Source: http://lawlibrary.chanrobles.com/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=28789:g-r-no-l-49118-august-30,-1988-people-of-the-phil-v-leticia-v-capitin&amp;catid=1240&amp;Itemid=566
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 22:26:45+00:00

Document:
PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. LETICIA CAPITIN y VARGAS, Accused-Appellant.
Citizens Legal Assistance Office for Accused-Appellant.
1.	REMEDIAL LAW; EVIDENCE; APPRAISAL MADE THREE YEARS AFTER KILLING INCIDENT BY TRIAL JUDGE, INACCURATE TEST OF SANITY. — An appraisal made three years later by the trial judge cannot be more accurate than one made after a continuous observation of the accused-appellant which began only one month after the occurrence of the offense and continued for all of three years. This examination was made by an expert mental alienist.
2.	ID.; ID.; EXTRAJUDICIAL CONFESSION; ITS ORGANIZED AND READY ANSWER DOES NOT COME FROM A TWENTY-TWO YEAR OLD HOUSEMAID. — Much reliance was also placed on the extrajudicial confession which, the trial court noted, contained "a coherent and logical account of what had happened" and was signed by the accused-appellant with a steady hand. The straightforward answers and the firm signature were added proof of her sanity at the time the statement was taken, which was on the same day the baby was killed. It is not believable that the organized and ready answer, with all its legal overtones to boot, could have come from this 22-year old housemaid, who, on top of her deficiencies in the language (and the law), was presumably not thinking clearly then (even assuming she was sane) because she had just killed her child and was under strong emotional stress.
3.	ID.; ID.; ID.; CONSTITUTIONAL SAFEGUARDS FOR PROTECTION OF SUSPECT’S RIGHTS DISREGARDED IN CONFESSIONS WRITTEN IN ADVANCE BY POLICE. — Under the Galit doctrine as now embodied (and even strengthened) in Article III, Section 12(1) of the 1987 Constitution, the written waiver of the right to counsel must be made with the assistance and in the presence of counsel. This was not done in the case at bar, as the statement itself plainly discloses. It is recalled that even before that doctrine was formally announced, our earlier decisions had already required that the waiver be made intelligently, after proper notification of his rights to the suspect, with full understanding by him of the effects of such waiver. Assuming such valid waiver, we have also insisted that the confession itself be understandable to the person signing it, both as to its language and its contents, and must not have been simply prepared beforehand, details and all for the suspect’s signature. If we have outlawed confessions written in advance by the police for persons of limited intelligence or educational attainment, we see no reason why a confession signed by a person whose sanity is dubious, as in the present case, should receive any less disapprobation. Leticia’s intelligence was not only limited but impaired.
4.	ID.; ID.; GUILT OF ACCUSED BEYOND REASONABLE DOUBT; NOT SUFFICIENTLY ESTABLISHED BY PROSECUTION EVIDENCE; CASE AT BAR. — Despite Judge Fernandez’s scholarly discussion of insanity as a defense, the Court feels that the accused-appellant has successfully shifted the burden of proof back to the prosecution, which was thus obligated to refute the evidence for the defense. In other words, going back to the normal procedure, it had to prove the defendant’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt and overcome the constitutional presumption of innocence in her favor. The prosecution has failed to do this. It has not erased the doubt that Leticia might not really have understood what she was doing when she smothered the child born of her womb whom she apparently loved. Against the expert opinion of the psychiatrist who began examining and observing Leticia days after the incident in question, it has offered no more than an invalid confession, conclusions based on her account three years after the child was killed in 1975, and pure conjectures about her motive for her unnatural act. Surely, these flimsy premises cannot suffice to support this unfortunate woman’s conviction. No wonder that even the brief for the appellee was obviously half-hearted, substantially only a repetition and reproduction of the findings of the trial court, and with hardly a word in support of the decision. What prompted Leticia to kill the helpless child is a mystery the Court will not attempt to fathom. It is enough to know, as the evidence reveals, that the hands that choked the victim were not moved by an evil mind.
In this prosecution for parricide, the victim is not only the two-month child who was smothered to death but also the mother who was convicted of killing her. There is nothing we can do now for the unfortunate baby, but we can undo the injustice done to the mother who we feel was not responsible for her act.
Why she was tried while she was still a patient of the National Mental Hospital and apparently not yet in full possession of her mental faculties is one of the oddities of this case. There was really not that much urgency to continue the proceedings. Significantly, although the trial judge believed the physician who certified that she was sufficiently recovered to stand trial, he later disbelieved that same doctor’s testimony that she was a schizophrenic at the time of the commission of the offense. It is also strange that, although the doctor considered her fit to defend herself at the trial, he nevertheless recommended her continued confinement as a mental patient for further treatment.
There is no dispute as to the cause of the child’s death as reported by Dr. Alfredo Singian, chief medical examiner of the Western Police District, who conducted the autopsy. The baby was suffocated by the covering of her mouth and nostrils, where purplish contusions were found, suggesting deliberate force. 3 This would negate the rather feeble theory offered by the defense that the baby might have accidentally smothered on her pillow while in a prone position, assuming a 2-month old infant could already turn by itself.
The Court will not affirm.
"Q.	So that it is possible that on the morning of December 10, 1975, the accused herein was suffering already from schizophrenia?
The trial judge chose to disregard this evidence, holding it did not sufficiently show that Leticia was insane at the precise time of the commission of the offense in 1975. He dismissed the psychiatrist’s findings because they were made one month after the tragedy, 9 although he himself, in arriving at his own contrary conclusion, based it inter alia on his examination of the accused made even much later, at the trial of the case on July 7, 1978. His interrogation of Leticia, he said, revealed she was completely sane because of her intelligent and even detailed responses, but he forgets that it was made three years after the incident in question and after she had undergone continuous treatment. Assuming she was already recovered during the trial (although she remained confined at the National Mental Hospital), this would not prove at all that she was not insane when the baby was killed in 1975. At any rate, an appraisal made three years later by the trial judge cannot be more accurate than one made after a continuous observation of the accused-appellant which began only one month after the occurrence of the offense and continued for all of three years. This examination was made by an expert mental alienist.
"Tanong:	Ngayon, matapos mong malaman at maintindihan ang iyong mga karapatan na binanggit sa itaas, ikaw ba ay nahahanda pa ring magbigay ng isang malaya at kusang loob na salaysay at sagutin ng pawang katotohanan ang lahat ng itatanong sa iyo na hindi ka naman pinipilit, tinatakot o pinangangakuan ng anumang pabuya?
It is not believable that the organized and ready answer, with all its legal overtones to boot, could have come from this 22-year old housemaid, who, on top of her deficiencies in the language (and the law), was presumably not thinking clearly then (even assuming she was sane) because she had just killed her child and was under strong emotional stress.
If we have outlawed confessions written in advance by the police for persons of limited intelligence or educational attainment, we see no reason why a confession signed by a person whose sanity is dubious, as in the present case, should receive any less disapprobation. Leticia’s intelligence was not only limited but impaired.
As for the motive, the trial court conjectured that Leticia’s illicit liaison with the father of her child led her to kill it and "thereby hopefully salvage her honor." *** It is the better policy, if we are to make any conjecture at all, to incline toward the argument of the defense that Leticia lost her honor as early as when she could no longer conceal her pregnancy and had since then been inured to her shame; hence, it was no longer necessary to conceal or redeem it by murdering her innocent child. Moreover, she appeared to be attached to the baby, for which, in fact, according to her employer, she neglected her duties as a housemaid. It should also be added that, if we are to indulge in presumptions, what we should presume is not that Leticia deliberately snuffed out her daughter’s life, which was an unnatural thing to do, but that as a mother, like most mothers, she naturally loved the flesh of her flesh.
What prompted Leticia to kill the helpless child is a mystery the Court will not attempt to fathom. It is enough to know, as the evidence reveals, that the hands that choked the victim were not moved by an evil mind.
When this case was calendared for deliberation, the Court inquired about the present whereabouts of the accused-appellant and was informed that she remained confined at the National Mental Hospital since her commitment on January 21, 1976 until her discharge therefrom in 1984, for transfer to the Women’s Correctional Institute. The prisoner is reported to be sickly and will probably be taken back to the National Mental Hospital for further treatment.
Narvasa, Griño-Aquino and Medialdea, JJ., concur.
1.	Orig. Rec., p. 26.
*	Decision, Rollo, p. 3.
4.	TSN, Jan. 16, 1977, pp. 4-5.
5.	TSN, Feb. 27, 1978, pp. 8-11.
6.	TSN, July 7, 1978, pp. 5-9.
7.	TSN, June 28, 1978, pp. 2-5.
9.	Orig. Rec., p. 136.
11.	Orig. Rec., p. 132.
13.	Magtoto v. Manguera, 63 SCRA 4; People v. Jimenez, 71 SCRA 186; People v. Caguioa, 95 SCRA 2; People v. Tafalia, 96 SCRA 861; People v. Dilao, 100 SCRA 359; People v. Duero, 104 SCRA 379; People v. Pascual, 109 SCRA 197; Galman v. Pamaran, 138 SCRA 294.
14.	People v. Tiongson, 6 SCRA 431; People v. Robles, 92 SCRA 107; People v. Inguito, 117 SCRA 641; People v. Ramos, 122 SCRA 312.
***	Decision, p. 5, Rollo, p. 7.

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