CRIMINAL LAW NOTES

When death occurs due to a crime, the damages to be awarded may include: (a) civil indemnity ex delicto for the death of the victim; (b) actual or compensatory damages; (c) moral damages; (d) exemplary damages; and (e) temperate damages. 30 Accordingly, the CA and the RTC should also have granted moral damages in addition to the death indemnity, which were of different kinds. 31 The death indemnity compensated the loss of life due to crime, but appropriate and reasonable moral damages would justly assuage the mental anguish and emotional sufferings of the surviving family of Olais. 32 Although mental anguish and emotional sufferings of the surviving family were not quantifiable with mathematical precision, the Court must nonetheless strive to set an amount that would restore the heirs of the deceased to their moral status quo ante. Given the circumstances, P 50,000.00 should be reasonable as moral damages, which, pursuant to prevailing jurisprudence, 33 we are bound...

An indispensable requisite of self-defense is that the victim must have mounted an unlawful aggression against the accused. Without such unlawful aggression, the accused cannot invoke self-defense as a justifying circumstance. XXX  In order for self-defense to be appreciated, he had to prove by clear and convincing evidence the following elements: (a) unlawful aggression on the part of the victim; (b) reasonable necessity of the means employed to prevent or repel it; and (c) lack of sufficient provocation on the part of the person defending himself. 19 Unlawful aggression is the indispensable element of self-defense, for if no unlawful aggression attributed to the victim is established, self-defense is unavailing, for there is nothing to repel. 20 The character of the element of unlawful aggression is aptly explained as follows: Unlawful aggression on the part of the victim is the primordial element of the justifying circumstance of self-defense. Without unlawfu...