Battered wife who slew partner gets light term
URDANETA CITY – A battered woman found out too late that invoking mere self-defense is not mitigating enough in a homicide case.
She was still meted imprisonment, though deemed a light penalty, by the court when she stabbed and killed a Philippine Marine she was living with for 13 years in barangay Cabalitian, Asingan, two years ago.
Sentenced to two years imprisonment in a decision penned by Regional Trial Court Judge Joven Costales of Branch 45 was Agnes Rubica, 32, who was accused of stabbing and killing her live-in partner Arvin Resulto.
Rubica stabbed Resulto when he got mad, drunk and even fired his hand gun outside. After that, he pointed the gun at the accused and their three children.
He was, however, pacified by his mother who embraced him. At that juncture, Rubica stabbed Resulto on his left breast, killing him instantly.
The accused claimed self-defense in committing the crime but Judge Costales rejected this because she stabbed the victim when he was already being embraced by his mother, thus Rubica’s life was no longer in danger.
However, the mitigating circumstances of voluntary surrender, passion and obfuscation and lack of intent to commit so grave a wrong were accorded the accused.
The Court observed that was the second time the victim tried to kill the accused. In the first incidence, she was choked but the victim’s mother also intervened.
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