and punished by the Code; it is necessary to prove that said beginning of execution, if carried to its complete termination following its natural course, without being frustrated by external obstacles nor by the voluntary desistance of the perpetrator, will logically and necessarily ripen into a concrete offense. 

In the case of robbery, it must be shown that the offender clearly intended to take possession, for the purpose of gain, of some personal property belonging to another. In the instant case, it may only be inferred as a logical conclusion that his evident intention was to enter by means of force said store against the will of its owner. That his final objective, once he succeeded in entering the store, was to rob, to cause physical injury to the inmates, or to commit any other offense, there is nothing in the record to justify a concrete finding.

It must be borne in mind (I Groizard, p. 99) that in offenses not consummated, as the material damage is wanting, the nature of the action intended (accion fin) cannot exactly be ascertained, but the same must be inferred from the nature of the acts executed (accion medio).  The relation existing between the facts submitted for appreciation and the offense which said facts are supposed to produce must be direct; the intention must be ascertained from the facts and therefore it is necessary, in order to avoid regrettable instances of injustice.

Wherefore, the sentence appealed from is revoked and the accused is hereby held guilty of attempted trespass to dwelling, committed by means of force, with the aforesaid aggravating and mitigating circumstances and sentenced to three months and one day of arresto mayor, with the accessory penalties thereof and to pay the costs.