People V. Lamahang Case Digest

People v. Lamahang

Plaintiff: The People of the Philippine Islands                                             Appellee: Aurelio Lamahang

Ponente: J. Recto                                                                                       August 3, 1935

This is an appeal from a decision of the Court of First Instance of Iloilo that found Aurelio Lamahang guilty of attempted robbery and sentencing him to suffer 2 years & 4 months of prision correccional and to an additional penalty of 10 years & 1 day of prision mayor for being a habitual delinquent, with the accessory penalties of the law.

FACTS:

• At early dawn on March 2, 1935, Lamahang was caught by a policeman in the act of making an opening with an iron bar on the wall of a store of cheap goods located on Fuentes Street.
• The provincial fiscal of Iloilo, the trial judge and the Solicitor-General unanimously declared the act as constituting attempted robbery.

ISSUE: W/N the act of the accused, in relation to the facts, constitute attempted robbery. ==> NO

HELD:

==> Facts under consideration do NOT constitute attempted robbery but attempted trespass to dwelling.

--> The attempt to commit an offense that the Penal Code punishes is that which has a logical relation to a particular concrete offense. That being the beginning of the execution of the offense by overt acts of the perpetrator leading directly to its realization and consummation.

==> What is clear in the case is that the intention of the accused was to enter the store by means of violence to commit an offense that did not develop beyond the first steps of its execution due to the timely arrival of the policeman. But, it is not sufficient, for the purpose of imposing penal sanction, that an act objectively performed constitutes a mere beginning of execution.

--> It is necessary to prove that the 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.

==> 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 so, it must be shown that the offender clearly intended to take possession, for the purpose of gain, of some personal property belonging to another. But, in the case, there is nothing to justify a concrete finding of attempted robbery.