Digest: PEOPLE  v. MARCIANO GONZALES, G.R. No. L-46310. October 31, 1939

Principles: USBAND WHO DID NOT SURPRISE HIS WIFE IN THE VERY ACT OF ADULTERY, BUT THEREAFTER; PARRICIDE. — Even if the accused caught his wife rising up and I. already standing and buttoning his drawers, the accused cannot invoke the privilege of article 247 of the Revised Penal Code, because he did not surprise the supposed offenders in the very act of committing adultery, but thereafter, if the respective positions of the woman and the man were suffIcient to warrant the conclusion that they had committed the carnal act. (3 Viada, Penal Code, p. 96; People VS. Marquez, 53 Phil., 260.)

Facts: Appellant testified that at midday on June 2, 1938, on returning to his house from the woods, he surprised his wife, Sixta Quilason, and Isabelo Evangelio in the act of adultery, the latter having escaped by jumping through the door of the house. He scolded his wife for such act, told her that the man was the very one who used to ask rice and food from them, and counseled her not to repeat the same faithlessness. His wife, promised him not to do the act again. 

Thereafter — the accused continued testifying — he left the house and went towards the South to see his carabaos. Upon returning to his house at about five o’clock in the afternoon, and not finding his wife there, he looked for her and found her with Isabelo near the toilet of his house in a place covered with underbush. When he saw them, his wife was rising up, while Isabelo, who was standing and buttoning his drawers, immediately took to his heels. The accused went after him, but unable to overtake him, he returned to where his wife was and, completely obfuscated, attacked her with a knife without intending to kill her. Thereafter, he took pity on her and took her dead body to his house.

The appellant contends that, having surprised his wife, in the afternoon of the date in question, under circumstances indicative that she had carnal intercourse with Isabelo, he was entitled to the privilege afforded by article 247 of the Revised Penal Code

Issue: 

WON the appellant is qualified for the privilege afforded by article 247 of the Revised Penal Code?

Ruling: 

The Court do not believe that the accused can avail himself of the aforesaid article, because the privilege there granted is conditioned on the requirement that the spouse surprise the husband or the wife in the act of committing sexual intercourse with another person, the accused did not surprise his wife in the very act of carnal intercourse, but after the act, if any such there was, because from the fact that she was rising up and the man was buttoning his drawers, it does not necessarily follow that a man and a woman had committed the carnal act.

Full Case: https://www.chanrobles.com/cralaw/1939octoberdecisions.php?id=287