By pleading self-defense, an accused admits the killing,[16] and thereby assumes the burden to establish his plea of self-defense by credible, clear and convincing evidence; otherwise, his conviction will follow from his admission of killing the victim. Self-defense cannot be justifiably appreciated when it is uncorroborated by independent and competent evidence or when it is extremely doubtful by itself. Indeed, the accused must discharge the burden of proof by relying on the strength of his own evidence, not on the weakness of the State’s evidence,[17] because the existence of self-defense is a separate issue from the existence of the crime, and establishing self-defense does not require or involve the negation of any of the elements of the offense itself.[18]
To escape liability, the accused must show by sufficient, satisfactory and convincing evidence that: (a) the victim committed unlawful aggression amounting to an actual or imminent threat to the life and limb of the accused claiming self-defense; (b) there was reasonable necessity in the means employed to prevent or repel the unlawful aggression; and (c) there was lack of sufficient provocation on the part of the accused claiming self-defense or at least any provocation executed by the accused claiming self-defense was not the proximate and immediate cause of the victim’s aggression.[19]
The RTC found that Nugas did not establish the requisites of self-defense. The CA concurred.
The Court upholds both lower courts.
Unlawful aggression on the part of the victim is the primordial element of the justifying circumstance of self-defense. Without unlawful aggression, there can be no justified killing in defense of oneself. [20] The test for the presence of unlawful aggression under the circumstances is whether the aggression from the victim put in real peril the life or personal safety of the person defending himself; the peril must not be an imagined or imaginary threat.[21] Accordingly, the accused must establish the concurrence of three elements of unlawful aggression, namely: (a) there must be a physical or material attack or assault; (b) the attack or assault must be actual, or, at least, imminent; and (c) the attack or assault must be unlawful.[22]
Unlawful aggression is of two kinds: (a) actual or material unlawful aggression; and (b) imminent unlawful aggression. Actual or material unlawful aggression means an attack with physical force or with a weapon, an offensive act that positively determines the intent of the aggressor to cause the injury. Imminent unlawful aggression means an attack that is impending or at the point of happening; it must not consist in a mere threatening attitude, nor must it be merely imaginary, but must be offensive and positively strong (like aiming a revolver at another with intent to shoot or opening a knife and making a motion as if to attack). Imminent unlawful aggression must not be a mere threatening attitude of the victim, such as pressing his right hand to his hip where a revolver was holstered, accompanied by an angry countenance, or like aiming to throw a pot.[23]
Nugas did not credibly establish that Glen had first punched him and then reached for his clutch bag on the dashboard, making Nugas believe that he had a gun there. For one, as the CA pointed out, Nugas admitted not actually seeing if Glen had a gun in his clutch bag.[24] And, secondly, the CA correctly found and declared Nugas’ testimony about Glen punching him to be improbable, viz:[25]
It is also highly improbable that the victim, in relation to accused-appellant Nugas position, can launch an attack against the latter. First, the victim was at the driver’s seat and seated between him were his wife and two children. Second, the victim was driving the FX vehicle. Third, accused-appellant Nugas was seated directly behind the victim. All things considered, it is highly improbable, nay risky for the victim’s family, for him to launch an attack.
Consequently, Nugas had absolutely no basis for pleading self-defense because he had not been subjected to either actual or imminent threat to his life. He had nothing to prevent or to repel considering that Glen committed no unlawful aggression towards him.
With unlawful aggression, the indispensable foundation of self-defense, not having been established by Nugas, it is superfluous to still determine whether the remaining requisites of self-defense were attendant. As the Court made clear in People v. Carrero:[26]
Unlawful aggression is the main and most essential element to support the theory of self-defense and the complete or incomplete exemption from criminal liability; without such primal requisite it is not possible to maintain that a person acted in self-defense within the terms under which unlawful aggression is subordinate to the other two conditions named in article 8, No. 4, of the Penal Code.[27] When an act of aggression is in response to an insult, affront, or threat, it cannot be considered as a defense but as the punishment which the injured party inflicts on the author of the provocation, and in such a case the courts can at most consider it as a mitigating circumstance, but never as a reason for exemption, except in violation of the provisions of the Penal Code. (emphasis supplied)
Treachery is present when two conditions concur, namely: (a) that the means, methods and forms of execution employed gave the person attacked no opportunity to defend himself or to retaliate; and (b) that such means, methods and forms of execution were deliberately and consciously adopted by the accused without danger to his person.[28]
The essence of treachery lies in the attack that comes without warning, and the attack is swift, deliberate and unexpected, and affords the hapless, unarmed and unsuspecting victim no chance to resist or escape, thereby ensuring its accomplishment without the risk to the aggressor, without the slightest provocation on the part of the victim. What is decisive is that the execution of the attack made it impossible for the victim to defend himself or to retaliate. Treachery may also be appreciated when the victim, although warned of the danger to his life, is defenseless and unable to flee at the time of the infliction of the coup de grace.[29]
The CA exhaustively discussed and rightly determined the presence of treachery as a circumstance attendant in the killing of Glen and the improbability of Glen launching an attack against or defending himself from Nugas by reason of their relative positions. We affirm the CA, because there was nothing adduced by Nugas that refuted how the relative positions of Glen and Nugas had left the former defenseless and unable to parry or to avoid the fatal blow of the latter. Verily, Nugas stabbed Glen from behind with suddenness, thereby deliberately ensuring the execution of the killing without any risk to himself from any defense that Glen might make.
