Maturillas vs People of the Philippines

Facts:

The case of homicide was filed against Celestino Maturillas for willfully, unlawfully and feloniously killing Artemio Pantinople. Pantinople before he died had communicated to a witness identifying the appellant as the killer. Petitioner raises the plausibility of the allegation that the victim had uttered, "Tabangi ko p’re, gipusil ko ni kapitan" ("Help me p’re, I was shot by the captain"), which was considered by the two lower courts either as his dying declaration or as part of res gestae.

Issue:
Whether or not the statement of Pantinople is a dying declaration.

Ruling
The court held that statements identifying the assailant, if uttered by a victim on the verge of death, are entitled to the highest degree of credence and respect. Persons aware of an impending death have been known to be genuinely truthful in their words and extremely scrupulous in their accusations.The dying declaration is given credence, on the premise that no one who knows of one’s impending death will make a careless and false accusation.

To be admissible, a dying declaration must 1) refer to the cause and circumstances surrounding the declarant’s death; 2) be made under the consciousness of an impending death; 3) be made freely and voluntarily without coercion or suggestions of improper influence; 4) be offered in a criminal case, in which the death of the declarant is the subject of inquiry; and 5) have been made by a declarant competent to testify as a witness, had that person been called upon to testify.

The statement of the deceased certainly concerned the cause and circumstances surrounding his death. He pointed to the person who had shot him. As established by the prosecution, petitioner was the only person referred to as kapitan in their place. It was also established that the declarant, at the time he had given the dying declaration, was under a consciousness of his impending death.

True, he made no express statement showing that he was conscious of his impending death. The law, however, does not require the declarant to state explicitly a perception of the inevitability of death. The perception may be established from surrounding circumstances, such as the nature of the declarant’s injury and conduct that would justify a conclusion that there was a consciousness of impending death. Even if the declarant did not make an explicit statement of that realization, the degree and seriousness of the words and the fact that death occurred shortly afterwards may be considered as sufficient evidence that the declaration was made by the victim with full consciousness of being in a dying condition.

The statement was made freely and voluntarily, without coercion or suggestion, and was offered as evidence in a criminal case for homicide. In this case, the declarant was the victim who, at the time he uttered the dying declaration, was competent as a witness.

As found by the CA, the dying declaration of the victim was complete, as it was "a full expression of all that he intended to say as conveying his meaning. It [was] complete and [was] not merely fragmentary." Testified to by his wife and neighbor, his dying declaration was not only admissible in evidence as an exception to the hearsay rule, but was also a weighty and telling piece of evidence.

Res Gestae
The fact that the victim’s statement constituted a dying declaration does not preclude it from being admitted as part of the res gestae, if the elements of both are present.