The accused in this case  was charged with the crime of tentativa de violacion (attempted rape), and convicted in the court below of  the  crime of abusos deshonestos (abuse of chastity).

The story of the complaining witness and her sister, on which alone the prosecution relies  and on which the trial judge based his judgment of conviction, is substantially; as  follows: That Bonifacia  Lomio,  a  married woman,  was asleep in the single sleeping room in her house, together with her sister Marcelina, a grown Woman, and her infant children; that  Bonifacia suddenly awoke to find  herself in the arms of the accused, who had gained entrance to the house by climbing  through a  window; that while taking indecent liberties with  her  person,  he endeavored to force her; that in the struggle which ensued, the assaulted woman cried aloud for aid, and awakened her sister  Marcelina, who lit the lamp and the struggle still continuing, went to the assistance of her sister, and helped her to free herself from her assailant;  that Marcelina, at the request  of her sister,  then went for the aid of the police; and  that when she  returned  with a policeman, they  found the accused still  seated in the room begging the forgiveness of Bonifacia for what he had done.

The  accused admitted that he had climbed into the house of the complaining  witness through a window and was found  in the sleeping room at the time indicated by her; but  insisted that he had done so  at the invitation  of her unmarried sister, Marcelina, with whom at that time and for some months prior thereto he had had amorous relations; that on that  occasion,  as  on other  similar occasions, he spent some time with Marcelina;  that, unfortunately for him, the noise of their conversation awakened the older sister,  who made an  outcry and began abusing the younger sister  for  her misconduct; that  a dispute arose between himself and Bonifacia, who ordered her younger sister to go out and fetch the police; that feeling himself guiltless of any crime, other  than that of his clandestine relations with the  younger sister, he made no  attempt  to escape; that when the policeman arrived.he was  arrested on the false complaint of the older sister that he had  attempted to rape her.

Both the sisters denied any acquaintance with the accused, and  only under strict cross-examination  did they  reluctantly admit  that he lived  in the same village with them,  in the house  just opposite  their  own, where they kept a small store, and that they knew him by sight; though they insisted that they never had spoken  to him before the night in question.

The accused called several witnesses  who testified to the friendly  relations between the younger sister and himself for several months prior to the night in question, and one of these witnesses corroborated his testimony as to his entry at night, through the window of the house where the sisters, lived, on more than one occasion  prior to  his arrest.  The testimony of these witnesses, however, is not very satisfactory, and were the story told by the  sisters  a  consistent and satisfactory one,  would not be sufficient to overcome their testimony.

We are unable to accept as true their story that this accused, uninvited, entered their house as they  allege, with the purpose and intent of forcibly violating one of the two sisters, whom  he must have  known were sleeping in  the same room, in the absence of proof that, aflame with passion and utterly regardless of  consequences, he had resolved to accomplish his purpose despite the resistance of his victim, and ready if necessary to use such violence as he must have known  his  act  would require in  order to dispose of  the assistance one sister would render the other, and which the outcries of both the sisters, when thus attacked, would inevitably bring from neighboring cottages.  As  he well knew,  the  slightest outcry from  the  nipa cottage where the incident occurred would  have aroused  the  neighbors all around, and it would indeed have been a bold  and reckless criminal who  would deliberately enter  it,  and  attempt by force to violate or wickedly assault one of two grown women sleeping in the same apartment, even if he were prepared to silence them by the use of such threats and violence as would be necessary to keep them quiet  under such circumstances.

There is  nothing whatever in  the story  of the sisters which even  suggests that this was the kind of  a man who made the alleged assault upon their house;  on the contrary, his conduct  throughout the  whole  incident  is wholly inconsistent with the idea that he came there prepared for any such desperate deed as he must have known to have been involved in an  attempt forcibly to violate either one of the women.

We think his story of what occurred by far  the more plausible one,  accounting for its one inconsistency - the bringing of the policeman by the younger sister despite the fact the accused, as he alleges, had come to the house at her invitation - by treating it as but another instance where a woman has deserted and turned upon her lover, rather than face the consequences of an honest confession of her illicit relations with him.

Giving the accused the  benefit of the doubt to which he is entitled, we are forced to conclude that the sisters have not told  the whole truth as  to  what  occurred, and  that whatever did occur which resulted in the calling of the policeman and  the arrest of  the accused, it was not an attempt on  his  part to forcibly violate the complaining witness as charged in the complaint, or to "lewdly offend" her by laying violent and indecent hands upon her (abusos deshonestos) as found by the  trial  judge.

Before dismissing this case we think it proper to direct the attention of the prosecuting officers and the trial court to the vital importance, especially in cases such as this, of producing all the witnesses whose testimony there is sound reason to believe may  be of value in developing the truth of  the matters under  investigation, or  of  satisfactorily accounting  for  the failure to  produce  them, either  by a showing of inability to secure  their presence at the trial, or of known hostility and the fact that it is expected that they will be called for the defense, or the like.  In this case the  policeman who arrested the accused  was  not  called to the stand, nor is there any explanation in the record for the failure of the prosecution  to  produce him - and yet it must have been apparent to the prosecuting officer, as well as to the trial court, that his evidence could  hardly  fail to have been of vital importance in  any attempt to sift out the truth from the story told by the complaining witness and her sister.  If he proved to be an intelligent and observant man, his testimony as  to the conditions existing when he made the arrest, had he been  called to  the witness stand, could hardly have failed to shed a flood of light on the doubt upon which the judgment in this case  turns; and in any event,  the unexplained failure  of the prosecution to  put him on the stand, necessarily weakens the case made  out by the prosecution.

The judgment of conviction and the sentence based thereon must be reversed, and the accused acquitted of the  crime of which he is charged, with the costs of both instances de oficio.

If he is in detention he will be discharged forthwith, and if he is at liberty  on bail his bond will be canceled and his bondsmen exonerated.

Arellano, C. J., Mapa, Moreland, and Trent, JJ.,  concur.