On  the night of August 1, 1909, Pedro  de la  Cruz, a sergeant of Scouts, Felix Soriano, and another man,  afterwards found to be Alejo  Root,  both Scouts, went to the house of the Chinaman, Juan Marquez; the two first named entered the house and inquired for two individuals, mestizos with mustaches who, they said, had  insulted Sergeant Cruz. These two men sought were Primo Avedillo and Cirilo Enriquez and they had been in the said house a few moments before.   The landlord's  daughters,  Elena and Valentina Marquez, told the searchers that Avedillo and Enriquez had already gone, so the said Cruz and Soriano left, accompanied by Alejo Root, who had not entered but remained on the lot, in search of the said mestizos.  When the appellants and the said Root arrived at the sitio of Talon-Talon of the district of Zamboanga, they found, between 11 and 12 o'clock that night, several  individuals who were giving a serenade in front of the house of Eugenio Iturralde,  and one of the soldiers then inquired of his countrymen, there assembled, which of them  had insulted the first sergeant of the company of Scouts, and he was told that none of those present had done so; thereupon, while Pedro de la Cruz stepped back a few steps, the soldier Ale jo Root  came face to face with the mestizo Primo Avedillo, who was then leaning with his arms against the fence of the lot on which the house stood, and immediately gave him a heavy blow on the mouth with his fist.   On account of this assault  Avedillo started to run and Cirilo Enriquez  followed him, dispersing at  the same time the other  parties who were assembled  there for the serenade; the latter, on account of the suddenness of the assault, were unable to observe how it occurred nor what else happened, for three of them, Juan Candido, Tomas Francisco, and Pablo Candido, present during  the disorder, on seeing the blow given to Avedillo, started to run, and Cirilo Enriquez alone stated that, on  running behind  the  deceased, he  saw  the three Scout  soldiers, one  of  them  Sergeant Cruz, catch Avedillo,  and that, while two of them held him fast and struck him, the other stabbed  him to death with a  weapon with  which  he  was  provided.  In  fact, according to the examination and autopsy made on the following day by Dr. J. B. Clayton, of the  military medical  corps, the body of the deceased bore three wounds, one near the eighth rib, which slightly injured the stomach and severed a few  veins, including a  large one  which  could not  be exactly determined on account of  the coagulation  of blood; another,  three inches and  a half deep, near the fifth rib, which pierced the pericardium and the left ventricle of the heart and must have caused instant  death; and the third wound, a bruise, on the upper lip, produced by a blow with a clenched fist.   The two wounds first described were  inflicted with a dagger or like weapon

For the foregoing reasons, after the preliminary examination by the justice of the peace court, the assistant fiscal of the Moro Province, on the 28th of September of the same year, filed an information with the Court of First Instance of Zamboanga, charging Pedro  de la Cruz, Felix Soriano, and  Alejo Root with the crime of murder, and, this cause having been instituted, the court, upon the evidence adduced at trial, rendered judgment on November 12 following, convicting the accused of the crime of homicide and sentenced them to the penalty of seventeen years and four months of reclusion temporal, to pay jointly and severally an indemnity of P1,000 to the heirs of the deceased, to the corresponding accessory penalties, and to the payment of the costs.  From this  judgment Pedro de la Cruz and Felix Soriano alone appealed.

The facts above related, which were duly proved in  the present cause, constitute the crime of murder, provided  for and  punished by article 403 of the Penal  Code,  inasmuch as the deceased,  Primo  Avedillo,  died a violent death in consequence of two serious wounds, one of them necessarily fatal, at the hands of one of his three assailants,  while he was stretched out  on the ground and  was being maltreated and held fast by the other two, who prevented him from moving, which situation was taken advantage of by the  third assailant, who with  a  dagger or  like  pointed weapon assaulted the victim and inflected upon him the said wounds,  one in the stomach and the other in the breast. The  second  wound  penetrated the pericardium and  a ventricle of  the heart.  At the time of  the assault the said Avedillo  was unsuccessful in defending himself, or even so much as freeing himself and escaping from  his three assailants, for he had been running from the moment he received the blow in the mouth delivered by his slayer, and when the other two overtook him they held him fast and stretched  him out on  the ground and did not leave him until he died from the wounds; wherefore, it is undeniable that, in the killing of the unfortunate victim Avedillo, there entered the specific and qualifying circumstance of treachery, which determines the  crime of  murder, because the assailants employed  ways and means conducive directly to assure the consummation of the common purpose of depriving the deceased  of  his life, without any risk whatever to themselves, such  as could have  arisen from any  defense which  the assaulted  party might have made, but who was then completely helpless  and, since the beginning when he was struck by the accused who afterwards stabbed him with a dagger, had not shown the  slightest intention nor made any action whatever to resist or to defend himself from the unjust and uncalled for assault.

The defendants,  Pedro de  la  Cruz and  Felix Soriano, pleaded "not guilty" and denied the charge; but notwithstanding  their exculpatory allegations,  absolutely  devoid of proof,  it  was shown  that the said Cruz and Soriano tenaciously pursued  the deceased, Primo Avedillo, and, as soon as they overtook him, held him fast, illtreated  him and threw him to the ground, at which moment, and while still  held  by  them, the other  soldier,  Alejo Root,  arrived and  with  the dagger which he carried,  leaped upon the deceased and wounded him in the breast and in the stomach; all of which  was witnessed by  Cirilo Enriquez,  who  was also  running behind the deceased, Avedillo,  and although the other witnesses, Juan  Candido,  Pablo Candido,  and Tomas  Francisco, did not  see the assault,  because they ran away in  view of the fact that the  sergeant and the two soldiers who went with him were maltreating everybody, yet they saw the appellants pursue Avedillo, who was afterwards killed.   Besides these facts, it is established that the said appellants, Cruz and Soriano, were  those who, with Alejo Root, appeared at the place where the deceased and others were playing musical instruments, illtreated them and then pursued them, only overtaking Primo Avedillo, and that on this occasion they were  looking for a mestizo with a mustache who, they said, had  insulted the  first sergeant, their purpose  being undoubtedly to punish the  former or avenge the latter.

Although  Alejo Root  did  not  appeal from  the judgment rendered in  this cause, in view of the fact that, in incriminating his  codefendants, Cruz and Soriano,  he  at the same time confessed to his having attacked the deceased and wounded him  with a dagger, such statements undoubtedly tend to prove that his said two codef endants actually pursued the deceased,  Avedillo, and  afterwards  overtook him,  and that while they held him fast, stretched out on the ground as he was, Root leaped upon the assaulted man and wounded him  with a dagger; from  all  of  which  testimony  it is concluded that the three  defendants acted  together in common accord  wilih unity  of purpose  and action in order to attack the deceased.

It is true  that it was Alejo Root  alone who inflicted the two wounds upon the deceased, but  had  the latter not been held fast on the ground by the defendants, Pedro de la Cruz and Felix Soriano, who were the first to overtake and hold him, perhaps Alejo  Root would not have succeeded in getting at him, nor in assaulting him, as described, inasmuch as he was following his codefendants.

It is to be noted that, as antecedents of  the criminal act, the three defendants went together in their  quest for the party who they claimed  had insulted the  first sergeant of their  company, and thus they went to  the house of Juan Marquez and, as they did not find the said party there, they continued their search with intentions which doubtless were neither peaceable nor lawful, and then together approached several  persons who  were  playing musical instruments, whom, without any cause whatever, they illtreated, on which occasion  Root  struck the deceased, Avedillo, a blow on the mouth, and the latter, as well as the others, the musicians, on running away without defending themselves,  were pursued  by the appellants determinedly until they overtook Avedillo and held him fast and laid him  out on the ground; in this situation Alejo Root, who came immediately behind his two coaccused,  took part in  the assault.  The two  appellants, therefore,  are unquestionably coperpetrators of the murder, as they took a direct part in the commission of the crime which was consummated by their  participation, inasmuch as, had they not  caught, held, and  stretched out on the ground the deceased, Primo Avedillo, perhaps the latter might have  been able to escape out  of the  reach of  the said Root, who apparently was the only one of the aggressors who was armed.

No extenuating nor aggravating  circumstance attended the perpetration  of the crime, wherefore  the penalty  for murder should be imposed upon them it  its medium degree.

Wherefore, it is  our opinion that, with  a reversal of  the judgment appealed from, Pedro  de  la Cruz and Felix  Soriano, as coauthors  of the crime  of murder,  should be sentenced, each of them, to the penalty of cadena perpetua, to the accessory penalties 2  and  3 prescribed by article 54 of the Penal Code, to pay an indemnity of P1,000, jointly and severally with  Alejo Root, to the heirs of the deceased, and, each of them, a third part of the costs of first  instance and one-half of those of this second instance.  So ordered.

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