This is an appeal raised by the defendants from the judgment of conviction rendered in this case by the Honorable Herbert D. Gale, judge.

About 10 o'clock on the night of one of the last days of the month of November,  1910, Pedro Cabigting,  a curandero, who was in a house situated in the barrio of Bagbaguin, pueblo of Caloocan, in which he was attending  a patient, heard a voice, which apparently came from  the neighboring  house of Macario Domingo, utter the words: "Jesus, Maria y Jose, pardon me."   He therefore immediately  left the house, with the intention of going to that of the said  neighbor,  as he was aware that the latter's wife was also  sick, and  when he was near the yard of Domingo's house  he also heard a groan, and upon getting near the yard, he saw, in the zaguan or on the ground under the house, a person  stretched out and around him the master of the house, Macario Domingo, and the men Pedra Mauricio and  Celestino Ramirez, whom he knew previously, even to their voices.  At this moment Mauricio, addressing Domingo, said to him: "Why have you treated him so?"  To which Domingo replied:  "It is because this son  of a b_______ would not  cease making love to my daughter."  Then Mauricio replied, saying: "Since you have done that, it would be better to kill him outright;" and Celestino Ramirez, joining in the conversation, said:  "Nothing can now  be done but to finish him and conceal him in  order that it may not get to the public and  cause  us trouble." After the curandero, Pedro Cabigting, had heard these  statements, he returned to the house whence he had come.

Several days afterwards, the date not appearing in the record, Julian Cleofas, a brother of Doroteo Cleofas, who had disappeared and was subsequently found to have been killed, found an anonymous  letter  on his  gate, whereby, according to a neighbor who read it, he was informed that his brother had been murdered, as well as who his murderers were  and where his corpse was buried.  He therefore  reported the matter to the police of Caloocan, and, in company with Lieutenant Dominador Aquino,  Sergeant Indalecio Tan and some others, proceeded to make investigations to find the body and the perpetrators of the crime. They arrested Pedro Mauricio and Macario Domingo, as the reported perpetrators, and found, under the latter's house, dried blood stains covered with earth arid the strips of  bamboo, which  formed the floor of the said house, untied directly above the spot in the zaguan where the said blood stains were noticed.

After making several investigations, with the guidance of the contents of the aforementioned anonymous letter, they found, in a wood 120 meters  away from the house of Macario Domingo, the place where the body of Doroteo Cleofas was buried, which, upon being exhumed in the presence of Julian Cleofas, was identified by the latter as that of his said brother, notwithstanding that it  was in an advanced stage  of  decomposition, though it was observed that the skeleton was that of a male.  It had a hemp cord wound around the wrist of the right hand, both thighs had fallen off througKUecomposition, the flesh was gone from the neck, and the legs and arms were doubled up.  It was dressed in a white shirt and colored trousers.  Such was the result, also, of the examination made by the physician who is the president of the board of health of the pueblo of Caloocan.
   
  From the facts before related it is concluded that Doroteo Cleofas was violently killed on the night of one of the last days of November, 1910, in the yard or zaguan the house of Macario Domingo; that afterwards his body was buried by his slayers in a neighboring wood 120 meters distant from the said house, in which place it was subsequently found by the public officers, about January 23 of the following year, Julian  Cleofas,  a brother of the deceased; being then and there present; and that the body of the deceased was identified by  his said brother,  notwithstanding the advanced stage of decomposition a  professional examination showed it to be in.
 
  The acts constituting the crime in question were brought to light through the declarations of the curandero, Pedro Gaibigtingj who on the night of the  occurrence saw a man stretched  out on the ground, apparently dead, and heard the conversation among the perpetrators thereof, and also by the statements  made by the alleged perpetrators thereof to the lieutenant and the sergeant of police pf Calooean, Dominador Aquino and Indalecio Tan. But as Macario Domingo died after judgment had been rendered in the case in first instance,  and Pedro Mauricio, who was sentenced to life imprisonment,  has not appealed,  this decision shall only deal with the other two defendants, the appellants Regina Domingo and Celestino Ramirez, who were also sentenced, in the said judgment appealed from, to the penalty of twenty years of reclusion temporal.
 
  It is improper to hold upon the merits of the case that Regina Domingo took part in the  violent death of the deceased Doroteb  Cleofas, and  to consider her guilty  as a coprincipal  or even as an accomplice in the crime under prosecution, merely from the testimony of the lieutenant of police, Dominador Aquino, to the effect that Regina Domingo revealed to him the fact that, in obedience to the orders; of her father, Macario Domingo, she had sent for and invited Doroteo Cleofas to the zaguan of her house on the night in question, and when he entered the place she had to strike him with a bolo  she had ready, and  that as soon as  the assaulted man Cleofas fell to the ground, her father, who was on watch, and  a brother of his, came down out of  the house, immediately set upon the  victim and  finally killed him.   Such testimony as to statements attributed to  the defendant Regina Domingo is insufficient in itself alone to determine her guilt, as it is not supported nor corroborated by any other evidence, or even by any circumstantial fact tending to produce in the mind full conviction of her guilt.

She absolutely  denies the charge and the acts attributed to her.  The circumstance, that she was  the sweetheart of the deceased, or that the latter was courting  her,  is not a sufficient reason to hpld her to be a coprincipal  in the killing of the deceased.  Pedro Cabigting, who went to the scene of the crime when it  had just  been committed  and  testified that he saw the persons then around  the assaulted party, who was apparently dying or dead, has not revealed whether the defendant Regina  Domingo  was  also present there. Besides the  testimony  of the lieutenant of police,  Aquino, who declared that Regina made to him the statements before related, the record  furnishes no  other fact,  even circumstantial,  in corroboration of such statements,  denied abso- lutely by the  defendant, to  whom they were attributed. Neither her father,  when alive, nor the other defendant, Pedro Mauricio, made  the slightest mention of her having taken part in the crime, and had she known of its perpetration, on the  supposition that she was in her father's house that night as well as when they buried the victim's body in an adjoining wood,  such facts could not serve as  grounds for her incrimination  or responsibility,  for even  on that            hypothesis she was not obliged to report the occurrence to the authorities, nor was she responsible for her silence, on account of the kinship between  herself and the  principal alleged perpetrator of the crime.   (Art. 16, Penal Code.)
   
  In view of the fact that Celestino Ramirez denies the charge absolutely, as well jis any participation  in the criminal act, the mere testimony of the curandero, Pedro Cabig,- ting, is not sufficient evidence whereupon to find him guilty as a Joprincipal or even  as  an accomplice, for the reason that the testimony of this sole witness for the prosecution does  not appear in the record to be corroborated by  any other evidence, even, circumstantial, of the guilt  of  the defendant Ramirez,  against whom,  moreover,  there is no other incriminating evidence, even from the policemen who searched for him to arrest him.
 
  Were it permissible for us to take up the matter of the responsibility of Macario Domingo and Pedro Mauricio, we might perhaps  be able to show how the testimony of the policemen who arrested them would be admissible and effective against them; but with respect to the defendants Regina and Ramirez, especially the former, it is neither proper nor just to admit such  testimony  as  proof, for the reasons before stated.
 
  Section 57 of General Orders,  No. 58, prescribes that a defendant in a criminal action shall be presumed to be innocent until the contrary is proved, and in case  of reasonable doubt that his guilt is satisfactorily shown he shall be entitled to an acquittal. This legal precept, perfectly rational and just, being applied in behalf of the defendants, Regina Domingo and Celestino Ramirez,  they must be acquitted, for the want of satisfactory and conclusive proof of their guilt.

In view of the nature of this finding and of the fact that of the two defendants found guilty in  the judgment  appealed from, one of them, Pedro Mauricio, acquiesced in his sentence and is serving it out at the present time, and the other has died, it would be  futile to discuss whether  the crime under prosecution should be classified as murder or as simple homicide and whether any circumstance qualifying the crime attended the commission thereof.
   
  For the foregoing reasons we are of opinion that the judgment appealed from should be reversed with  reference- toi the defendants Regina Domingo and Celestino Ramirez, and they should be and are hereby acquitted, with two-fourths of the costs of both instances de oficio,  and they shall immediately  be released through  an order to  the  Director of Prisons, unless held on some other charge.  So ordered.
 
Arellano, C.  J., Mapa,  Johnson, Carson, and Trent, JJ., concur.