PEOPLE vs.

LAMAHANG
GR No. L- 43530; August 3, 1935
Recto, J.
TOPIC:
ARTICLE 6. Consummated, Frustrated, and Attempted Felonies. — Consummated
felonies, as well as those which are frustrated and attempted, are punishable.
A felony is consummated when all the elements necessary for its execution and
accomplishment are present; and it is frustrated when the offender performs all the acts
of execution which would produce the felony as a consequence but which,
nevertheless, do not produce it by reason of causes independent of the will of the
perpetrator.
There is an attempt when the offender commences the commission of a felony directly
by overt acts, and does not perform all the acts of execution which should produce the
felony by reason of some cause or accident other than his own spontaneous
desistance.

FACTS:
Lamahang was caught by a policeman the act of making an opening with an iron bar on
the wall of a store of cheap goods. The accused had only succeeded in breaking one
board and in unfastening another from the wall, when the policeman showed up, who
instantly arrested him and placed him under custody. The lower court found him guilty of
attempted robbery.
ISSUE:
Whether or not Lamahang is guilty of attempted robbery?
HELD:
No, Lamahang is not guilty of attempted robbery. He is guilty of attempted trespass to
dwelling.
The attempt to commit an offense which the Penal Code punishes is that which has a
logical relation to a particular, concrete offense; that, which is the beginning of the
execution of the offense by overt acts of the perpetrator, leading directly to its realization
and consummation. The attempt to commit an indeterminate offense, inasmuch as its
nature in relation to its objective is ambiguous, is not a juridical fact from the standpoint
of the Penal Code.
There is no doubt that in the case at bar it was the intention of the accused to enter Tan
Yu's store by means of violence, passing through the opening which he had started to
make on the wall, in order to commit an offense which, due to the timely arrival of the
police, did not develop beyond the first steps of its execution.
But it is not sufficient, for the purpose of imposing penal sanction, that an act objectively
performed constitute a mere beginning of execution; it is necessary to establish its
unavoidable connection, like the logical and natural relation of the cause and its effect,
with the deed which, upon its consummation, will develop into one of the offenses
defined and punished by the Code.
It is necessary to prove that said 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.
Thus, 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 an attempt to commit this
offense, it must be shown that the offender clearly intended to take possession, for the
purpose of gain, of some personal property belonging to another.
In the instant case, there is nothing in the record from which such purpose of the
accused may reasonably be inferred. In offenses not consummated, as the material
damage is wanting, the nature of the action intended (accion fin) cannot exactly be
ascertained, but the same must be inferred from the nature of the acts executed (accion
medio).
Acts susceptible of double interpretation, that is, in favor as well as against the culprit,
and which show an innocent as well as a punishable act, must not and cannot furnish
grounds by themselves for attempted nor frustrated crimes.