PEOPLE of the PHILIPPINES v.

EMPANTE
FACTS:
The Regional Trial Court of Oroquieta City, Misamis Occidental Branch 12
found accused-appellant Pedro Balliao Empante guilty of three (3) counts of rape
against his daughter Elvie Empante, then below eighteen (18) years of age, and
sentenced him to death, to indemnify his daughter and to pay her moral damages.
At the trial, accused-appellant admitted having raped his daughter. The latter,
however, claimed that her father was drunk at the time of the commission of rape.
ISSUE:
Whether or not accused-appellant can invoke the alternative circumstance of
intoxication to mitigate the penalty by one degree lower from death to reclusion
perpetua.
HELD:
No. Accused-appellant cannot invoke the alternative circumstance of
intoxication to mitigate the penalty imposed upon him from death to reclusion
perpetua. SC affirmed the penalty of death.
The trial court was right in rejecting the claim of intoxication as a mitigating
circumstance. For even if accused-appellant was intoxicated, the intoxication must
be shown to have impaired his willpower that he did not know what he was doing or
could not comprehend the wrongfulness of his acts. In the case at bar, not only did
complainant deny that her father was drunk when he raped her, but the fact that
accused-appellant himself could recall details of the rape incidents, is the best proof
that he knew what he was doing on those occasions.