Death in faith healing session

If death results in a "pray over healing session", what is the crime committed by the healers? This is the question answered in this case of Matilde and seven other members of a religious cult.

The victim here was Ronnie 13 years old, the eldest child of a poor cuople from a remote town in the Visayas. When the boy started talking and laughing to himself, his parents decided to bring him to Matilde.

When Matilde examined the boy, she told the boy’s father that he was possessed by a "bad spirit" which she said she could exorcise. Matilde warned, however, that as the spirit might transfer to the father, it would be best to conduct the healing prayer without him. So Matilde led the boy out of the room and into the kitchen while the boy’s family were left inside.

A few hours later, Matilde carried Ronnie into the prayer room. His face was bluish and contused while his tongue was sticking out. The boy’s father was convinced that he was already dead but he was prevented from seeing his son until two hours later, when he was supposed to come alive again. But two hours came and the boy remained dead. He was quietly buried the next day at the local cemetery after securing the necessary death certificate apparently signed by the father.

The ritual was however witnessed by a ten year old girl Fanny, who was playing near the house of Matilde. Fanny saw what happened to Ronnie only a few meters away after she heard the boy’s cry of "Tabang Ma" ("mother help"). She saw Ronnie being immersed head first by the cult members in a drum of water. Later she saw one cult member tie the boy on the bench while Matilde poured water into the mouth of the boy. Each time Ronnie struggled to raise his head, another cult member would bang his head on the bench. Then two women cultist took turns in pounding his breast with clenched fist after forcing him to drink water.Another woman dropped her weight, buttocks first, on the boy’s body.Finally, Matilde slowly plunged a stainless knife into the left side of the boy’s body and caught the dripping blood with a plastic gallon container.

Mainly on the basis of Fanny’s eyewitness account, Matilde and the seven cult members were charged, and, after trial, convicted of murder by the trial court. The trial court said that Matilde and her members were liable for all the consequences of the physical injuries they inflicted on the boy, particularly his death. And since there was treachery in the commission of the crime, they were guilty of murder. Killing a person with treachery is murder even if there is no intent to kill, said the trial court.

Was the trial court correct?

The trial court is not correct in convicting the accused of murder. It is guilty only of reckless imprudence resulting in homicide and not murder. The accused are members of a cult and the bizarre ritual performed over the victim was consented to by the victim’s parents. With the permission of the parents, Matilde, together with the other cult members proceeded to subject the boy to a "treatment" calculated to drive the "bad spirit" from the boy’s body. Unfortunately the strange procedure resulted in the death of the boy. Thus, Matilde and the other accused had no criminal intent to kill the boy. Their liability arises from their reckless imprudence because they ought to know that their actions would not bring about the cure.

This is similar to a case where a non-medical practitioner, who had treated a victim despite the fact that she did not possess the necessary technical knowledge or skill to do so, and caused the latter’s death, is guilty of homicide through reckless imprudence. Reckless imprudence consists in voluntarily, but without malice, doing or failing to do an act from which material damage results by reason of inexcusable lack of care on the part of the person performing such act.

In the absence of intent to kill, there is no treachery or the deliberate employment of methods means and manner of execution to ensure the safety of the accused from the defensive or retaliatory attacks coming from the victim. The acts which the trial court saw as manifestations of treachery merely relate to the efforts by the accused to restrain Ronnie so they can effect the "cure" on him. (People vs. Carmen G.R. 137268, March 26, 2001, 355 SCRA 267)

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