Man gets 14 years for kin’s slay over loud music

MANILA, Philippines - A Quezon City court has sentenced a man to serve up to 14 years in prison after he stabbed and killed his brother-in-law during an argument over loud music seven years ago.

In a six-page decision released yesterday, Regional Trial Court Branch 221 Judge Genie Gapas-Agbada found Mariano Jalmanzar Jr. guilty of homicide and sentenced him to a minimum of six years and one day in prison to a maximum of 14 years, four months, and one day.

Gapas-Agbada also ordered Jalmanzar to pay the heirs of Ruben Espinola P50,000 as civil indemnity, P50,000 as moral damages, and P23,500 as actual damages.

The judge downgraded the charge from murder to homicide, saying that there is no treachery – a qualifying circumstance of murder – when the killing results from the verbal altercation between the victim and the assailant.

Court records showed that the stabbing happened on the afternoon of Feb. 18, 2007 in a Quezon City compound where the families of the victim and the assailant live.

Jalmanzar, who claimed that the incident was a case of self-defense, was arrested only on Feb. 27, 2012.

During the trial, the assailant’s daughter Ruby testified that the stabbing happened after Juniefer Neri – an occupant in the house of Espinola – told their family to refrain from playing loud music.

However, Ruby’s mother and Jalmanzar’s wife Mercedita allegedly retorted that Neri has no right to prevent them from playing loud music as he is not the one paying their electric bills.

This irked Neri, who approached Mercedita and started to strangle her. The respondent saw this and shouted at Neri, who left and went to the house of Espinolas.

Ruby testified that Neri and Espinola came back to their house armed with knives. She said Neri was pacified by his drinking buddies, but the victim was able to enter their house and attack her father.

She said a fight ensued between the two, which resulted in her father accidentally stabbing the victim.

Meanwhile, the prosecution panel presented the victim’s son Robert, who claimed that he saw his father run away from the house of Jalmanzar, who followed and stabbed the victim. Robert said the stabbing was caused by an argument over loud music.

In her decision, Gapas-Agbada noted that in order for the claim of self-defense to prosper, the accused must show that there was unlawful aggression on the part of the victim, there was a reasonable necessity of the means employed to repel it, and there is a lack of sufficient provocation on the part of the accused.

In this case, the judge said that while the victim was the first one to attack, Jalmanzar disarmed Espinola but proceeded to stab him twice.

The judge added that jurisprudence dictates that flight of the suspect from the crime scene negates self-defense and indicates guilt.

“The accused was nowhere to be found after the stabbing incident and was arrested only after five years,” the judge said.