US v Eduave

Facts:

Accused rushed upon the girl suddenly and struck her from behind with a sharp bolo.
He was incensed at the girl for the reason that she had charged him criminally before
the local officials with having raped her and with being the cause of her pregnancy.

Issue:

W/N the crime committed was attempted or frustrated

Ruling:

FRUSTRATED. Art. 3 of the Penal Code: offender performs ALL acts of execution
which should produce the felony as a consequence but which, nevertheless, do not
produce it by reason of causes independent of the will of the perpetrator. In the case, it
is clear that the defendant performed all of the acts which should have resulted in the
consummated crime and voluntarily desists from proceeding further. The essential
element which distinguishes attempted from frustrated felony is that, in the latter
(FRUSTRATED), there is NO INTERVENTION of a foreign or extraneous cause or
agency between the beginning of the commission of the crime and the moment when all
the acts have been performed which should result in the consummated crime.

Rivera v People

Facts:

Victim was buying food at a store when the accused mocked him for being jobless and
dependent on his wife. Victim hurled invectives at the latter and a heated exchange
between them ensued.

The next day, when the victim together with his daughter were walking to buy food,
accused and his brothers ganged up on victim. Accused’s brothers mauled Ruben with
fist blows and he fell to the ground. In that helpless position. Accused hit victim three
times with a hollow block on the parietal area (tuktok ng ulo).

Issue:
W/N the crime committed was attempted murder or physical injuries/attempted homicide
only

Ruling:

ATTEMPTED MURDER: Essential elements of attempted felony:

1. The offender commences the commission of the felony directly by overt acts;
2. He does not perform all the acts of execution which should produce the felony;
3. The offender's act be not stopped by his own spontaneous desistance;
4. The non-performance of all acts of execution was due to cause or accident other
than his spontaneous desistance.

The first requisite of an attempted felony consists of two elements, namely:

1. That there be external acts;

2. Such external acts have direct connection with the crime intended to be
committed.

It is necessary that the overt acts must have an IMMEDIATE and NECESSARY relation
to the offense; absence of equivocality.

In the case at bar, petitioners, who acted in concert, commenced the felony of murder
by mauling the victim and hitting him three times with a hollow block; they narrowly
missed hitting the middle portion of his head. If Edgardo had done so, Ruben would
surely have died.

Baleros v People

Facts:

Accused, forcefully covering the face of the victim with a piece of cloth soaked in
chemical with dizzying effects, was lying on top of her.

Issue:

W/N the act of the petitioner, pressing of a chemical-soaked cloth while on top of the
victim constitutes an over act of rape

Ruling:
No. Overt or external act has been defined as some physical activity or deed indicating
the intention to commit a particular crime, more than a mere planning or preparation,
which if carried out to its complete termination, following its natural course, without
being frustrated by external obstacles nor by voluntary desistance of the perpetrator, will
logically and necessarily ripen into a concrete offense.

As it were, petitioner did not commence at all the performance of any act indicative of
an intent or attempt to rape Malou. It cannot be overemphasized that petitioner was fully
clothed and that there was no attempt on his part to undress Malou, let alone touch her
private part. For what reason petitioner wanted the complainant unconscious, if that was
really his immediate intention, is anybody's guess.

At bottom then, the appellate court indulges in plain speculation, a practice disfavored
under the rule on evidence in criminal cases. For, mere speculations and probabilities
cannot substitute for proof required to establish the guilt of an accused beyond
reasonable doubt.

Valenzuela v People

Facts:
Petitioner and C were sighted outside Super Sale Club by Lago (Security Guard). The
latter saw petitioner hauling a push cart with cases of detergent and unloaded these in
an open parking space, where C was waiting. Petitioner then returned inside the
supermarket, and after five minutes, emerged with more cartons of detergents and
unloaded the boxes to the same area in the open parking space. Thereafter, petitioner
left the parking area and haled a taxi. He boarded the cab and directed towards the
parking space where C was waiting. C loaded the cartons then boarded the vehicle. All
these were witnessed by Lago, who proceeded to stop the taxi as it was leaving the
open parking area.

Issue:
W/N the crime of frustrated theft is possible

Ruling:
No. Under the RPC (ART 308), there is no crime of frustrated theft: theft is already
"produced" upon the "tak[ing of] personal property of another without the latter's
consent."
People v Lamahang
Facts:
Accused was caught in the act of making an opening with an iron bar on the wall of a
store of cheap goods while the owners of the house were asleep. The accused had only
succeeded in breaking one board and in unfastening another from the wall.

Issue:
W/N the crime commited was attempted robbery

Ruling:
No. It’s tresspass to dwelling. The attempt to commit an indeterminate offense,
inasmuch as its nature in relation to its objective is ambiguous, is not a juridical fact
from the standpoint of the Penal Code. There is no doubt that in the case at bar it was
the intention of the accused to enter Tan Yu's store by means of violence, passing
through the opening which he had started to make on the wall, in order to commit an
offense which, due to the timely arrival of policeman Tomambing, did not develop
beyond the 􏰁rst steps of its execution. But it is not suf􏰁cient, for the purpose of
imposing penal sanction, that an act objectively performed constitute a mere beginning
of execution; 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 de􏰁ned 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.
Thus, in case of robbery, in order that the simple act of entering by means of force or
violence another person's dwelling may be considered an attempt to commit this
offense, it must be shown that the offender clearly intended to take possession, for the
purpose of gain, of some personal property belonging to another.