Sufficient provocation or threat, A13(4) Revised Penal Code
1. Concept
Sufficient provocation or threat – refers to the mitigating circumstance under the Revised Penal Code wherein there was sufficient provocation or threat on the part of the offended party immediately preceding the act.
a. Legal basis
Article 13. Mitigating circumstances. – The following are mitigating circumstances;
4. That sufficient provocation or threat on the part of the offended party immediately preceded the act.
(Revised Penal Code)
2. Sufficient provocation
For the mitigating circumstance of sufficient provocation, the accused committed the offense due to a sufficient provocation or threat coming from the offended party immediately preceding the crime.
As a mitigating circumstance, sufficient provocation is any unjust or improper conduct or act of the victim adequate enough to excite a person to commit a wrong, which is accordingly proportionate in gravity. (People v. Racal, G.R. No. 224886, September 4, 2017, Per Peralta, J.)
a. Proportionality
[T]he provocation sufficient to mitigate an offense must be proportionate to the gravity of the retaliatory act. In People vs. Leonor, this Court rejected the plea of the accused that a push and “bad words” justified retaliation with a knife, the provocation being insufficient to deserve the benefit of the mitigating circumstance of prior provocation by the offended party. In this case, the victim merely shouted at the appellant and asked him to leave. Stabbing her to death could hardly be proportionate in gravity to her act of shouting, no matter how loud. (People v. Lab-Eo, G.R. No. 133438, January 16, 2002, Per Carpio, J.)
People v. Racal, G.R. No. 224886, September 4, 2017, Per Peralta, J.:
• In the present case, [the Accused] asserts that several days before he stabbed the victim, the latter teased [the Accused] to be “gay” and taunted him that the girl whom [the Accused] courted rejected him. However, the Court finds no cogent reason to depart from the ruling of the RTC on this matter, to wit:
“Sufficient” according to jurisprudence means adequate to excite a person to commit the crime and must accordingly be proportionate to its gravity. In Bautista v. Court of Appeals [G.R. No. L-46025, September 2, 1992], the mitigating circumstance did not apply since it is not enough that the provocating act be unreasonable or annoying. Certainly, calling a person gay as in this case is not the sufficient provocation contemplated by law that would lessen the liability of the accused.
“Immediate” on the other hand means that there is no interval of time between the provocation and the commission of the crime. Hence, in one case [People v. Co, 67 O.G. 7451] the Supreme Court ruled that provocation occurring more than one hour before the stabbing incident is not immediate and in People v. Benito [62 SCRA 351] 24 hours before the commission of the crime. Per admission of the defense witnesses, the taunting done by the victim occurred days before the stabbing incident hence the immediacy required by law was absent. The lapse of time would have given the accused [chance] to contemplate and to recover his serenity enough to refrain from pushing through with his evil plan.
b. Distinction: Incomplete self-defense v. Sufficient Provocation
Sufficient provocation as a requisite of incomplete self-defense is different from sufficient provocation as a mitigating circumstance. As an element of self-defense, it pertains to its absence on the part of the person defending himself; while as a mitigating circumstance, it pertains to its presence on the part of the offended party. (People v. CA, Tangan, supra.)
People v. CA, G.R. No. 103613, February 23, 2001, Per Ynares-Santiago, J.:
• [Accused shot dead the victim after their cars nearly collided due to the victim having swerved his car to avoid fireworks on the road.]
• The third requisite of lack of sufficient provocation on the part of the person defending himself is not supported by evidence. By repeatedly blocking the path of the Mirandas for almost five times, [the Accused] was in effect the one who provoked the former. The repeated blowing of horns, assuming it was done by [the deceased], may be irritating to an impatient driver but it certainly could not be considered as creating so powerful an inducement as to incite provocation for the other party to act violently.
• The appreciation of the ordinary mitigating circumstances of sufficient provocation and passion and obfuscation under Article 13, paragraphs 4 and 6, have no factual basis. Sufficient provocation as a requisite of incomplete self-defense is different from sufficient provocation as a mitigating circumstance. As an element of self-defense, it pertains to its absence on the part of the person defending himself; while as a mitigating circumstance, it pertains to its presence on the part of the offended party. Besides, only one mitigating circumstance can arise out of one and the same act. Assuming for the sake of argument that the blowing of horns, cutting of lanes or overtaking can be considered as acts of provocation, the same were not sufficient. The word “sufficient” means adequate to excite a person to commit a wrong and must accordingly be proportionate to its gravity. Moreover, [the deceased’s] act of asking for an explanation from [the Accused] was not sufficient provocation for him to claim that he was provoked to kill or injure [the Victim].
• For the mitigating circumstance of passion and obfuscation to be appreciated, it is required that (1) there be an act, both unlawful and sufficient to produce such a condition of mind; and (2) said act which produced the obfuscation was not far removed from the commission of the crime by a considerable length of time, during which the perpetrator might recover his normal equanimity.
• In the case at bar, [the Accused] could not have possibly acted upon an impulse for there was no sudden and unexpected occurrence which would have created such condition in his mind to shoot the victim. Assuming that his path was suddenly blocked by [the deceased] due to the firecrackers, it can no longer be treated as a startling occurrence, precisely because he had already passed them and was already the one blocking their path. [the Accused]’s acts were done in the spirit of revenge and lawlessness, for which no mitigating circumstance of passion or obfuscation can arise.
References
• Title I – Felonies and Circumstances which Affect Criminal Liability, Book I, Act No. 3815, Revised Penal Code
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/Updated: September 3, 2023
