US VS.

EDUAVE
GR NO L-12155 – February 2, 1917
Moreland

SUBJECT: Stage of punishable conduct: attempt; never passes subjective phase

FACTS: Defendant Protasio Eduave, who was the querido of the victim’s mother, attacked
the victim from behind using a bolo creating a gash of 8 and a half inches long and 2 inches
deep because the latter accused the defendant of raping her. Knowing that he has already
killed the victim, he threw the body into the bushes and left. Then, he gave himself up and
declared that he had killed the complainant.

ISSUE: In what stage of the crime of murder is committed by Eduave?

HELD:
The Accused is guilty of frustrated murder.  The fact that Eduave attacked the victim from
behind, in a vital portion of the body, shows treachery qualifying it as murder. In case of
frustrated crimes, the subjective phased is completely passed making the crime
subjectively complete. The crime, however, is not consummated by reason of the
intervention of causes independent of the will of the offender. Adueva did all that was
necessary to commit the crime but it did not result as a consequence due to something
beyond his control.

The crime was not consummated because the elements of the crime’s execution and
accomplishment were not complete, as the victim did not die.

Neither was the crime an attempted one because the accused’s actions has already passed
the subjective phase, that is, there was no external force or intervention of a foreign or
extraneous cause or agency between the beginning of the commission of the crime and the
moment when all of the acts have been performed preventing defendant from performing
all the acts of execution necessary to commit the felony. That external force is the essential
element which distinguishes attempted from frustrated felony. Consequently, the victim
did not die because an external element has prevented such death after Eduave has
performed all the necessary acts of execution that would have caused the death of the
victim.