due determination that she is eligible for parole, unless she is being held for some other lawful cause. Costs de oficio. SO ORDERED. Puno, Carpio, Corona, Carpio-Morales, Callejo, Sr., Azcuna and Tinga, JJ., concur. Davide, Jr., C.J., Sandoval-Gutierrez, and Austria-Martinez, JJ., join Justice Santiago in her dissent. Vitug and Quisumbing JJ., in the result. Ynares-Santiago J., see dissenting opinion. DISSENTING OPINION YNARES-SANTIAGO, J.: In convicting Marivic Genosa of the crime of parricide, our esteemed colleague Mr. Justice Artemio V. Panganiban found that there was no factual basis to conclude that Marivic was suffering from "Battered Woman Syndrome" (BWS) at the time she took the life of her husband. With due respect, I register my dissent. The novel theory of "Battered Woman Syndrome" is recognized in foreign jurisprudence as a form of self-defense. It operates upon the premise that a woman who has been cyclically abused and controlled over a period of time develops a fearful state of mind. Living in constant danger of harm or death, she knows that future beatings are almost certain to occur and will escalate over time. Her intimate knowledge of the violent nature of her batterer makes her alert to when a particular attack is forthcoming, and when it will seriously threaten her survival. Trapped in a cycle of violence and constant fear, it is not unlikely that she would succumb to her helplessness and fail to perceive possible solutions to the problem other than to injure or kill her batterer. She is seized by fear of an existing or impending lethal aggression and thus would have no opportunity beforehand to deliberate on her acts and to choose a less fatal means of eliminating her sufferings.1 As exhaustively discussed in the ponencia, the "Battered Woman Syndrome" has three phases, to wit: (1) the tension-building phase, where minor batterings in the form of verbal or slight physical abuse occurs. Here, the woman tries to pacify the batterer through a show of kind, nurturing behavior; or by simply staying out of his way; (2) the acute battering incident phase which is characterized by brutality, destructiveness and sometimes, death. The battered woman usually realizes that she cannot reason with him and that resistance would only exacerbate her condition; and (3) the tranquil period, where the couple experience a compound relief and the batterer may show a tender and nurturing behavior towards his partner. Contrary to the findings in the ponencia, the defense was able to establish the occurrence on more than one occasion of the "tension-building phase" of the cycle. The various testimonies of appellant's witnesses clearly reveal that she knew exactly when she would once again be subjected to acute battery. Her cousin, Ecel Arano, testified that she often asked the latter to sleep in her house as she was afraid every time her husband came home drunk. Clearly, whenever appellant requested for Arano's company, she was experiencing a tension-building phase. The barangay captain, Panfilo Tero, also testified that appellant sought his help two months before she killed her husband, again demonstrating that she was in the tension-building phase and was attempting to prevent another incident of acute battery. Appellant presented evidence to prove that the tension-building phase would occur whenever her husband would go out looking for other women, would lose at cockfights