1.

Republic of the Philippines

SUPREME COURT
Manila

THIRD DIVISION

G.R. No. 169364               September 18, 2009

PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, Petitioner,

vs.
EVANGELINE SITON y SACIL and KRYSTEL KATE SAGARANO y MEFANIA, Respondents.

DECISION

YNARES-SANTIAGO, J.:

If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven
composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of Heaven and
Earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.

– Martin Luther King, Jr.

Assailed in this petition for review on certiorari is the July 29, 2005 Order 1 of Branch 11, Davao City Regional Trial
Court in Special Civil Case No. 30-500-2004 granting respondents’ Petition for Certiorari and declaring paragraph 2 of
Article 202 of the Revised Penal Code unconstitutional.

Respondents Evangeline Siton and Krystel Kate Sagarano were charged with vagrancy pursuant to Article 202 (2) of
the Revised Penal Code in two separate Informations dated November 18, 2003, docketed as Criminal Case Nos.
115,716-C-2003 and 115,717-C-2003 and raffled to Branch 3 of the Municipal Trial Court in Cities, Davao City. The
Informations, read:

That on or about November 14, 2003, in the City of Davao, Philippines, and within the jurisdiction of this Honorable
Court, the above-mentioned accused, willfully, unlawfully and feloniously wandered and loitered around San Pedro
and Legaspi Streets, this City, without any visible means to support herself nor lawful and justifiable purpose. 2

Article 202 of the Revised Penal Code provides:

Art. 202. Vagrants and prostitutes; penalty. — The following are vagrants:

1. Any person having no apparent means of subsistence, who has the physical ability to work and who
neglects to apply himself or herself to some lawful calling;

2. Any person found loitering about public or semi-public buildings or places or tramping or wandering about
the country or the streets without visible means of support;

3. Any idle or dissolute person who lodges in houses of ill fame; ruffians or pimps and those who habitually
associate with prostitutes;
 4. Any person who, not being included in the provisions of other articles of this Code, shall be found loitering
in any inhabited or uninhabited place belonging to another without any lawful or justifiable purpose;

5. Prostitutes.

For the purposes of this article, women who, for money or profit, habitually indulge in sexual intercourse or lascivious
conduct, are deemed to be prostitutes.

Any person found guilty of any of the offenses covered by this articles shall be punished by arresto menor or a fine
not exceeding 200 pesos, and in case of recidivism, by arresto mayor in its medium period to prision correccional in
its minimum period or a fine ranging from 200 to 2,000 pesos, or both, in the discretion of the court.

Instead of submitting their counter-affidavits as directed, respondents filed separate Motions to Quash 3 on the ground
that Article 202 (2) is unconstitutional for being vague and overbroad.

In an Order4 dated April 28, 2004, the municipal trial court denied the motions and directed respondents anew to file
their respective counter-affidavits. The municipal trial court also declared that the law on vagrancy was enacted
pursuant to the State’s police power and justified by the Latin maxim "salus populi est suprem(a) lex," which calls for
the subordination of individual benefit to the interest of the greater number, thus:

Our law on vagrancy was enacted pursuant to the police power of the State. An authority on police power, Professor
Freund describes laconically police power "as the power of promoting public welfare by restraining and regulating the
use of liberty and property." (Citations omitted). In fact the person’s acts and acquisitions are hemmed in by the police
power of the state. The justification found in the Latin maxim, salus populi est supreme (sic) lex" (the god of the
people is the Supreme Law). This calls for the subordination of individual benefit to the interests of the greater
number.In the case at bar the affidavit of the arresting police officer, SPO1 JAY PLAZA with Annex "A" lucidly shows
that there was a prior surveillance conducted in view of the reports that vagrants and prostitutes proliferate in the
place where the two accused (among other women) were wandering and in the wee hours of night and soliciting male
customer. Thus, on that basis the prosecution should be given a leeway to prove its case. Thus, in the interest of
substantial justice, both prosecution and defense must be given their day in Court: the prosecution proof of the crime,
and the author thereof; the defense, to show that the acts of the accused in the indictment can’t be categorized as a
crime.5

The municipal trial court also noted that in the affidavit of the arresting police officer, SPO1 Jay Plaza, it was stated
that there was a prior surveillance conducted on the two accused in an area reported to be frequented by vagrants
and prostitutes who solicited sexual favors. Hence, the prosecution should be given the opportunity to prove the
crime, and the defense to rebut the evidence. 1avvphi1

Respondents thus filed an original petition for certiorari and prohibition with the Regional Trial Court of Davao
City,6 directly challenging the constitutionality of the anti-vagrancy law, claiming that the definition of the crime of
vagrancy under Article 202 (2), apart from being vague, results as well in an arbitrary identification of violators, since
the definition of the crime includes in its coverage persons who are otherwise performing ordinary peaceful acts. They
likewise claimed that Article 202 (2) violated the equal protection clause under the Constitution because it
discriminates against the poor and unemployed, thus permitting an arbitrary and unreasonable classification.

The State, through the Office of the Solicitor General, argued that pursuant to the Court’s ruling in Estrada v.
Sandiganbayan,7 the overbreadth and vagueness doctrines apply only to free speech cases and not to penal statutes.
It also asserted that Article 202 (2) must be presumed valid and constitutional, since the respondents failed to
overcome this presumption.
On July 29, 2005, the Regional Trial Court issued the assailed Order granting the petition, the dispositive portion of
which reads:

WHEREFORE, PRESCINDING FROM THE FOREGOING, the instant Petition is hereby GRANTED. Paragraph 2 of
Article 202 of the Revised Penal Code is hereby declared unconstitutional and the Order of the court a quo, dated
April 28, 2004, denying the petitioners’ Motion to Quash is set aside and the said court is ordered to dismiss the
subject criminal cases against the petitioners pending before it.

SO ORDERED.8

In declaring Article 202 (2) unconstitutional, the trial court opined that the law is vague and it violated the equal
protection clause. It held that the "void for vagueness" doctrine is equally applicable in testing the validity of penal
statutes. Citing Papachristou v. City of Jacksonville,9 where an anti vagrancy ordinance was struck down as
unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States, the trial court ruled:

The U.S. Supreme Court’s justifications for striking down the Jacksonville Vagrancy Ordinance are equally applicable
to paragraph 2 of Article 202 of the Revised Penal Code.

Indeed, to authorize a police officer to arrest a person for being "found loitering about public or semi-public buildings
or places or tramping or wandering about the country or the streets without visible means of support" offers too wide a
latitude for arbitrary determinations as to who should be arrested and who should not.

Loitering about and wandering have become national pastimes particularly in these times of recession when there are
many who are "without visible means of support" not by reason of choice but by force of circumstance as borne out by
the high unemployment rate in the entire country.

To authorize law enforcement authorities to arrest someone for nearly no other reason than the fact that he cannot
find gainful employment would indeed be adding insult to injury. 10

On its pronouncement that Article 202 (2) violated the equal protection clause of the Constitution, the trial court
declared:

The application of the Anti-Vagrancy Law, crafted in the 1930s, to our situation at present runs afoul of the equal
protection clause of the constitution as it offers no reasonable classification between those covered by the law and
those who are not.

Class legislation is such legislation which denies rights to one which are accorded to others, or inflicts upon one
individual a more severe penalty than is imposed upon another in like case offending.

Applying this to the case at bar, since the definition of Vagrancy under Article 202 of the Revised Penal Code offers
no guidelines or any other reasonable indicators to differentiate those who have no visible means of support by force
of circumstance and those who choose to loiter about and bum around, who are the proper subjects of vagrancy
legislation, it cannot pass a judicial scrutiny of its constitutionality. 11

Hence, this petition for review on certiorari raising the sole issue of:

WHETHER THE REGIONAL TRIAL COURT COMMITTED A REVERSIBLE ERROR IN DECLARING

UNCONSTITUTIONAL ARTICLE 202 (2) OF THE REVISED PENAL CODE12

Petitioner argues that every statute is presumed valid and all reasonable doubts should be resolved in favor of its
constitutionality; that, citing Romualdez v. Sandiganbayan,13 the overbreadth and vagueness doctrines have special
application to free-speech cases only and are not appropriate for testing the validity of penal statutes; that
respondents failed to overcome the presumed validity of the statute, failing to prove that it was vague under the
standards set out by the Courts; and that the State may regulate individual conduct for the promotion of public welfare
in the exercise of its police power.

On the other hand, respondents argue against the limited application of the overbreadth and vagueness doctrines.
They insist that Article 202 (2) on its face violates the constitutionally-guaranteed rights to due process and the equal
protection of the laws; that the due process vagueness standard, as distinguished from the free speech vagueness
doctrine, is adequate to declare Article 202 (2) unconstitutional and void on its face; and that the presumption of
constitutionality was adequately overthrown.

The Court finds for petitioner.

The power to define crimes and prescribe their corresponding penalties is legislative in nature and inherent in the
sovereign power of the state to maintain social order as an aspect of police power. The legislature may even forbid
and penalize acts formerly considered innocent and lawful provided that no constitutional rights have been
abridged.14 However, in exercising its power to declare what acts constitute a crime, the legislature must inform the
citizen with reasonable precision what acts it intends to prohibit so that he may have a certain understandable rule of
conduct and know what acts it is his duty to avoid. 15 This requirement has come to be known as the void-for-
vagueness doctrine which states that "a statute which either forbids or requires the doing of an act in terms so
vague that men of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application, violates
the first essential of due process of law."16

In Spouses Romualdez v. COMELEC,17 the Court recognized the application of the void-for-vagueness doctrine to
criminal statutes in appropriate cases. The Court therein held:

At the outset, we declare that under these terms, the opinions of the dissent which seek to bring to the fore the
purported ambiguities of a long list of provisions in Republic Act No. 8189 can be deemed as a facial challenge. An
appropriate "as applied" challenge in the instant Petition should be limited only to Section 45 (j) in relation to Sections
10 (g) and (j) of Republic Act No. 8189 – the provisions upon which petitioners are charged. An expanded
examination of the law covering provisions which are alien to petitioners’ case would be antagonistic to the rudiment
that for judicial review to be exercised, there must be an existing case or controversy that is appropriate or ripe for
determination, and not conjectural or anticipatory. 18

The first statute punishing vagrancy – Act No. 519 – was modeled after American vagrancy statutes and passed by
the Philippine Commission in 1902. The Penal Code of Spain of 1870 which was in force in this country up to
December 31, 1931 did not contain a provision on vagrancy. 19 While historically an Anglo-American concept of crime
prevention, the law on vagrancy was included by the Philippine legislature as a permanent feature of the Revised
Penal Code in Article 202 thereof which, to repeat, provides:

ART. 202. Vagrants and prostitutes; penalty. – The following are vagrants:

1. Any person having no apparent means of subsistence, who has the physical ability to work and who
neglects to apply himself or herself to some lawful calling;

2. Any person found loitering about public or semi-public buildings or places, or tramping or wandering about
the country or the streets without visible means of support;

3. Any idle or dissolute person who lodges in houses of ill-fame; ruffians or pimps and those who habitually
associate with prostitutes;
 4. Any person who, not being included in the provisions of other articles of this Code, shall be found loitering
in any inhabited or uninhabited place belonging to another without any lawful or justifiable purpose;

5. Prostitutes.

For the purposes of this article, women who, for money or profit, habitually indulge in sexual intercourse or lascivious
conduct, are deemed to be prostitutes.

Any person found guilty of any of the offenses covered by this article shall be punished by arresto menor or a fine not
exceeding 200 pesos, and in case of recidivism, by arresto mayor in its medium period to prision correccional in its
minimum period or a fine ranging from 200 to 2,000 pesos, or both, in the discretion of the court.

In the instant case, the assailed provision is paragraph (2), which defines a vagrant as any person found loitering
about public or semi-public buildings or places, or tramping or wandering about the country or the streets without
visible means of support. This provision was based on the second clause of Section 1 of Act No. 519 which defined
"vagrant" as "every person found loitering about saloons or dramshops or gambling houses, or tramping or straying
through the country without visible means of support." The second clause was essentially retained with the
modification that the places under which the offense might be committed is now expressed in general terms – public
or semi-public places.

The Regional Trial Court, in asserting the unconstitutionality of Article 202 (2), take support mainly from the U.S.
Supreme Court’s opinion in the Papachristou v. City of Jacksonville20 case, which in essence declares:

Living under a rule of law entails various suppositions, one of which is that "[all persons] are entitled to be informed as
to what the State commands or forbids." Lanzetta v. New Jersey, 306 U. S. 451, 306 U. S. 453.

Lanzetta is one of a well recognized group of cases insisting that the law give fair notice of the offending conduct. See
Connally v. General Construction Co., 269 U. S. 385, 269 U. S. 391; Cline v. Frink Dairy Co., 274 U. S. 445; United
States v. Cohen Grocery Co., 255 U. S. 81. In the field of regulatory statutes governing business activities, where the
acts limited are in a narrow category, greater leeway is allowed. Boyce Motor Lines, Inc. v. United States, 342 U. S.
337; United States v. National Dairy Products Corp., 372 U. S. 29; United States v. Petrillo, 332 U. S. 1.

The poor among us, the minorities, the average householder, are not in business and not alerted to the regulatory
schemes of vagrancy laws; and we assume they would have no understanding of their meaning and impact if they
read them. Nor are they protected from being caught in the vagrancy net by the necessity of having a specific intent to
commit an unlawful act. See Screws v. United States, 325 U. S. 91; Boyce Motor Lines, Inc. v. United States, supra.

The Jacksonville ordinance makes criminal activities which, by modern standards, are normally innocent.
"Nightwalking" is one. Florida construes the ordinance not to make criminal one night's wandering, Johnson v. State,
202 So.2d at 855, only the "habitual" wanderer or, as the ordinance describes it, "common night walkers." We know,
however, from experience that sleepless people often walk at night, perhaps hopeful that sleep-inducing relaxation
will result.

Luis Munoz-Marin, former Governor of Puerto Rico, commented once that "loafing" was a national virtue in his
Commonwealth, and that it should be encouraged. It is, however, a crime in Jacksonville.

xxxx

Persons "wandering or strolling" from place to place have been extolled by Walt Whitman and Vachel Lindsay. The
qualification "without any lawful purpose or object" may be a trap for innocent acts. Persons "neglecting all lawful
business and habitually spending their time by frequenting . . . places where alcoholic beverages are sold or served"
would literally embrace many members of golf clubs and city clubs.

Walkers and strollers and wanderers may be going to or coming from a burglary. Loafers or loiterers may be "casing"
a place for a holdup. Letting one's wife support him is an intra-family matter, and normally of no concern to the police.
Yet it may, of course, be the setting for numerous crimes.

The difficulty is that these activities are historically part of the amenities of life as we have known them. They are not
mentioned in the Constitution or in the Bill of Rights. These unwritten amenities have been, in part, responsible for
giving our people the feeling of independence and self-confidence, the feeling of creativity. These amenities have
dignified the right of dissent, and have honored the right to be nonconformists and the right to defy submissiveness.
They have encouraged lives of high spirits, rather than hushed, suffocating silence.

xxxx

Where the list of crimes is so all-inclusive and generalized as the one in this ordinance, those convicted may be
punished for no more than vindicating affronts to police authority:

"The common ground which brings such a motley assortment of human troubles before the magistrates in vagrancy-
type proceedings is the procedural laxity which permits 'conviction' for almost any kind of conduct and the existence
of the House of Correction as an easy and convenient dumping-ground for problems that appear to have no other
immediate solution." Foote, Vagrancy-Type Law and Its Administration, 104 U.Pa.L.Rev. 603, 631.

xxxx

Another aspect of the ordinance's vagueness appears when we focus not on the lack of notice given a potential
offender, but on the effect of the unfettered discretion it places in the hands of the Jacksonville police. Caleb Foote,
an early student of this subject, has called the vagrancy-type law as offering "punishment by analogy." Such crimes,
though long common in Russia, are not compatible with our constitutional system.

xxxx

A presumption that people who might walk or loaf or loiter or stroll or frequent houses where liquor is sold, or who are
supported by their wives or who look suspicious to the police are to become future criminals is too precarious for a
rule of law. The implicit presumption in these generalized vagrancy standards -- that crime is being nipped in the bud
-- is too extravagant to deserve extended treatment. Of course, vagrancy statutes are useful to the police. Of course,
they are nets making easy the roundup of so-called undesirables. But the rule of law implies equality and justice in its
application. Vagrancy laws of the Jacksonville type teach that the scales of justice are so tipped that even-handed
administration of the law is not possible. The rule of law, evenly applied to minorities as well as majorities, to the poor
as well as the rich, is the great mucilage that holds society together. 21

The underlying principles in Papachristou are that: 1) the assailed Jacksonville ordinance "fails to give a person of
ordinary intelligence fair notice that his contemplated conduct is forbidden by the statute;" and 2) it encourages or
promotes opportunities for the application of discriminatory law enforcement.

The said underlying principle in Papachristou that the Jacksonville ordinance, or Article 202 (2) in this case, fails to
give fair notice of what constitutes forbidden conduct, finds no application here because under our legal system,
ignorance of the law excuses no one from compliance therewith. 22 This principle is of Spanish origin, and we adopted
it to govern and limit legal conduct in this jurisdiction. Under American law, ignorance of the law is merely a traditional
rule that admits of exceptions.23
Moreover, the Jacksonville ordinance was declared unconstitutional on account of specific provisions thereof, which
are not found in Article 202 (2). The ordinance (Jacksonville Ordinance Code § 257) provided, as follows:

Rogues and vagabonds, or dissolute persons who go about begging; common gamblers, persons who use juggling or
unlawful games or plays, common drunkards, common night walkers, thieves, pilferers or pickpockets, traders in
stolen property, lewd, wanton and lascivious persons, keepers of gambling places, common railers and brawlers,
persons wandering or strolling around from place to place without any lawful purpose or object, habitual loafers,
disorderly persons, persons neglecting all lawful business and habitually spending their time by frequenting houses of
ill fame, gaming houses, or places where alcoholic beverages are sold or served, persons able to work but habitually
living upon the earnings of their wives or minor children shall be deemed vagrants and, upon conviction in the
Municipal Court shall be punished as provided for Class D offenses.

Thus, the U.S. Supreme Court in Jacksonville declared the ordinance unconstitutional, because such activities or
habits as nightwalking, wandering or strolling around without any lawful purpose or object, habitual loafing, habitual
spending of time at places where alcoholic beverages are sold or served, and living upon the earnings of wives or
minor children, which are otherwise common and normal, were declared illegal. But these are specific acts or
activities not found in Article 202 (2). The closest to Article 202 (2) – "any person found loitering about public or
semi-public buildings or places, or tramping or wandering about the country or the streets without visible means of
support" – from the Jacksonville ordinance, would be "persons wandering or strolling around from place to place
without any lawful purpose or object." But these two acts are still not the same: Article 202 (2) is qualified by "without
visible means of support" while the Jacksonville ordinance prohibits wandering or strolling "without any lawful purpose
or object," which was held by the U.S. Supreme Court to constitute a "trap for innocent acts."

Under the Constitution, the people are guaranteed the right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects
against unreasonable searches and seizures of whatever nature and for any purpose, and no search warrant or
warrant of arrest shall issue except upon probable cause to be determined personally by the judge after examination
under oath or affirmation of the complainant and the witnesses he may produce, and particularly describing the place
to be searched and the persons or things to be seized. 24 Thus, as with any other act or offense, the requirement
of probable cause provides an acceptable limit on police or executive authority that may otherwise be abused in
relation to the search or arrest of persons found to be violating Article 202 (2). The fear exhibited by the respondents,
echoing Jacksonville, that unfettered discretion is placed in the hands of the police to make an arrest or search, is
therefore assuaged by the constitutional requirement of probable cause, which is one less than certainty or proof, but
more than suspicion or possibility.25

Evidently, the requirement of probable cause cannot be done away with arbitrarily without pain of punishment, for,
absent this requirement, the authorities are necessarily guilty of abuse. The grounds of suspicion are reasonable
when, in the absence of actual belief of the arresting officers, the suspicion that the person to be arrested is probably
guilty of committing the offense, is based on actual facts, i.e., supported by circumstances sufficiently strong in
themselves to create the probable cause of guilt of the person to be arrested. A reasonable suspicion therefore must
be founded on probable cause, coupled with good faith of the peace officers making the arrest. 26

The State cannot in a cavalier fashion intrude into the persons of its citizens as well as into their houses, papers and
effects. The constitutional provision sheathes the private individual with an impenetrable armor against unreasonable
searches and seizures. It protects the privacy and sanctity of the person himself against unlawful arrests and other
forms of restraint, and prevents him from being irreversibly cut off from that domestic security which renders the lives
of the most unhappy in some measure agreeable.27

As applied to the instant case, it appears that the police authorities have been conducting previous surveillance
operations on respondents prior to their arrest. On the surface, this satisfies the probable cause requirement under
our Constitution. For this reason, we are not moved by respondents’ trepidation that Article 202 (2) could have been a
source of police abuse in their case.
Since the Revised Penal Code took effect in 1932, no challenge has ever been made upon the constitutionality of
Article 202 except now. Instead, throughout the years, we have witnessed the streets and parks become dangerous
and unsafe, a haven for beggars, harassing "watch-your-car" boys, petty thieves and robbers, pickpockets, swindlers,
gangs, prostitutes, and individuals performing acts that go beyond decency and morality, if not basic humanity. The
streets and parks have become the training ground for petty offenders who graduate into hardened and battle-scarred
criminals. Everyday, the news is rife with reports of innocent and hardworking people being robbed, swindled,
harassed or mauled – if not killed – by the scourge of the streets. Blue collar workers are robbed straight from
withdrawing hard-earned money from the ATMs (automated teller machines); students are held up for having to use
and thus exhibit publicly their mobile phones; frail and helpless men are mauled by thrill-seeking gangs; innocent
passers-by are stabbed to death by rowdy drunken men walking the streets; fair-looking or pretty women are stalked
and harassed, if not abducted, raped and then killed; robbers, thieves, pickpockets and snatchers case streets and
parks for possible victims; the old are swindled of their life savings by conniving streetsmart bilkers and con artists on
the prowl; beggars endlessly pester and panhandle pedestrians and commuters, posing a health threat and putting
law-abiding drivers and citizens at risk of running them over. All these happen on the streets and in public places, day
or night.

The streets must be protected. Our people should never dread having to ply them each day, or else we can never say
that we have performed our task to our brothers and sisters. We must rid the streets of the scourge of humanity, and
restore order, peace, civility, decency and morality in them.

This is exactly why we have public order laws, to which Article 202 (2) belongs. These laws were crafted
to maintain minimum standards of decency, morality and civility in human society. These laws may be traced
all the way back to ancient times, and today, they have also come to be associated with the struggle to improve the
citizens’ quality of life, which is guaranteed by our Constitution. 28 Civilly, they are covered by the "abuse of rights"
doctrine embodied in the preliminary articles of the Civil Code concerning Human Relations, to the end, in part, that
any person who willfully causes loss or injury to another in a manner that is contrary to morals, good customs or
public policy shall compensate the latter for the damage. 29 This provision is, together with the succeeding articles on
human relations, intended to embody certain basic principles "that are to be observed for the rightful relationship
between human beings and for the stability of the social order." 30

In civil law, for example, the summary remedy of ejectment is intended to prevent criminal disorder and breaches of
the peace and to discourage those who, believing themselves entitled to the possession of the property, resort to
force rather than to some appropriate action in court to assert their claims. 31 Any private person may abate a public
nuisance which is specially injurious to him by removing, or if necessary, by destroying the thing which constitutes the
same, without committing a breach of the peace, or doing unnecessary injury. 32

Criminally, public order laws encompass a whole range of acts – from public indecencies and immoralities, to public
nuisances, to disorderly conduct. The acts punished are made illegal by their offensiveness to society’s basic
sensibilities and their adverse effect on the quality of life of the people of society. For example, the issuance or
making of a bouncing check is deemed a public nuisance, a crime against public order that must be abated. 33 As a
matter of public policy, the failure to turn over the proceeds of the sale of the goods covered by a trust receipt or to
return said goods, if not sold, is a public nuisance to be abated by the imposition of penal sanctions. 34 Thus, public
nuisances must be abated because they have the effect of interfering with the comfortable enjoyment of life or
property by members of a community.

Article 202 (2) does not violate the equal protection clause; neither does it discriminate against the poor and the
unemployed. Offenders of public order laws are punished not for their status, as for being poor or unemployed, but for
conducting themselves under such circumstances as to endanger the public peace or cause alarm and apprehension
in the community. Being poor or unemployed is not a license or a justification to act indecently or to engage in
immoral conduct.
Vagrancy must not be so lightly treated as to be considered constitutionally offensive. It is a public order crime which
punishes persons for conducting themselves, at a certain place and time which orderly society finds unusual, under
such conditions that are repugnant and outrageous to the common standards and norms of decency and morality in a
just, civilized and ordered society, as would engender a justifiable concern for the safety and well-being of members
of the community.

Instead of taking an active position declaring public order laws unconstitutional, the State should train its eye on their
effective implementation, because it is in this area that the Court perceives difficulties. Red light districts abound,
gangs work the streets in the wee hours of the morning, dangerous robbers and thieves ply their trade in the trains
stations, drunken men terrorize law-abiding citizens late at night and urinate on otherwise decent corners of our
streets. Rugby-sniffing individuals crowd our national parks and busy intersections. Prostitutes wait for customers by
the roadside all around the metropolis, some even venture in bars and restaurants. Drug-crazed men loiter around
dark avenues waiting to pounce on helpless citizens. Dangerous groups wander around, casing homes and
establishments for their next hit. The streets must be made safe once more. Though a man’s house is his
castle,35 outside on the streets, the king is fair game.

The dangerous streets must surrender to orderly society.

Finally, we agree with the position of the State that first and foremost, Article 202 (2) should be presumed valid and
constitutional. When confronted with a constitutional question, it is elementary that every court must approach it with
grave care and considerable caution bearing in mind that every statute is presumed valid and every reasonable doubt
should be resolved in favor of its constitutionality. 36 The policy of our courts is to avoid ruling on constitutional
questions and to presume that the acts of the political departments are valid in the absence of a clear and
unmistakable showing to the contrary. To doubt is to sustain, this presumption is based on the doctrine of separation
of powers which enjoins upon each department a becoming respect for the acts of the other departments. The theory
is that as the joint act of Congress and the President of the Philippines, a law has been carefully studied, crafted and
determined to be in accordance with the fundamental law before it was finally enacted. 37

It must not be forgotten that police power is an inherent attribute of sovereignty. It has been defined as the power
vested by the Constitution in the legislature to make, ordain, and establish all manner of wholesome and reasonable
laws, statutes and ordinances, either with penalties or without, not repugnant to the Constitution, as they shall judge
to be for the good and welfare of the commonwealth, and for the subjects of the same. The power is plenary and its
scope is vast and pervasive, reaching and justifying measures for public health, public safety, public morals, and the
general welfare.38 As an obvious police power measure, Article 202 (2) must therefore be viewed in a constitutional
light.

WHEREFORE, the petition is GRANTED. The Decision of Branch 11 of the Regional Trial Court of Davao City in
Special Civil Case No. 30-500-2004 declaring Article 202, paragraph 2 of the Revised Penal Code
UNCONSTITUTIONAL is REVERSED and SET ASIDE.

Let the proceedings in Criminal Cases Nos. 115,716-C-2003 and 115,717-C-2003 thus continue.

No costs.

SO ORDERED.

2.
G.R. No. 166401             October 30, 2006
[Formerly G.R. Nos. 158660-67]

PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, appellee,

vs.
ALFREDO BON, appellant.

DECISION

TINGA, J.:

Two critical issues emerge in this case. The first relates to whether the Court should affirm the conviction of appellant
Alfredo Bon (appellant) for six counts of rape and two counts of attempted rape, the victims being his then-minor
nieces. On that score, we affirm. As a consequence though, we are ultimately impelled to confront a question
much broader in both scope and import. While the Court had previously declined to acknowledge the
constitutional abolition of the death penalty through the 1987 Constitution,1 we now find it necessary to
determine whether the enactment of Republic Act No. 9346 resulted in the statutory interdiction of the death penalty.

The second issue arises as we are compelled to review the maximum term of reclusion temporal in the sentence
imposed on appellant by the Court of Appeals for the two counts of attempted rape. The sentence was prescribed by
the appellate court prior to the enactment of Republic Act No. 9346 which ended the imposition of the death penalty in
the Philippines. The proximate concern as to appellant is whether his penalty for attempted qualified rape, which
under the penal law should be two degrees lower than that of consummated qualified rape, should be computed from
death or reclusion perpetua.

First, the antecedent facts.

I.

Eight (8) Informations2 were filed within the period from 21 August 2000 to 23 February 2001 by the Assistant
Provincial Prosecutor of Gumaca, Quezon against appellant, charging him with the rape of AAA 3 and BBB,4 the
daughters of his older brother. Appellant was accused of raping AAA in Criminal Case Nos. 6899-G, 6902-G, 6906-G,
and 6908-G; while he was accused of raping BBB in Criminal Case Nos. 6689-G, 6903-G, 6905-G, and 6907-G. 5 All
these cases were consolidated for trial. The rapes were alleged to have been committed in several instances over a
span of six (6) years.

Both AAA and BBB testified against appellant, their uncle, and both identified him as the man who had raped them.
During trial, their respective birth certificates and the medical certificates executed by the doctor who physically
examined them were entered as documentary evidence.

AAA testified that she was only six (6) years old when she was first molested in 1994 in the house appellant had
shared with her grandmother.6 She recounted that the incident took place when she and appellant were alone in the
house. Appellant touched her thighs and vagina, removed her clothes and inserted his penis into her vagina.
Appellant threatened that she and her parents would be killed should she disclose the incident to anyone. She
thereafter stopped sleeping in the house of her grandmother. It was only three (3) years after, in 1997, that she slept
in the said house, yet again she was sexually abused by appellant. She was then nine (9) years old. 7

AAA recounted that at age eleven (11) in 1999, she was raped by appellant for the third time, again at the house of
her grandmother.8 The following year, when she was twelve (12), she was abused for the fourth time by appellant.
This time, she was raped in an outdoor clearing9 after having been invited there by appellant to get some vegetables.
While at the clearing, appellant forced her to lie down on a grassy spot and tried to insert his penis in her vagina. As
she cried in pain, appellant allegedly stopped. 10

It was only on 12 June 2000 that she decided to reveal to her mother, CCC, 11 the brutish acts appellant had done to
her.12 Her mother thus filed a complaint against her uncle. AAA identified appellant in open court and presented as
documentary evidence her birth certificate to prove that she was born on 3 September 1988. 13

BBB, on the other hand, testified that she was first raped by appellant in 1997 when she was ten (10) years old, also
at the house appellant shared with her grandmother. While alone in the house, appellant poked a knife at her,
removed her clothes and inserted his penis in her vagina. Despite the pain she felt, she could not resist appellant as
he was holding a knife. She did not report the rape to her parents out of fear of appellant's threat that he would kill
her.14 BBB further testified that in 1998 and 1999, she was raped again by appellant on several occasions, the rapes
occurring under threat of a bladed weapon, and regardless of the time of day. 15

BBB stated that she was last raped by appellant on 15 January 2000. 16 On that night, she was sleeping beside her
sister AAA in the house of her grandmother when she felt appellant touching her body. She pushed him away but
appellant pulled her three (3) meters away from AAA towards the door. As appellant was holding a knife, BBB could
not make any noise to alert her sister. Appellant ordered her to remove her clothes and forced her to lie down. After
he took off his clothes, appellant placed himself on top of BBB and stayed there for three (3) minutes "moving up and
down." Thereafter, she put on her clothes and returned to where her sister was. She added that although it was dark,
she knew it was appellant who had molested her as she was familiar with his smell. Since then, she never slept in her
grandmother's house again.17

It was on 14 June 2000 that BBB disclosed her harrowing experience to her mother. Prior to that, however, she had
already revealed the sexual abuses she had underwent to her sister AAA. Upon learning of the same, her mother
brought her to the police station and her statement was taken. Thereafter, she was brought to the hospital to be
examined. Furthermore, BBB explained that she only reported the abuses done to her on 14 June 2000 or five (5)
months after the last rape because she was afraid of appellant's threat of killing her and her family. 18

The third witness for the prosecution was the mother, CCC. She testified that she only knew of the abuses done on
her daughters on 15 June 2000. Five months earlier, CCC became concerned after observing that BBB, on the
pretext of preparing clothes for a game, was packing more than enough clothes. She asked her other daughter, DDD,
to dig into the matter and the latter told her that BBB was planning to leave their house. Upon learning this, she sent
somebody to retrieve BBB. However, it was only five months after that incident that BBB confided to her mother that
she was raped by appellant. CCC lost no time in reporting the matter to the authorities and had BBB and AAA
examined in the hospital. After examination, it was confirmed that BBB was indeed sexually molested. 19

CCC initially did not tell her husband about what had happened to their daughters because she was afraid that her
husband might kill appellant. It was only after appellant was arrested that she disclosed such fact to her husband.
After the arrest of appellant, his relatives became angry at CCC, and her mother-in-law avoided talking to her since
then.20

The physician who examined BBB and AAA also testified for the prosecution. Dr. Purita T. Tullas (Dr. Tullas), medical
officer of Gumaca District Hospital, testified that she was the one who examined BBB and AAA, and thereafter, issued
medical certificates for each child. These medical certificates were presented in court. 21
The medical certificate of BBB revealed that at the time of examination, there were no external sign of physical injury
found on her body. However, Dr. Tullas found that the labia majora and minora of BBB was slightly gaping, her
vaginal orifice was admitting two fingers without resistance and there were hymenal lacerations at "three (3) o'clock"
and "eight (8) o'clock" which might have happened a long time before her examination. Dr. Tullas concluded that
there might have been sexual penetration caused by a male sex organ for several times. 22

AAA's medical certificate stated that at the time of examination, there were no external physical injuries apparent on
her body. AAA's labia majora and minora were well coaptated and the hymen was still intact. On direct examination,
Dr. Tullas said that it could happen that the hymen would still be intact despite sexual penetration with a person
having an elastic hymen. On the other hand, when asked on cross-examination, she stated that there was also the
possibility that no foreign body touched the labia of the pudendum of AAA. 23

Only appellant testified for his defense, offering denial and alibi as his defense. He averred in court that from 1994 to
2000, he lived in the house of his parents which was about "thirty (30) arm stretches" away from the house of BBB
and AAA. He denied having raped BBB on 15 January 2000 because on said date he was at the house of his sister,
two (2) kilometers away from the house of his parents where the rape occurred, from 11:30 in the morning and stayed
there until early morning of the following day.24

He offered a general denial of the other charges against him by BBB and AAA. He claimed that he seldom saw the
two minors. He further asserted that prior to the institution of the criminal case against him he had a smooth
relationship with his nieces and the only reason the case was filed against him was that CCC, his sister-in-law and the
mother of his nieces, harbored ill-feelings towards his deceased father, who would call CCC "lazy" within earshot of
other family members.25

The RTC convicted appellant on all eight (8) counts of rape. 26 The RTC pronounced appellant's defense of denial and
alibi as unconvincing, citing jurisprudence declaring denial and alibi as intrinsically weak defenses. The RTC
concluded that appellant failed to controvert the clear, candid and straightforward testimonies of his nieces. It further
considered the qualifying circumstances of minority of the victims and the relationship of the victims and appellant, the
latter being the former's relative by consanguinity within the third degree.

As the penalty imposed consisted of eight (8) death sentences, the records of the case were automatically elevated to
this Court for review. However, in the aftermath of the pronouncement of the Court in People v. Mateo27 the present
case was transferred to the Court of Appeals for appropriate action and disposition.

On 29 December 2004, the Court of Appeals agreed with the rulings of the RTC in regard to six (6) of the eight (8)
death sentences imposed on appellant. 28 The appellate court ratiocinated, thus:

We have painstakingly gone over the record of these cases and find no cogent reason to deviate from the
findings of the trial court except in at least two (2) cases. The prosecution's case which was anchored mainly
on the testimonies of private complainants [BBB] and [AAA], deserve full faith and credit for being clear,
precise and straightforward. Like the trial court, We find no reason to disbelieve the private complainants. It
was established with certitude that the accused on several occasions sexually assaulted his nieces. The
perpetration of the crimes and its authorship were proved by the victims' candid and unwavering testimonies
both of whom had the misfortune of sharing the same fate in the hands of their own uncle. The sincerity of
[AAA] was made more evident when she cried on the witness stand in obvious distress over what their uncle
had done to her and her sister.29

The Court of Appeals downgraded the convictions in Criminal Case Nos. 6906 and 6908 to attempted rape. In these
two (2) cases, it was alleged that appellant had raped AAA in 1999 and on 11 June 2000, respectively. According to
the appellate court, it could not find evidence beyond reasonable doubt in those two (2) cases that appellant had
accomplished the slightest penetration of AAA's vagina to make him liable for consummated rape. It stressed that
there was not even moral certainty that appellant's penis ever touched the labia of the pudendum, quoting portions of
the transcript of the stenographic notes where AAA was asked if appellant was then successful in inserting his penis
into her vagina and she answered in the negative. 30 Accordingly, the Court of Appeals reduced the penalties attached
to the two (2) counts of rape from death for consummated qualified rape to an indeterminate penalty of ten (10) years
of prision mayor, as minimum, to seventeen (17) years and four (4) months of reclusion temporal, as maximum, for
attempted rape.

Appellant, in his Supplemental Brief31 before this Court, assails the findings of the Court of Appeals. He cites
inconsistencies in the testimony of BBB as to what really transpired on 15 January 2000. Particularly, appellant
observes that BBB testified on 6 June 2001 as to her rape on 15 January 2000. BBB, her sister and appellant had
been sleeping side by side. However, when BBB again testified on 3 July 2002, this time she stated that on that night,
as she and her sister AAA were sleeping in their room at their parents' house (and not at her grandmother's), the
accused passed through a window, entered their room and raped her again. 32 Appellant also latches on the
inconsistencies in BBB's testimony as to the length of the duration of her rape on that day. In BBB's testimony on 6
June 2001, she said that appellant was atop her for three (3) minutes while in the 3 July 2002 hearing, BBB stated
that the rape lasted for only half a minute.

It must be observed though that BBB was at a tender age when she was raped in 2001. Moreover, these
inconsistencies, which the RTC and the Court of Appeals did not consider material, were elicited while BBB was
testifying in open court. Our observations in People v. Perez33 on the appreciation of alleged inconsistencies in the
testimony of rape victims who happen to be minors are instructive, thus:

We note that these alleged inconsistencies refer, at best, only to trivial, minor, and insignificant details. They
bear no materiality to the commission of the crime of rape of which accused-appellant was convicted.
[34] As pointed out by the Solicitor General in the Appellee's Brief, the seeming inconsistencies were brought
about by confusion and merely represent minor lapses during the rape victim's direct examination and cannot
possibly affect her credibility. Minor lapses are to be expected when a person is recounting details of a
traumatic experience too painful to recall. The rape victim was testifying in open court, in the presence of
strangers, on an extremely intimate matter, which, more often than not, is talked about in hushed tones.
Under such circumstances, it is not surprising that her narration was less than letter-perfect.[ 35] "Moreover, the
inconsistency may be attributed to the well-known fact that a courtroom atmosphere can affect the accuracy
of testimony and the manner in which a witness answers questions."[ 36]37

Further, the public prosecutor offered a convincing explanation on why BBB was confused on some points of her two
testimonies. Particularly in the Memorandum for the People 38 filed with the RTC, the public prosecutor creditably
explained the inconsistencies, thus:

[BBB]'s testimony on July 3, 2002 might be contradictory to her first testimony on June 6, 2001, with respect
to the last rape on January 15, 2000, as regards the place of commission—house of her parents or house of
accused; and the length of time he stayed on her top – 3 minutes or half-minute. But she remained consistent
in her declaration that on January 15, 2000, her uncle inserted his penis into her vagina, and he was moving
while on her top then she felt something came out from him. He was able to rape her because he threatened
her with a knife or bladed weapon. Further, the first she took the witness stand on June 6, 2001, she was
made to recall the last rape, the first rape and many acts of sexual abuses [sic] against her. She was even
confused about her age when she was first raped by her uncle. After she testified on November 14, 2001, for
the separate charges of rapes in 1997, 1998 and 1999, she was able to recall more clearly the last rape on
January 15, 2000, which happened in her own house. These noted discrepancies as to the exact place of
commission – accused's house or victim's house – is not an essential element of the crime of rape and both
houses are situated in Brgy. Villa Padua Ilaya, Gumaca, Quezon, which is within the territorial jurisdiction of
this Honorable Court. x x x 39

In addition, we share the lower court's disbelief of appellant's proffered defenses of denial and alibi. These two
defenses are inherently the weakest as they are negative defenses. Mere denials of involvement in a crime cannot
take precedence over the positive testimony of the offended party. For alibi to prosper, it is not enough for the
defendant to prove that he was somewhere else when the crime was committed; he must likewise demonstrate that it
is physically impossible for him to have been at the scene of the crime at the time. 40

In the case at bar, appellant's alibi that he was at his sister's house barely two (2) kilometers away when the rape took
place on 15 January 2000 cannot be given credence by this Court. If we are to thread this line of reasoning, appellant
could have easily left his sister's house in the middle of the night, raped BBB, and then returned to his sister's house
without much difficulty and without anybody noticing his absence.

Well-settled is the rule that a categorical and positive identification of an accused, without any showing of ill-motive on
the part of the eyewitness testifying on the matter, prevails over alibi and denial. 41 The defenses of denial and alibi
deserve scant consideration when the prosecution has strong, clear and convincing evidence identifying appellant as
the perpetrator.42 In this case, both BBB and AAA, minors and relatives of appellant, positively identified him as their
rapist in open court. The lower courts found no issue detracting from the credibility of such identification.

It is worthy to note that the alibi presented by appellant is limited to the 15 January 2000 rape of BBB. He offers
nothing to counteract the accusations against him involving the seven (7) other specific acts of rape other than the
averment that he did not know anything about the allegations propounded on him, an infinitesimal defense
considering the evidence against him.

Appellant does claim that the present case was merely instituted because of the grudge of CCC towards his
deceased father. It is outrageous to even suggest that a mother will subject her daughters to the humiliating
experience of coming before the court and narrating their harrowing experience just because she was tagged by her
father-in-law as lazy. In addition, CCC's father-in-law had died several years before the criminal charges against
appellant were ever instituted. If CCC truly wanted to retaliate and damage the reputation of her father-in-law, she
could have done so when the latter was still alive. No member of a rape victim's family would dare encourage the
victim to publicly expose the dishonor of the family, more specifically if such accusation is against a member of the
family, unless the crime was in fact committed. 43

Besides, no sane woman, least of all a child, would concoct a story of defloration, allow an examination of her private
parts and subject herself to public trial or ridicule if she has not in truth, been a victim of rape and impelled to seek
justice for the wrong done to her. Testimonies of child-victims are normally given full weight and credit, since when a
woman, more so if she is a minor, says that she has been raped, she says in effect all that is necessary to show that
rape has been committed. Youth and immaturity are generally badges of truth and sincerity. 44 The weight of such
testimonies may be countered by physical evidence to the contrary, or indubitable proof that the accused could not
have committed the rape, but in the absence of such countervailing proof, these testimonies shall be accorded utmost
value.

The twin aggravating circumstances of minority and relationship were properly appreciated in this case. The minority
of the victims and their relationship with appellant were aptly established

in the lower court proceedings. Not only did the prosecution allege in the Informations the ages of the victims when
they were raped but the prosecution also presented the birth certificates of BBB and AAA in court as documentary
evidence to prove that they were both minors when appellant raped them. Appellant, in open court, also admitted that
that he was the uncle of both victims being the brother of the victims' father, and thus, a relative of the victims within
the third degree of consanguinity.

Furthermore, the delay in reporting the repulsive acts of appellant to BBB and AAA is understandably justified,
considering that appellant repeatedly threatened to kill them and their family should they disclose the incidents to
anyone. It has been held time and again that delay in revealing the commission of rape is not an indication of a
fabricated charge.45 Such intimidation must be viewed in light of the victim's perception and judgment at the time of
the commission of the crime and not by any hard and fast rule. It is enough that the intimidation produces a fear that if
the victim does not yield to the perverse impulses of the accused, something would happen to her at the moment, or
even thereafter, as when she is threatened with death if she would report the incident. 46

At the same time, we agree with the Court of Appeals that the two counts of rape in Criminal Case Nos. 6906-G and
6908-G were not proven beyond reasonable doubt, but only the two separate incidents of attempted rape.

It is to be noted that there is an attempt to commit rape when the offender commences its commission directly by
overt acts but does not perform all acts of execution which should produce the felony by reason of some cause or
accident other than his own spontaneous desistance. 47 In Criminal Case No. 6906-G, the records show that there was
no penetration or any indication that the penis of appellant touched the labia of the pudendum of AAA. This was
evident in AAA's testimony at the hearing on 17 October 2001, to wit:

Q – Do you remember of any unusual incident that happened to you when you were eleven years old?

A – Yes, Mam. [sic]

Q – What was that?

A – He also touched my vagina and my other private parts and he inserted also his penis (into) my vagina.
[sic]

Q – Was he able to insert his penis into your vagina?

A – No, Mam. [sic]

Q – Why?

A – It was painful, Mam. [sic]

xxxx

Q – How many times did he try to insert his penis into your vagina?

A – Many times, Mam.48 [sic]

AAA also testified in the same vein in Criminal Case No. 6908-G.

Q – I am now through with Criminal Case No. 6906-G. In Criminal Case No. 6908-G, also for Rape. When
was the last time that this sexual abuse was committed by your Uncle?

A – June 11, Mam. [sic]

Q – What year?

A – June 11, 2000, Mam. [sic]

xxxx

Q – What did your Uncle do to you on June 11, 2000?

 A – He also removed my clothes, Mam. [sic]

Q – And after removing your clothes, what did he do to you?

A – He was trying to insert his penis into my vagina, Mam. [sic]

xxxx

Q – And what did you feel when he was trying to insert his penis in your vagina?

A – Painful, Mam. [sic]

Q – And what did you do when you feel painful?

A – I cried, Mam. [sic]

Q – When you cried, what did your Uncle do, if any?

A – He did not pursue what he was doing, Mam. [sic]

xxxx

Q – And your Uncle was not able to penetrate his penis to your vagina?

A – No, Mam.49 [sic]

In downgrading the offense committed and consequently decreasing the penalty, the CA declared:

It is carnal knowledge, not pain, that is the element to consummate rape. Indeed pain may be deduced from
the sexual act but accused cannot be convicted of rape by presuming carnal knowledge out of pain. It is well-
settled that complete penetration of the penis into the vagina is not necessary to convict for consummated
rape since the slightest penetration of one into the other will suffice. However, in People v. Campuhan, the
term "slightest penetration" was clarified to mean that there must be sufficient and convincing proof of the
penis indeed touching at the very least the labias of the female organ. Mere epidermal contact between the
penis and the external layer of the victim's vagina (the stroking and the grazing of the male organ upon the
female organ or the mons pubis) categorizes the crime as attempted rape or acts of lasciviousness. There
must be positive proof of even the slightest penetration, more accurately, the touching of the labias by the
penis, before rape could be deemed consummated. We, therefore, take exception to the finding of the trial
court that when the accused was trying to insert his penis into the child's vagina, the act proved painful to
[AAA,] which made the accused stop from further executing the act. From the testimony of private
complainant, [AAA] in the afore-numbered cases, the prosecution failed to demonstrate beyond any shadow
of doubt that accused-appellant's penis reached the labia of the pudendum of AAA's vagina. There is no basis
then to apply the rule that the introduction of the penis into the aperture of the female organ (thereby touching
the labia of the pudendum) already consummates the case of rape. x x x 50

It should be added that under Article 6 of the Revised Penal Code, there is an attempt when the offender commences
the commission of a felony directly by overt acts, and does not perform all the acts of execution which should produce
the felony by reason of some cause or accident other than his own spontaneous desistance. In the crime of rape,
penetration is an essential act of execution to produce the felony. Thus, for there to be an attempted rape, the
accused must have commenced the act of penetrating his sexual organ to the vagina of the victim but for some cause
or accident other than his own spontaneous desistance, the penetration, however slight, is not completed. 51
The Court thus affirms the conclusions of the Court of Appeals that it has been established beyond reasonable doubt
that appellant is guilty of six (6) counts of rape and two (2) counts of attempted rape. However, in light of Rep. Act No.
9346, the appropriate penalties for both crimes should be amended.

II.

We shall not dwell at length on the proper penalty imposable on appellant for the six (6) counts of rape. The sentence
of death imposed by the RTC and affirmed by the Court of Appeals can no longer be affirmed in view of Rep. Act No.
9346, titled "An Act Prohibiting the Imposition of Death Penalty in the Philippines." Section 2 of the law mandates that
in lieu of the death penalty, the penalty of reclusion perpetua shall be imposed. Correspondingly, the Court can no
longer uphold the death sentences imposed by lower courts, but must, if the

guilt of the accused is affirmed, impose instead the penalty of reclusion perpetua, or life imprisonment when
appropriate. Since the passage of Rep. Act No. 9346, the Court has had occasion to effectuate such reduction in
recent cases such as People v. Tubongbanua52 and People v. Cabalquinto.53

III.

The question of what should be the appropriate penalty for the two (2) counts of attempted rape proves to be the
more challenging but interesting question facing the Court.

The Court of Appeals had sentenced appellant, for the attempted rape of AAA, to "an indeterminate penalty of ten
(10) years of prision mayor, as minimum, to seventeen (17) years and four (4) months of reclusion temporal as
maximum," for each count of attempted rape. There is no doubt as to the validity of this sentence at the time it was
meted prior to the enactment of Rep. Act No. 9346. Article 51 of the Revised Penal Code establishes the penalty to
be imposed upon the principals of an attempted felony:

ART. 51. xxx — A penalty lower by two degrees than that prescribed by law for the consummated felony shall
be imposed upon the principals in an attempt to commit a felony. 54

What is the penalty "lower by two degrees than that prescribed by law" for attempted rape? Article 266-B of the
Revised Penal Code, which incorporates the amendments introduced by Rep. Act No. 8353, prescribes:

The death penalty shall also be imposed if the crime of rape is committed with any of the following
aggravating/qualifying circumstances:

1. When the victim is under eighteen (18) years of age and the offender is a parent, ascendant, step-parent,
guardian, relative by consanguinity or affinity within the third civil degree, or the common law spouse of the
parent of the victim. x x x55

The prescribed penalty for the consummated rape of a victim duly proven to have been under eighteen years of age
and to have been raped by her uncle, is death under Article 266-B of the Revised Penal Code. The determination of
the penalty two degrees lower than the death penalty entails the application of Articles 61 and 71 of the Revised
Penal Code:

Art. 61. Rules of graduating penalties.—For the purpose of graduating the penalties which, according to the
provisions of Articles 50 to 57, inclusive, of this Code, are to be imposed upon persons guilty as principals of
any frustrated or attempted felony, or as accomplices or accessories, the following rules shall be observed:
 1. When the penalty prescribed for the felony is single and indivisible, the penalty next lower in degree shall
be that immediately following that indivisible penalty in the respective graduated scale prescribed in Article 71
of this Code.56

xxxx

Article 71 of the Revised Penal Code (Article 71) warrants special attention, crucial as it is to our disposition of this
question. The provision reads:

Art. 71. Graduated scales. — In the case in which the law prescribes a penalty lower or higher by one or more
degrees than another given penalty, the rules prescribed in Article 61 shall be observed in graduating such
penalty.

The lower or higher penalty shall be taken from the graduated scale in which is comprised the given penalty:

The courts, in applying such lower or higher penalty, shall observe the following graduated scales:

SCALE NO. 1

1. Death

2. Reclusion perpetua

3. Reclusion temporal

4. Prision mayor

5. Prision correctional

6. Arresto mayor

7. Destierro

8. Arresto menor

9. Public censure

10. Fine57

xxxx

Following the scale prescribed in Article 71, the penalty two degrees lower than death is reclusion temporal, which
was the maximum penalty imposed by the Court of Appeals on appellant for attempted rape. Reclusion temporal is a
penalty comprised of three divisible periods, a minimum, a medium and a maximum.

At the same time, the Indeterminate Sentence Law prescribes that "the court shall sentence the accused to an
indeterminate sentence, the maximum term of which shall be that which, in view of the attending circumstances, could
be properly imposed under the rules of the said Code, and the minimum which shall be within the range of the penalty
next lower to that prescribed by the Code for the offense." The purpose of the prescription of minimum and maximum
periods under the Indeterminate Sentence Law is to effect the privilege granted under the same law, for prisoners
who have served the minimum penalty to be eligible for parole per the discretion of the Board of Indiscriminate
Sentence.58 Thus, convicts sentenced to suffer death penalty or life-imprisonment are ineligible under that law, as are
persons sentenced to reclusion perpetua, an indivisible penalty without minimum or maximum periods. 59

Hence, the Court of Appeals sentenced appellant to suffer the penalty for attempted rape, with a maximum penalty
within the range of reclusion temporal, and a minimum penalty within the range of the penalty next lower, or prision
mayor. If Rep. Act No. 9346 had not been enacted, the Court would have affirmed such sentence without
complication. However, the enactment of the law has given rise to the problem concerning the imposable penalty.
Appellant was sentenced to a maximum term within reclusion temporal since that is the penalty two degrees lower
than death. With the elimination of death as a penalty, does it follow that appellant should now be sentenced to a
penalty two degrees lower than reclusion perpetua, the highest remaining penalty with the enactment of Rep. Act No.
9346? If it so followed, appellant would be sentenced to prision mayor in lieu of reclusion temporal.

IV.

Obviously, our ruling on the appropriate penalty on appellant for attempted rape will affect not only appellant, but
several classes of convicts as well. Before we proceed with the discussion, the Court finds it necessary to make the
following qualification.

Prior to the enactment of Rep. Act No. 9346, the death penalty was imposable under two different frames of
reference. This was especially made clear with the 1993 amendments to the Revised Penal Code through Rep. Act
No. 7659, or the Death Penalty Law. Under the Revised Penal Code, as amended, the death penalty was provided for
in two ways, namely: as the maximum penalty for "reclusion perpetua to death," and death itself as an automatic and
exclusive penalty. Death as the automatic penalty was mandated for the crimes of qualified bribery "if it is the public
officer who asks or demands such gift or present;" 60 kidnapping or detention "for the purpose of extorting ransom from
the victim or any other person;"61 destructive

arson wherein "death results;"62 and rape qualified by any of the several circumstances enumerated under the law.

On the other hand, the penalty of "reclusion perpetua to death" was imposable on several crimes, including
murder,63 qualified piracy,64 and treason.65 The imposition of the death penalty for crimes punishable by "reclusion
perpetua to death" depended on the appreciation of the aggravating and mitigating circumstances generally outlined
in Articles 13 and 14 of the Revised Penal Code. Reference to those two provisions was unnecessary if the penalty
imposed was death, as opposed to "reclusion perpetua to death."

There is no need for now to discuss the effects of Rep. Act No. 9346 on the penalties for frustrated and attempted
felonies which were punishable by "reclusion perpetua to death" if consummated, or on accomplices and accessories
to such felonies. Such situations do not relate to the case of appellant, who was convicted of two (2) counts of
attempted rape, which, if consummated, of course would have carried prior to the enactment of Rep. Act 9346 the
penalty of death, and not "reclusion perpetua to death."

The Court also recognizes that the graduation of penalties reckoned from "reclusion perpetua to death" differs from
that based on the exclusive penalty of death. For example, it has been held that the penalty two degrees lower than
"reclusion perpetua to death" is prision mayor.66 In contrast, the Court has likewise held that for qualified rape in the
attempted stage, "the penalty x x x two (2) degrees lower than the imposable penalty of death for the offense charged
x x x is reclusion temporal."67 In People v. Tolentino,68 we ruled that the accused, who had been sentenced to die for
the rape of his nine (9)-year old stepdaughter, was guilty only of attempted rape. In explaining that "reclusion
temporal" was the proper penalty, the Court, through then Chief Justice Davide, explained:

Under Article 51 of the Revised Penal Code, the penalty for an attempted felony is the "penalty lower by two
degrees than that prescribed by law for the consummated felony." In this case, the penalty for the rape if it
had been consummated would have been death, pursuant to Article 335 of the Revised Penal Code, as
 amended by R.A. No. 7659, since [RT69] was eight years old and TOLENTINO was the common-law spouse
of [RT's] mother. The last paragraph thereof provides:

The death penalty shall also be imposed if the crime of rape is committed with any of the following
attendant circumstances:

1. When the victim is under eighteen (18) years of age and the offender is a parent, ascendant, step-
parent, guardian, relative by consanguinity or affinity within the third civil degree, or the common-law
spouse of the parent of the victim.

xxxx

The penalty in this case should have been reclusion temporal, which is the penalty lower by two degrees than
death. However, with the application of the Indeterminate Sentence Law, TOLENTINO may be sentenced to
an indeterminate imprisonment penalty whose minimum shall be within the range of prision mayor and whose
maximum shall be within the range of reclusion temporal in its medium period pursuant to Article 64 (1) of the
Revised Penal Code.70

This dichotomy results from the application of Article 61 of the Revised Penal Code. Both reclusion perpetua and
death are indivisible penalties. Under Article 61 (2) of the Revised Penal Code, "[w]hen the penalty prescribed for the
crime is composed of two indivisible penalties … the penalty next lower in degree shall be that immediately following
the lesser of the penalties prescribed in the respective graduated scale." Hence, in passing sentence on those
convicted of attempted felonies which warranted the penalty of "reclusion perpetua to death" if consummated, the
Court has consistently held that penalty two degrees lower than "reclusion perpetua to death" is prision mayor. In
contrast, if the penalty for the consummated crime is the single indivisible penalty of death, as was prescribed for
several crimes under Rep. Act No. 7659, Article 61(1) of the Revised Penal Code provides that "the penalty
prescribed for the felony is single and indivisible, the penalty next lower in degree shall be that immediately following
that indivisible penalty in the respective graduated scale prescribed in Article 71". Thus, the proper penalty two
degrees lower than death is reclusion temporal.

It is also for this reason that the controversy we are now addressing did not similarly arise after the enactment of the
1987 Constitution, which prohibits the imposition of the death penalty subject to its subsequent readoption at the
choice of Congress. Generally, the highest penalty imposed under the Revised Penal Code was "reclusion
perpetua to death," a penalty composed of two indivisible penalties. As a result, the Court had no occasion, after the
passage of the 1987 Constitution, to consider the effect of the charter on penalties downgraded from a single
indivisible penalty. It was under Rep. Act No. 7659, passed in 1993, that some commonly occurring crimes, such as
qualified rape and kidnapping for ransom, were penalized with the single indivisible penalty of death.

The discussion for purposes of this decision will only center on crimes, such as qualified rape as defined in the
Revised Penal Code, as amended, for which the imposable penalty was death alone. Thus, our ruling will bear no
direct effect on the sentencing of accomplices and accessories or persons guilty of the attempted or frustrated stage
of felonies for which the imposable penalty was "reclusion perpetua to death."

Hence, it should be understood that any reference forthwith to the penalty of death does not refer to the
penalty of "reclusion perpetua to death."

V.

If there was a clear intent in Rep. Act No. 9346 to downgrade the penalties for convicts whose sentences had been
graduated beginning from death pursuant to Article 71, the Court would not hesitate to enforce such downgrading
based on clear statutory intent. However, nothing in Rep. Act No. 9346 expressly refers to those penalties imposed
on frustrated or attempted felonies, or on accessories and accomplices.

Section 1 of Rep. Act No. 9346 bears examination:

Section 1. The imposition of the penalty of death is hereby prohibited. Accordingly, Republic Act No. Eight
Thousand One Hundred Seventy-Seven (R.A. No. 8177), otherwise known as the Act Designating Death by
Lethal Injection, is hereby repealed. Republic Act No. Seven Thousand Six Hundred Fifty-Nine (R.A. No.
7659), otherwise known as the Death Penalty Law, and all other laws, executive orders and decrees, insofar
as they impose the death penalty are hereby repealed or amended accordingly.

If the penalties for attempted rape of a minor,71 among others, were deemed to have been amended by virtue of Rep.
Act No. 9346, such amendment can be justified under the ambit of the repealing clause, which reads, "all other laws,
executive orders and decrees, insofar as they impose the death penalty are hereby repealed or amended
accordingly." While this clause may, given its breadth, initially impress as the nature of a general repealing clause, it
is in actuality an express repealing clause. Section 1 specifically repeals all laws, executive orders and decrees
insofar as they impose the death penalty, and not merely such enactments which are inconsistent with Rep. Act No.
9346.

Section 1 arguably presents more problems in that regard with its utilization of the particular phrase "insofar as they
impose the death penalty." We can entertain two schools of thought in construing this provision, both of them rooted
in literalist interpretations. First, it can be claimed that the present application of the penalties for attempted rape of a
minor (among many examples) does not "impose the death penalty," since none of the convicts concerned would
face execution through the application of the penalty for attempted rape. Hence, the statutory provisions enforced in
determining the penalty for attempted rape, or other crimes not punishable by death, are not amended by Rep. Act
No. 9346.

On the other hand, the operation of the provisions imposing the penalty for attempted rape of a minor necessarily
calls for the application, if not its literal imposition, of death as a penalty, in the context of applying the graduated
scale of penalties under Article 71 of the Revised Penal Code. If we were to construe "impose" as to mean "apply,"
then it could be argued that Article 71 was indeed amended by Rep. Act No. 9346. After all, the application of Article
71 to crimes such as attempted rape of a minor call for the actual operation of the death penalty not only in theory, but
as a means of determining the proper graduated penalty.

On face value, the attractive worth of the firstly offered line of thinking is enhanced by its innate conservatism, limiting
as it would the effects of Rep. Act No. 9346. It also can be understood if confronted with the option of employing
either a liberal or a conservative construction, there is a natural tendency to employ the conservative mode. Further,
the reasoning is seemingly consistent with that employed by the Court in People v. Muñoz,72 a decision which will be
thoroughly analyzed in the course of this discussion.

If the true intent of Rep. Act No. 9346 was to limit the extent of the "imposition" of the death penalty to actual
executions, this could have been accomplished with more clarity. For example, had Section 1 read instead "insofar as
they sentence an accused to death," there would have been no room for doubt that only those statutory provisions
calling for actual executions would have been repealed or amended. The inability of Congress to shape the repealing
clause in so specific a fashion does leave open the question whether Congress did actually intend to limit the
operation of Rep. Act No. 9346 to actual executions only.

But let us for now test that premise by assuming for the nonce that the legislative intent of Rep. Act No. 9346 was to
limit the prohibition of the law to the physical imposition of the death penalty, without extending any effect to the
graduated scale of penalties under Article 71 of the Revised Penal Code.

VI.
There are troubling results if we were to uphold, based on legislative intent, the interpretation of Rep. Act No. 9346
that limits its effects only to matters relating to the physical imposition of the death penalty.

Illustrations are necessary. The easy demonstration of iniquitous results is in the case of accomplices. Under Article
267 of the Revised Penal Code, as amended, kidnapping for ransom was punishable by death. Let us say X and Y
were tried for the crime. X was charged as a principal for having directly participated in the kidnapping. Y was
charged as an accomplice for having allowed X to use his house to detain the victim, even though Y was abroad at
the time of the crime and otherwise had no other participation therein. Both X and Y were convicted by final judgment.
Since X could no longer be meted the death penalty, he is sentenced instead to reclusion perpetua. Ordinarily, Y as
an accomplice should receive the penalty next lower in degree, or reclusion temporal. Yet following the "conservative"
interpretation of Rep. Act No. 9346, the graduation of penalties remains unaffected with the enactment of the new
law. Thus, under Article 71, which would still take into account the death penalty within the graduated scale, Y, as an
accomplice, would be sentenced to reclusion perpetua, the same penalty as the principal.

It might be countered that part of the legislative intent of Rep. Act No. 9346, by retaining the graduated scale of
penalties under Article 71, was to equalize the penalties of principals and accomplices for crimes previously
punishable by death. We do not doubt that the legislature has the theoretical capability to amend the penal law in
such fashion. Yet given the drastic effects of equalizing the penalties for principals and accomplices, a step that runs
contrary to entrenched thought in criminal law, one could reasonably assume that a legislature truly oriented to enact
such change would have been candid enough to have explicitly stated such intent in the law itself. Of course, nothing
in Rep. Act No. 9346, either in the caption or in the provisions, explicates the intention to equalize the penalties for
principals and accomplices in any crime at all.

Moreover, it cannot be denied that it would, at bare minimum, seem strange that the penalties for principals and
accomplices are equalized in some crimes, and not in others. Let us return to our previous example of X and Y, but
this time, assume that they were charged for simple kidnapping, with no qualifying circumstance that would have
resulted in the imposition of the death penalty. Since the crime is not punishable by death, Rep. Act No. 9346 would
have no effect in the imposition of the penalty for simple kidnapping. Accordingly, X would have been sentenced
to reclusion perpetua as the principal, while Y would have been sentenced to reclusion temporal as an accomplice.

Since simple kidnapping is a comparatively lighter crime than kidnapping for ransom, the lesser penalties are justified.
Since Y was merely an accomplice to the crime of simple kidnapping, the imposition on him of a lighter penalty than X
is in accord with the Revised Penal Code and established juridical and legal thought. Less justifiable would be the
notion that in kidnapping for ransom, the principal and the accomplice would receive the same penalty, while in simple
kidnapping, the principal suffers a higher penalty than the accomplice. Frankly, there is no rational explanation for
such a disparity, and no legal justification other than the recognition that Congress has the power to will it so.

Admittedly, the impact of Rep. Act No. 9346 is less dramatic in relation to frustrated and attempted felonies which
were punishable by death if consummated. The consummated felony previously punishable by death would now be
punishable by reclusion perpetua. At the same time, the same felony in its frustrated stage would, under the foregoing
premise in this section, be penalized one degree lower from death, or also reclusion perpetua. It does not seem right,
of course, that the same penalty of reclusion perpetua would be imposed on both the consummated and frustrated
felony. However, the anomaly would be mainly in theory, as we recognize that those felonies previously punishable
by death are improbable of commission in their frustrated stage, unlike several felonies punishable by "reclusion
perpetua to death,"73 such as murder, which may be frustrated.

Still, it cannot be denied that these felonies previously punishable by death are capable of commission in their
attempted stages and that the Revised Penal Code provides that the penalty for attempted felonies is "a penalty lower
by two degrees than that prescribed by law for the consummated felony." The Court has thus consistently
imposed reclusion temporal, the penalty two degrees lower than death, as the maximum term for attempted felonies
which, if consummated, would have warranted the death penalty. 74 If it were to be insisted that Rep. Act No. 9346 did
not affect at all the penalties for attempted felonies, then those found guilty of the subject attempted felonies would
still be sentenced to reclusion temporal, even though the "penalty lower by two degrees than that prescribed by law
for the consummated felony" would now be prision mayor.

It should be pointed out that the interpretation of Rep. Act No. 9346 that would sanction a penalty for some attempted
felonies that is only one degree lower than the consummated crime would, again, be disharmonious and inconsistent
with the Revised Penal Code and established thought in criminal law. Conceding again that the legislature has the
discretion to designate the criminal penalties it sees fit, a regime that foists a differential theoretical basis for the
punishment of different attempted felonies resulting in discriminatory penalties is not only irrational but also, to say the
least, highly suspect. Considering that physical liberties are at stake, it would be a most cruel joke if such
discriminatory effects ensued not from deliberate legislative will, but from oversight.

VII.

The implementation of Rep. Act No. 9346 in a way that leaves extant the penalties for accomplices, accessories,
frustrated and attempted felonies, clearly results in illogical, iniquitous and inconsistent effects. In contrast, no similar
flaws ensue should we construe Rep. Act No. 9346 instead as not having barred the application of the death penalty
even as a means of depreciating penalties other than death. In particular, the operative amendment that would assure
the integrity of penalties for accomplices, accessories, frustrated and attempted felonies lies in Article 71, which ranks
"death" at the top of the scale for graduated penalties.

Simply put, the negation of the word "death" as previously inscribed in Article 71 will have the effect of appropriately
downgrading the proper penalties attaching to accomplices, accessories, frustrated and attempted felonies to the
level consistent with the rest of our penal laws. Returning to our previous examples, Y, the convicted accomplice in
kidnapping for ransom, would now bear the penalty of reclusion temporal, the penalty one degree lower than that the
principal X would bear (reclusion perpetua). Such sentence would be consistent with Article 52 of the Revised Penal
Code, as well as Article 71, as amended, to remove the reference to "death." Moreover, the prospect of the
accomplice receiving the same sentence as the principal, an anomalous notion within our penal laws, would be
eliminated. Thus, the same standard would prevail in sentencing principals and accomplices to the crime of
kidnapping in ransom, as that prescribed to the crime of simple kidnapping.

The harmonization that would result if Rep. Act No. 9346 were construed as having eliminated the reference to
"death" in Article 71 would run across the board in our penal laws. Consistent with Article 51 of the Revised Penal
Code, those convicted of attempted qualified rape would receive the penalty two degrees lower than that prescribed
by law, now Rep. Act No. 9346, for qualified rape.

There are principles in statutory construction that will sanction, even mandate, this "expansive" interpretation of Rep.
Act No. 9346. The maxim interpretare et concordare legibus est optimus interpretandi embodies the principle that a
statute should be so construed not only to be consistent with itself, but also to harmonize with other laws on the same
subject matter, as to form a complete, coherent and intelligible system—a uniform system of
jurisprudence.75 "Interpreting and harmonizing laws with laws is the best method of interpretation. x x x x This manner
of construction would provide a complete, consistent and intelligible system to secure the rights of all persons affected
by different legislative and quasi-

legislative acts."76 There can be no harmony between Rep. Act No. 9346 and the Revised Penal Code unless the later
statute is construed as having downgraded those penalties attached to death by reason of the graduated scale under
Article 71. Only in that manner will a clear and consistent rule emerge as to the application of penalties for frustrated
and attempted felonies, and for accessories and accomplices.

It is also a well-known rule of legal hermeneutics that penal or criminal laws are strictly construed against the state
and liberally in favor of the accused.77 If the language of the law were ambiguous, the court will lean more strongly in
favor of the defendant than it would if the statute were remedial, as a means of effecting substantial justice. 78 The law
is tender in favor of the rights of an individual. 79 It is this philosophy of caution before the State may deprive a person
of life or liberty that animates one of the most fundamental principles in our Bill of Rights, that every person is
presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Resort to the aforementioned principles in statutory construction would not have been necessary had Rep. Act No.
9346 ineluctably stated that the repeal of all laws imposing the death penalty did not engender the corresponding
modification of penalties other than death, dependent as these are on "death" as a measure under the graduated
scale of penalties under Article 71. Admittedly, if this were indeed the intent of Congress, and such intent were
unequivocally expressed in Rep. Act No. 9346, the resulting inequities and inconsistencies we had earlier pointed out
would have remained. If that were to be the case, we would have acknowledged, perhaps tacitly, that such inequities
and inconsistencies fell part of the legislative intent. It does not speak well of a Congress to be deliberately
inconsistent with, or ignorant of its own prior enactments. Yet ultimately, Section 1 of Rep. Act No. 9346 is not
expressive of such rash or injudicious notions, as it is susceptible to a reading that would harmonize its effects with
the precepts and practices that pervade our general penal laws, and in a manner that does not defy the clear will of
Congress.

VIII.

One who would like to advocate that Rep. Act No. 9346 did not correspondingly amend any of the penalties other
than death in our penal laws would most certainly invoke our ruling in People v. Muñoz,80 decided in 1989. Therein, a
divided Court ruled in that the constitutional bar on the imposition of the death penalty did not enact "a corresponding
modification in the other periods [in penalties]", there being no expression of "such a requirement… in Article III,
Section 19(1) of the Constitution or indicat[ion] therein by at least

clear and unmistakable implication."81 In so concluding, the Court made the oft-cited pronouncement that there was
nothing in the 1987 Constitution "which expressly declares the abolition of the death penalty." 82

It is time to re-examine Muñoz and its continued viability in light of Rep. Act No. 9346. More precisely,
would Muñoz as precedent deter the Court from ruling that Rep. Act No. 9346 consequently downgraded penalties
other than death?

It can be recalled that the accused in Muñoz were found guilty of murder, which under the Revised Penal Code,
carried the penalty of reclusion temporal in its maximum period to death. The subject murders therein were not
attended by any modifying circumstance, and thus penalized in the penalty's medium term. Jurisprudence previous
to Muñoz held that the proper penalty in such instances should be "the higher half of reclusion temporal maximum,"
with reclusion temporal maximum, divided into two halves for that purpose. Muñoz rejected this formulation, holding
instead that the penalty should be reclusion perpetua. Towards this conclusion, the Court made the above-cited
conclusions relating to the constitutional abolition of the death penalty, and the charter's effects on the other periods.
Six justices dissented from that ruling, and as recently as 1997, a member of the Court felt strongly enough to publish
a view urging the reexamination of Muñoz.83

It would be disingenuous to consider Muñoz as directly settling the question now befacing us, as the legal premises
behind Muñoz are different from those in this case. Most pertinently, Muñoz inquired into the effects of the
Constitution on the proper penalty for murder; while herein, we are ascertaining the effects of Rep. Act No. 9346 on
the proper penalty for attempted qualified rape. Muñoz may have pronounced that the Constitution did not
abolish the death penalty, but that issue no longer falls into consideration herein, the correct query now
being whether Congress has banned the death penalty through Rep. Act No. 9346. Otherwise
framed, Muñoz does not preclude the Court from concluding that with the express prohibition of the
imposition of the death penalty Congress has unequivocally banned the same.

Muñoz made hay over the peculiar formulation of Section 19(1), Article III, which provided that "[n]either shall death
penalty be imposed, unless, for compelling reasons involving heinous crimes, the Congress hereafter provides for
it." Muñoz and its progenies, have interpreted that provision as prohibiting the actual imposition of the death penalty,
as opposed to enacting an amendatory law that eliminates all references and applications of the death penalty in our
statutes. It can also be understood and appreciated that at the time Muñoz was decided, it would have been
polemical to foster an unequivocal pronouncement that Section 19(1), Article III abolished the death penalty, since the
very provision itself acknowledged that Congress may nonetheless subsequently provide for the penalty "for
compelling reasons involving heinous crimes," as Congress very well did just four (4) years after Muñoz. No such
language exists in Rep. Act No. 9346. Of course, the legislature has the inherent and constitutional power to enact
laws prescribing penalties for crimes, and the Constitution will not prohibit Congress from reenacting the death
penalty "for compelling reasons involving heinous crimes." Yet it was that express stipulation in the Constitution that
dissuaded the Court from recognizing the constitutional abolition of the death penalty; and there is no similar statutory
expression in Rep. Act No. 9346, which could be construed as evocative of intent similar to that of the Constitution.

The doctrine in Muñoz that the constitutional prohibition on the imposition of the death penalty did not enact a
corresponding modification of other penalties is similarly irrelevant to this case, which calls for an examination as to
whether such corresponding modifications of other penalties arose as a consequence of Rep. Act No. 9346, and not
the Constitution.

For purposes of legal hermeneutics, the critical question is whether Rep. Act No. 9346 intended to delete the word
"death" as expressly provided for in the graduated scale of penalties under Article 71. Muñoz did not engage in an
analogous inquiry in relation to Article 71 and the Constitution, for what was relevant therein was not the general
graduated scale of penalties, but the range of the penalties for murder. Herein, at bare minimum, no provision in Rep.
Act No. 9346 provides a context within which the concept of "death penalty" bears retentive legal effect, especially in
relation to Article 71. Unlike the Constitution, Rep. Act No. 9346 does expressly stipulate the amendment of all
extant laws insofar as they called for the imposition of the penalty of death.

The impression left by Muñoz was that the use of the word "imposition" in the Constitution evinced the framer's intent
to retain the operation of penalties under the Revised Penal Code. In the same vein, one might try to construe the use
of "imposition" in Rep. Act No. 9346 as a means employed by Congress to ensure that the "death penalty", as applied
in Article 71, remain extant. If the use of "imposition" was implemented as a means of retaining "death" under Article
71, it would have been a most curious, roundabout means indeed. The Court can tolerate to a certain degree the
deliberate vagueness sometimes employed in legislation, yet constitutional due process demands a higher degree of
clarity when infringements on life or liberty are intended. We have ruled, on due process grounds, as arbitrary and
oppressive a tax assessed on a standard characterized as "nothing but blather in search of meaning." 84 In the matter
of statutes that deprive a person of physical liberty, the demand for a clear standard in sentencing is even more
exacting.

Yet in truth, there is no material difference between "imposition" and "application," for both terms embody the
operation in law of the death penalty. Since Article 71 denominates "death" as an element in the graduated scale of
penalties, there is no question that the operation of Article 71 involves the actual application of the death penalty as
a means of determining the extent which a person's liberty is to be deprived. Since Rep. Act No. 9346 unequivocally
bars the application of the death penalty, as well as expressly repeals all such statutory provisions requiring the
application of the death penalty, such effect necessarily extends to its relevance to the graduated scale of penalties
under Article 71.

We cannot find basis to conclude that Rep. Act No. 9346 intended to retain the operative effects of the death penalty
in the graduation of the other penalties in our penal laws. Munoz cannot enjoin us to adopt such conclusion. Rep. Act
No. 9346 is not swaddled in the same restraints appreciated by Muñoz on Section 19(1), Article III. The very
Congress empowered by the Constitution to reinstate the imposition of the death penalty once thought it best to do
so, through Rep. Act No. 7650. Within the same realm of constitutional discretion, Congress has reversed itself. It
must be asserted that today, the legal status of the suppression of the death penalty in the Philippines has never
been more secure than at any time in our political history as a nation.
Following Muñoz, the sovereign people, through the 1987 Constitution, might not have willed the abolition of the
death penalty and instead placed it under a suspensive condition. As such, we affirmed the characterization of the
death penalty during the interregnum between the 1987 Constitution and its reimposition through law as being "in a
state of hibernation."85 No longer. It reawakened — then it died; because the sovereign people, through Rep. Act No.
9346, banned the death penalty. Only by an Act of Congress can it be reborn. Before that day, the consideration of
death as a penalty is bereft of legal effect, whether as a means of depriving life, or as a means of depriving liberty.

Despite our present pronouncement on the ban against of the death penalty, we do not acknowledge
that Muñoz lacked legal justification when it was decided; that its application as precedent prior to Rep. Act No. 9346
was erroneous; or that previous sentences imposed on convicts on the basis of Muñoz were wrong. Muñoz properly
stood as the governing precedent in the matter of sentences that passed finality prior to Rep. Act No. 9346; and the
consistent reliance by the courts on its doctrines entrenched its footing in criminal law jurisprudence.

IX.

Rep. Act No. 7659, in the course of reintroducing the death penalty in the Philippines, also effectively classified the
crimes listed therein as "heinous," within constitutional contemplation. Such reclassification under Rep. Act No. 7659
was accompanied by certain legal effects other than the imposition of the death penalty, such as the increase in
imposable fines attached to certain heinous crimes.86 The categorization of certain crimes as "heinous", constituting
as it does official recognition that some crimes are more odious than others, has also influenced this Court in
adjudging the proper pecuniary indemnities awarded to the victims of these crimes. Hence, a general inclination
persists in levying a greater amount of damages on accused found guilty of heinous crimes.

It should be understood that the debarring of the death penalty through Rep. Act No. 9346 did not correspondingly
declassify those crimes previously catalogued as "heinous". The amendatory effects of Rep. Act No. 9346 extend
only to the application of the death penalty but not to the definition or classification of crimes. True, the penalties for
heinous crimes have been downgraded under the aegis of the new law. Still, what remains extant is the recognition
by law that such crimes, by their abhorrent nature, constitute a special category by themselves. Accordingly, Rep. Act
No. 9346 does not serve as basis for the reduction of civil indemnity and other damages that adhere to heinous
crimes.

X.

Having pronounced the statutory disallowance of the death penalty through Rep. Act No. 9346 and the corresponding
modification of penalties other than death through that statute, we now proceed to discuss the effects of these rulings.

As to sentences not yet handed down, or affirmed with finality, the application is immediate. Henceforth, "death," as
utilized in Article 71 of the Revised Penal Code, shall no longer form part of the equation in the graduation of
penalties. For example, in the case of appellant, the determination of his penalty for attempted rape shall be reckoned
not from two degrees lower than death, but two degrees lower than reclusion perpetua. Hence, the maximum term of
his penalty shall no longer be reclusion temporal, as ruled by the Court of Appeals, but instead, prision mayor.

There should be little complication if the crime committed was punishable by the free-standing penalty of "death," as
utilized in Rep. Act No. 7659, as opposed to the ranged penalty of "reclusion perpetua to death," as often used in the
Revised Penal Code and other penal laws. The facts of the present case do not concern the latter penalty, hence our
reluctance to avail of an extended discussion thereof. However, we did earlier observe that both "reclusion perpetua"
and death are indivisible penalties. Under Article 61 (2) of the Revised Penal Code, "[w]hen the penalty prescribed for
the crime is composed of two indivisible penalties x x x x the penalty next lower in degree shall be that immediately
following the lesser of the penalties prescribed in the respective graduated scale." Hence, as we earlier noted, our
previous rulings that the penalty two degrees lower than "reclusion perpetua to death" is prision mayor.
Then there is the matter of whether retroactive effect should be extended to this new ruling, favorable as it is to
persons previously convicted of crimes which, if consummated or participated in as a principal, would have warranted
the solitary penalty of death. We see no choice but to extend the retroactive benefit. Article 22 of the Revised Penal
Code states that "[p]enal laws shall have a retroactive effect insofar as they favor the person guilty of a felony, who is
not a habitual criminal[87] x x x x although at the time of the publication of such laws a final sentence has been
pronounced and the convict is serving the same." Given that we have ruled that Rep. Act No. 9346 downgraded the
penalties for such crimes, the benefit of Article 22 has to apply, except as to those persons defined as "habitual
criminal[s]." Indeed, Rep. Act No. 9346 expressly recognized that its enactment would have retroactive beneficial
effects, referring as it did to "persons x x x whose sentences were reduced to reclusion perpetua by reason of this
Act."88

It cannot be discounted that by operation of Rep. Act No. 9346 and Article 22 of the Revised Penal Code, there may
be convicts presently serving their original sentences whose actual served terms exceed their reduced sentences. It
should be understood that this decision does not make operative the release of such convicts, especially as
there may be other reasons that exist for their continued detention. There are remedies under law that could be
employed to obtain the release of such prisoners, if warranted. Offices such as the Public Attorney's Office and non-
governmental organizations that frequently assist detainees possess the capacity and acumen to help implement the
release of such prisoners who are so entitled by reason of this ruling.

XI.

We close by returning to the matter of appellant Alfredo Bon. By reason of Rep. Act No. 9346, he is spared the death
sentence, and entitled to the corresponding reduction of his penalty as a consequence of the downgrading of his
offense from two (2) counts consummated rape to two (2) counts of attempted rape. For the six (6) counts of rape, we
downgrade the penalty of death to reclusion perpetua with no eligibility for parole, pursuant to Rep. Act No. 9346. For
each of the two (2) counts of attempted rape, we downgrade by one degree lower the penalty imposed by the Court of
Appeals. We hold that there being no mitigating or aggravating circumstances, the penalty of prision mayor should be
imposed in it medium period. Consequently, we impose the new penalty of two (2) years, four (4) months and one (1)
day of prision correccional as minimum, to eight (8) years and one (1) day of prision mayor as maximum.

Lastly, as to damages, the Court awards AAA P30,000.00 as civil indemnity, P25,000.00 as moral damages
and P10,000.00 as exemplary damages for each count of attempted rape, it being the prevailing rate of indemnity as
pronounced in the recent case of People v. Miranda.89

Separately, the Court applies prevailing jurisprudence90 in awarding to BBB and AAA P75,000.00 as civil
indemnity, P75,000.00 as moral damages and P25,000.00 as exemplary damages, for each count of consummated
rape.

WHEREFORE, in light of the foregoing, the Decision of the Court of Appeals is hereby AFFIRMED WITH
MODIFICATION. The Court sentences appellant Alfredo J. Bon to the penalty of reclusion perpetua with no possibility
of parole for each of the six (6) counts of consummated rape committed against AAA in Criminal Case Nos. 6699,
6902, and against BBB in Criminal Case Nos. 6689, 6903, 6905, and 6907. Appellant is further ORDERED to
indemnify AAA and BBB for the crime of consummated rape, in the amounts of P50,000.00 as civil
indemnity, P50,000.00 as moral damages and P25,000.00 as exemplary damages for each of them.

For the two (2) counts of attempted rape of AAA in Criminal Cases No. 6906 and 6908, appellant is hereby
SENTENCED to an indeterminate penalty of two (2) years, four (4) months and one (1) day of prision correccional as
minimum, to eight (8) years and one (1) of prision mayor as maximum for each count of attempted rape. In addition,
appellant is ORDERED to indemnify AAA for each of the two (2) counts of attempted rape in the amounts
of P30,000.00 as civil indemnity, P25,000.00 as moral damages and P10,000.00 as exemplary damages.

SO ORDERED.
 3.

Republic of the Philippines

SUPREME COURT
Manila

THIRD DIVISION

G.R. No. 185715               January 19, 2011

PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, Appellee,

vs.
ERLINDA CAPUNO y TISON, Appellant.

DECISION

BRION, J.:

We review the May 27, 2008 decision1 of the Court of Appeals (CA) in CA-G.R. CR No. 30215, affirming with
modification the April 3, 2006 decision2 of the Regional Trial Court (RTC), Branch 75, San Mateo, Rizal. The RTC
decision found Erlinda Capuno y Tison (appellant) guilty beyond reasonable doubt of illegal sale of shabu, under
Section 5, Article II of Republic Act (R.A.) No. 9165 or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.

ANTECEDENT FACTS

The prosecution charged the appellant with violation of Section 5, Article II of R.A. No. 9165 before the RTC, under an
Information that states:

That on or about the 21st day of July 2002, in the Municipality of Rodriguez, Province of Rizal, Philippines, and within
the jurisdiction of this Honorable Court, the above-named accused, without being authorized by law, did then and
there willfully, unlawfully and knowingly sell, deliver and give away to another, one (1) heat-sealed transparent plastic
sachet of white crystalline substance weighing 0.04 gram which was found positive to the test for Methamphetamine
Hydrochloride, a dangerous drug, and which substance produces a physiological action similar to amphetamine or
other compound thereof providing similar physiological effects.

CONTRARY TO LAW.3

The appellant pleaded not guilty to the charge. 4 The prosecution presented Police Officer 1 (PO1) Jose Gordon
Antonio and PO1 Fortunato Jiro III at the trial. The appellant and Maria Cecilia Salvador took the witness stand for the
defense.

PO1 Antonio narrated that at around 11:10 a.m. of July 21, 2002, he was at the Rodriguez Police Station when a
civilian informant arrived and told him that a woman was openly selling dangerous drugs on Manggahan Street,
Barangay Burgos, Montalban, Rizal. Upon receiving this information, he, PO1 Joseph G. Fernandez, and PO1 Jiro
planned an entrapment operation: he (PO1 Antonio) was designated as the poseur-buyer, while his two companions
would act as back-up. Before leaving the police station, they asked the desk officer to record their operation. 5 They
went to Manggahan Street, and when they were near this place, the informant pointed to them the appellant. PO1
Antonio alighted from the vehicle, approached the appellant, and told her, "Paiskor ng halagang piso"; he then
handed the pre-marked one hundred peso bill to her. The appellant pulled out a plastic sachet from her left pocket
and gave it to PO1 Antonio. PO1 Antonio immediately held the appellant’s arm, introduced himself to her, and stated
her constitutional rights. It was at this time that PO1 Fernandez and PO1 Jiro approached them; PO1 Jiro recovered
the marked money from the appellant. They brought the appellant to the police station for investigation. 6 According to
PO1 Antonio, the police forwarded the seized item to the Eastern Police District Crime Laboratory for examination. 7

PO1 Jiro testified that at around 11:00 a.m. of July 21, 2002, he was at the Rodriguez Police Station when a
confidential asset called and informed the police that he saw one "alias Erlinda" selling illegal drugs. The police
planned a buy-bust operation wherein they prepared a one hundred peso bill (₱100.00) marked money, and
designated PO1 Antonio as the poseur buyer. Afterwards, PO1 Jiro, PO1 Antonio, PO1 Fernandez, and the
confidential asset left the police station and proceeded to Manahan Street. On their arrival there, the confidential
asset pointed to them the appellant.8 PO1 Antonio alighted from the vehicle, approached the appellant, and talked to
her. Thereafter, PO1 Antonio handed the marked money to the appellant; the appellant took "something" from her
pocket and handed it to PO1 Antonio. 9 Immediately after, PO1 Antonio arrested the appellant. He (PO1 Jiro) and PO1
Fernandez approached the appellant; he recovered the marked money from the appellant’s left pocket. They brought
the appellant to the police station and asked the duty officer to blotter the incident. Afterwards, they brought the
appellant to the police investigator; they also made a request for a laboratory examination. 10

On cross-examination, PO1 Jiro stated that he was 10 meters away from PO1 Antonio when the latter was
transacting with the appellant. He maintained that the buy-bust operation took place outside the appellant’s
house.11 He recalled that the appellant had two other companions when they arrived. When they arrested the
appellant, some residents of the area started a commotion and tried to grab her. 12

The testimony of Police Inspector Abraham Tecson, the Forensic Chemist, was dispensed with after both parties
stipulated on the result of the examination conducted on the specimen submitted to the crime laboratory.

On the hearing of April 14, 2004, the prosecution offered the following as exhibits:

Exhibit "A" – the Sinumpaang Salaysay of PO1 Antonio, PO1 Jiro and PO1 Fernandez

Exhibit "B" – the request for laboratory examination

Exhibit "C" – Chemistry Report No. D-1373-02E

Exhibit "D" – the buy-bust money

Exhibit "E" – Chemistry Report No. RD-78-03

Exhibit "F" – the specimen confiscated from the appellant

Exhibit "G" – Police Blotter13

The defense presented a different version of the events.

The appellant testified that at around 11:00 a.m. of July 21, 2002, she was inside her house and lying on the bed,
together with her 15-year old daughter, when two persons, who introduced themselves as police officers, entered her
house. They wore maong pants and sando. They asked her if she was Erlinda Capuno and when she answered in
the affirmative, they searched her house.14 They invited the appellant and her daughter to the Municipal Hall of
Montalban, Rizal when they did not find anything in the house. Upon arriving there, the police told her to reveal the
identity of the person who gave her shabu. When she answered that she had no idea what they were talking about,
the police put her in jail.15 The appellant further stated that she saw the seized specimen only in court. 16
On cross-examination, the appellant denied that she had been selling illegal drugs. She explained that she consented
to the search because she believed that the two persons who entered her house were policemen. 17

Maria, the appellant’s daughter, corroborated her mother’s testimony on material points, but stated that the two
policemen did not search their house but merely "looked around." 18

The RTC, in its decision19 of April 3, 2006, convicted the appellant of the crime charged, and sentenced her to suffer
the indeterminate penalty of imprisonment for twelve (12) years and one (1) day to twelve (12) years, ten (10) months
and twenty (20) days. The RTC likewise ordered the appellant to pay a ₱100,000.00 fine.

The appellant appealed to the CA, docketed as CA-G.R. CR No. 30215. The CA, in its decision 20 dated May 27, 2008,
affirmed the RTC decision with the modification that the appellant be sentenced to life imprisonment, and that the
amount of fine be increased to ₱500,000.00.

The CA found unmeritorious the appellant’s claim that the prosecution witnesses were not credible due to their
conflicting statements regarding the place of the buy-bust operation. As the records bore, PO1 Antonio stated that
they conducted the entrapment operation on Manggahan Street; PO1 Jiro testified that it was held on Manahan
Street. The CA, nevertheless, ruled that PO1 Jiro made a slip of the tongue as there was no Manahan Street in
Barangay Burgos, Montalban, Rizal.21

The CA added that despite the minor inconsistencies in the testimonies of PO1 Antonio and PO1 Jiro, the records do
not show that they were ever motivated by any ulterior motive other than their desire to help wipe out the drug
menace. It added that the appellant’s denial cannot prevail over the positive identification made by the prosecution
witnesses, who, as police officers, performed their duties in a regular manner. 22

Finally, the CA held that all the elements of illegal sale of dangerous drugs had been established. 23

In her brief,24 the appellant claims that the lower courts erred in convicting her of the crime charged despite the
prosecution’s failure to prove her guilt beyond reasonable doubt. She harps on the fact that PO1 Antonio and PO1
Jiro gave conflicting statements on how they came to know of her alleged illegal activities. On one hand, PO1 Antonio
claimed that an informant went to the police station and told them that the appellant was openly selling illegal drugs;
PO1 Jiro, on the other hand, stated that a civilian informant called the police and informed them of the appellant’s
illegal activities. The appellant also alleges that the testimonies of these two witnesses differ as regards the actual
place of the entrapment operation. She further argues that the police did not coordinate with the Philippine Drug
Enforcement Agency (PDEA) in conducting the buy-bust operation.

The appellant likewise contends that the prosecution failed to show an unbroken chain of custody in the handling of
the seized specimen. She claims that the apprehending team did not mark the seized items upon confiscation.
Moreover, there was no showing that the police inventoried or photographed the seized items in her presence or her
counsel, a representative of the media and the Department of Justice (DOJ), and any elected public official. 25

For the State, the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) counters with the argument that the testimonies of the police
officers prevail over the appellant’s bare denial, more so since there was nothing in the records to show that they
were motivated by any evil motive other than their desire to curb the vicious drug trade. 26

The OSG added that when the buy-bust operation took place on July 21, 2002, there was no institution yet known as
the PDEA, as the Implementing Rules of R.A. No. 9165 (IRR) took effect only on November 27, 2002. 27 It further
claimed that the failure to comply with the Dangerous Drugs Board Regulations was not fatal to the prosecution of
drug cases.28

THE COURT’S RULING

After due consideration, we resolve to acquit the appellant for the prosecution’s failure to prove her guilt beyond
reasonable doubt.

In considering a criminal case, it is critical to start with the law’s own starting perspective on the status of the accused
– in all criminal prosecutions, he is presumed innocent of the charge laid unless the contrary is proven beyond
reasonable doubt.29 The burden lies on the prosecution to overcome such presumption of innocence by presenting the
quantum of evidence required. In so doing, the prosecution must rest on its own merits and must not rely on the
weakness of the defense. And if the prosecution fails to meet the required amount of evidence, the defense may
logically not even present evidence on its own behalf. In which case, the presumption prevails and the accused
should necessarily be acquitted. 30

The requirements of paragraph 1, Section 21

of Article II of R.A. No. 9165

In a prosecution for the illegal sale of a prohibited drug under Section 5 of R.A. No. 9165, the prosecution must prove
the following elements: (1) the identity of the buyer and the seller, the object, and the consideration; and (2) the
delivery of the thing sold and the payment therefor. All these require evidence that the sale transaction transpired,
coupled with the presentation in court of the corpus delicti, i.e., the body or substance of the crime that establishes
that a crime has actually been committed, as shown by presenting the object of the illegal transaction. To remove any
doubt or uncertainty on the identity and integrity of the seized drug, evidence must definitely show that the illegal drug
presented in court is the same illegal drug actually recovered from the appellant; otherwise, the prosecution for
possession or for drug pushing under R.A. No. 9165 fails. 31

The required procedure on the seizure and custody of drugs is embodied in Section 21, paragraph 1, Article II of R.A.
No. 9165, which states:

1) The apprehending team having initial custody and control of the drugs shall, immediately after seizure and
confiscation, physically inventory and photograph the same in the presence of the accused or the person/s from
whom such items were confiscated and/or seized, or his/her representative or counsel, a representative from the
media and the Department of Justice (DOJ), and any elected public official who shall be required to sign the copies of
the inventory and be given a copy thereof[.]

This procedure, however, was not shown to have been complied with by the members of the buy-bust team, and
nothing on record suggests that they had extended reasonable efforts to comply with the said statutory requirement in
handling the evidence. The deficiency is patent from the following exchanges at the trial:

FISCAL ROMNIEL MACAPAGAL:

Q: Upon arrival at Manggahan Street, what did x x x your group do?

PO1 JOSE GORDON ANTONIO:

A: We proceeded to the place and before we reach[ed] that place[,] our civilian asset pointed to us the
suspect.

Q: After your civilian informer pointed to the suspect, what did your group do?

A: I alighted from our private vehicle at the time and I was the one who talked to Erlinda Capuno.

Q: You said [that] you talked to Erlinda Capuno, what did you tell her when you approached her?
 A: I told her "Paiskor ng halagang piso."

Q: When you told this to Erlinda that you buy one Hundred Peso of shabu, what did he do? [sic]

A: When I gave her on [sic] piece of the marked money[,] he [sic] pulled out something from her pocket.

Q: What is the denomination of the marked money?

A: One Hundred Peso bill.

Q: Upon receiving the plastic sachet, what did you do next?

A: After she gave me the suspected shabu, I held her by the arm and my two companions who [were] then
seeing me approached me. [sic]

Q: What is the purpose of holding the hands of Erlinda when you received this plastic sachet?

A: When I took the plastic sachet that was the time I held her and after that I introduced myself and explained
to her Constitutional rights. [sic]

Q: After arresting Erlinda, where did you proceed?

A: We brought her to the Police Station for investigation where she gave her full name and also turned over
the suspected items[.]

Q: Who recovered the buy-bust money?

A: Police Officer Hero [sic], Sir.

Q: You stated you were the one who handed the buy bust money to Erlinda. Do you have that buy bust
money with you?

A: After I gave the marked money to her[,] she picked from her left pocket the suspected shabu and Police
Officer Hero recovered the money. [sic]

xxxx

Q: The alleged specimen you got from Erlinda, where is it now?

A: We brought it to the Eastern Police District Crime Laboratory for examination.

Q: Were you able to know the result of this examination?

A: Yes, Sir. When we returned we already have the result. 32

From the foregoing exchanges, it is clear that the apprehending team, upon confiscation of the drug, immediately
brought the appellant and the seized specimen to the police station. No physical inventory and photograph of the
seized items were taken in the presence of the appellant or her counsel, a representative from the media and the
DOJ, and an elective official. We stress that PO1 Antonio’s testimony was corroborated by another member of the
apprehending team, PO1 Jiro, who narrated that after arresting the appellant, they brought her and the seized item to
the police station. At no time during PO1 Jiro’s testimony did he even intimate that they inventoried or photographed
the confiscated item.

A review of jurisprudence, even prior to the passage of R.A. No. 9165, shows that this Court did not hesitate to strike
down convictions for failure to follow the proper procedure for the custody of confiscated dangerous drugs. Prior to
R.A. No. 9165, the Court applied the procedure required by Dangerous Drugs Board Regulation No. 3, Series of
1979, amending Board Regulation No. 7, Series of 1974. 33 Section 1 of this Regulation requires the apprehending
team, having initial custody and control of the seized drugs, to immediately inventory and photograph the same in the
presence of the accused and/or his representatives, who shall be required to sign the copies of the inventory and be
given a copy thereof.

The Court remained vigilant in ensuring that the prescribed procedures in the handling of the seized drugs were
observed after the passage of R.A. No. 9165. In People v. Lorenzo, 34 we acquitted the accused for failure of the buy-
bust team to photograph and inventory the seized items. People v. Garcia35 likewise resulted in an acquittal because
no physical inventory was ever made, and no photograph of the seized items was taken under the circumstances
required by R.A. No. 9165. In Bondad, Jr. v. People, 36 we also acquitted the accused for the failure of the police to
conduct an inventory and to photograph the seized item, without justifiable grounds.

We had the same rulings in People v. Gutierrez,37 People v. Denoman,38 People v. Partoza,39 People v. Robles,40 and

People v. dela Cruz,41 where we emphasized the importance of complying with the required procedures under Section
21 of R.A. No. 9165.

To be sure, Section 21(a), Article II of the IRR offers some flexibility in complying with the express requirements under
paragraph 1, Section 21, Article II of R.A. No. 9165, i.e.,"non-compliance with these requirements under justifiable
grounds, as long as the integrity and the evidentiary value of the seized items are properly preserved by the
apprehending officer/team, shall not render void and invalid such seizures of and custody over said items[.]" This
saving clause, however, applies only where the prosecution recognized the procedural lapses, and, thereafter,
explained the cited justifiable grounds, and when the prosecution established that the integrity and evidentiary value
of the evidence seized had been preserved.42

These conditions were not met in the present case, as the prosecution did not even attempt to offer any justification
for its failure to follow the prescribed procedures in the handling of the seized items.

The "Chain of Custody" Requirement

Proof beyond reasonable doubt demands that unwavering exactitude be observed in establishing the corpus delicti -
the body of the crime whose core is the confiscated illicit drug. Thus, every fact necessary to constitute the crime
must be established. The chain of custody requirement performs this function in buy-bust operations as it ensures
that doubts concerning the identity of the evidence are removed. 43

Board Regulation No. 1, Series of 2002, defines chain of custody as "the duly recorded authorized movements and
custody of seized drugs or controlled chemicals or plant sources of dangerous drugs or laboratory equipment of each
stage, from the time of seizure/confiscation to receipt in the forensic laboratory to safekeeping to presentation in court
for destruction." As a method of authenticating evidence, the chain of custody rule requires that the admission of the
exhibit be preceded by evidence sufficient to support a finding that the matter in question is what the proponent
claims it to be. It would, thus, include a testimony about the every link in the chain, from the moment the item was
seized to the time it was offered in court as evidence, such that every person who handled the same would admit as
to how and from whom it was received, where it was and what happened to it while in the witness' possession, the
condition in which it was received and the condition in which it was delivered to the next link in the chain. The same
witnesses would then describe the precautions taken to ensure that there had been no change in the condition of the
item and no opportunity for someone not in the chain to have possession of the same. It is from the testimony of
every witness who handled the evidence from which a reliable assurance can be derived that the evidence presented
in court is one and the same as that seized from the accused. 44

In the present case, the prosecution’s evidence failed to establish the chain that would have shown that the shabu
presented in court was the very same specimen seized from the appellant.

The first crucial link in the chain of custody starts with the seizure of the plastic sachet from the appellant. From the
testimonies and joint affidavit of PO1 Antonio and PO1 Jiro, it is clear that the police did not mark the confiscated
sachet upon confiscation. Marking after seizure is the starting point in the custodial link, thus it is vital that the seized
contraband is immediately marked because succeeding handlers of the specimen will use the markings as reference.
The marking of the evidence serves to separate the marked evidence from the corpus of all other similar or related
evidence from the time they are seized from the accused until they are disposed of at the end of criminal proceedings,
obviating switching, "planting," or contamination of evidence. 45

The second link in the chain of custody is its turnover from PO1 Antonio to the police station. Both PO1 Antonio and
PO1 Jiro testified that they brought the appellant and the seized item to the police station. They, however, failed to
identify the person to whose custody the seized item was given. Although the records show that the request for
laboratory examination of the seized item was prepared by the Chief of Police, Police Senior Inspector Anastacio
Benzon, the evidence does not show that he was the official who received the marked plastic sachet from PO1
Antonio.

As for the subsequent links in the chain of custody, the records show that the seized item was forwarded to the
Philippine National Police Crime Laboratory by a certain PO1 Sanchez. We stress, however, that PO1 Sanchez
forwarded the said specimen only on the next day, or on July 22, 2002. To harp back to what we earlier discussed,
there was a missing link in the custody of the seized drug after it left the hands of PO1 Antonio. We cannot, therefore,
presume that PO1 Sanchez had custody of the specimen in the interim. We also stress that the identity of the person
who received the seized item at the crime laboratory was not clearly identified.

Due to the procedural lapses pointed out above, serious uncertainty hangs over the identification of the seized shabu
that the prosecution introduced into evidence. In effect, the prosecution failed to fully prove the elements of the crime
charged, creating a reasonable doubt on the criminal liability of the accused.

Credibility of the Prosecution Witnesses

We likewise cannot acquiesce to the credibility accorded to the prosecution witnesses by the courts a quo. Contrary
to the lower courts’ ruling, the inconsistencies in the statements of the prosecution witnesses are substantial, not
trivial. To recall, PO1 Antonio, PO1 Jiro and PO1 Fernandez stated in their Pinagsamang Sinumpaang Salaysay 46 that
a civilian asset arrived at the police station on July 21, 2002, and informed them that one "alias Erlinda" was selling
illegal drugs on Manahan Street, Barangay Burgos, Rodriguez, Rizal. PO1 Antonio reiterated this fact when he
testified in court that a civilian informant arrived at the police station on July 21, 2002 and told them that a woman was
openly selling dangerous drugs on Manggahan Street, Barangay Burgos, Montalban, Rizal. PO1 Jiro, however,
changed his story in court and testified that the confidential informant called the police and informed then that one
"alias Erlinda" was selling illegal drugs.

We are at a loss how PO1 Antonio and PO1 Jiro could have given different accounts regarding how the confidential
asset informed them of the appellant’s illegal activities when both of them were present at the police station on July
21, 2002. What baffles us even more is why PO1 Jiro’s gave conflicting statements in his joint affidavit and in his
court testimony. To us, the conflicting statements and declarations of PO1 Antonio and PO1 Jiro destroyed their
credibility; it made their testimonies unreliable. Evidence to be believed must not only proceed from the mouth of a
credible witness but it must be credible in itself, such as the common experience and observation of mankind can
approve as probable under the circumstances.47
Presumption of Regularity in the
Performance of Official Duties

In sustaining the appellant’s conviction, the CA also relied on the evidentiary presumption that official duties have
been regularly performed. This presumption, it must be stressed, is not conclusive. It cannot, by itself, overcome the
constitutional presumption of innocence. Any taint of irregularity affects the whole performance and should make the
presumption unavailable.48 The presumption, in other words, obtains only when nothing in the records suggests that
the law enforcers involved deviated from the standard conduct of official duty as provided for in the law. But where the
official act in question is irregular on its face, as in this case, an adverse presumption arises as a matter of
course.49 As we explained in People v. Sanchez:

While the Court is mindful that the law enforcers enjoy the presumption of regularity in the performance of their duties,
this presumption cannot prevail over the constitutional right of the accused to be presumed innocent and it cannot, by
itself constitute proof of guilt beyond reasonable doubt. The presumption of regularity in the performance of official
duty cannot be used as basis for affirming accused-appellant's conviction because "First, the presumption is precisely
just that - a mere presumption. Once challenged by evidence, as in this case, xxx [it] cannot be regarded as binding
truth. Second, the presumption of regularity in the performance of official functions cannot preponderate over the
presumption of innocence that prevails if not overthrown by proof beyond reasonable doubt." The presumption also
cannot prevail over positive averments concerning violations of the constitutional rights of the accused. In short, the
presumption of regularity in the performance of official duty cannot by itself overcome the presumption of innocence
nor constitute proof beyond reasonable doubt.50

All told, we find merit in the appellant's claim that the prosecution failed to discharge its burden of proving her guilt
beyond reasonable doubt, due to the unreliability of the testimonies of the prosecution witnesses and substantial gaps
in the chain of custody, raising reasonable doubt on the authenticity of the corpus delicti.
1avvphi1

WHEREFORE, premises considered, we hereby REVERSE and SET ASIDE the May 27, 2008 Decision of the Court
of Appeals in CA-G.R. CR No. 30215. Appellant Erlinda Capuno y Tison is hereby ACQUITTED for failure of the
prosecution to prove her guilt beyond reasonable doubt. She is ordered immediately RELEASED from detention
unless she is confined for another lawful cause.

Let a copy of this Decision be furnished the Superintendent, Correctional Institution for Women, Mandaluyong City,
for immediate implementation. The Superintendent of the Correctional Institution for Women is directed to report the
action she has taken to this Court within five (5) days from receipt of this Decision.

SO ORDERED.

4.

EN BANC

G.R. Nos. 216007-09, December 08, 2015

PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, Petitioner, v. LUZVIMINDA S. VALDEZ AND THE

SANDIGANBAYAN (FIFTH DIVISION), Respondent.

DECISION
 PERALTA, J.:

This special civil action for certiorari under Rule 65 of the Rules of Court (Rules) seeks to nullify and
set aside the October 10, 2014 Resolution1 of public respondent Sandiganbayan Fifth Division, the
dispositive portion of which states:

WHEREFORE, the (i) Motion to Set Aside No Bail Recommendation and to Fix the Amount of Bail and
the (ii) Urgent Supplemental Motion to the Motion to Set Aside No Bail Recommendation and to Fix the
Amount of Bail with Additional Prayer to Recall/List Warrant of Arrest filed by accused Luzviminda S.
Valdez, are GRANTED.

Let the Order of Arrest issued in Criminal Case Nos. SB-14-CRM-0321, 0322 and 0324 adopting the
"no bail" recommendation of the Office of the Ombudsman be RECALLED. Instead, let an Order of
arrest in said cases be issued anew, this time, fixing the bail for each offense charged in the amount of
Two Hundred Thousand Pesos (P200,000.00).

SO ORDERED.2 ChanRoblesVirtualawlibrary

The case stemmed from the Joint Affidavit3 executed by Sheila S. Velmonte-Portal and Mylene T.
Romero, both State Auditors of the Commission on Audit Region VI in Pavia, Iloilo, who conducted a
post-audit of the disbursement vouchers (D.V.) of the Bacolod City Government. Among the subjects
thereof were the reimbursements of expenses of private respondent Luzviminda S. Valdez (Valdez), a
former mayor of Bacolod City, particularly:

1. D.V. No. 6 dated January 8, 2004 amounting to P80,000.00;

2. D.V. No. 220 dated March 24, 2004 amounting to P68,000.00;

3. D.V. No. 278 dated April 13, 2004 amounting to P19,350.00; and

4. D.V. No. 325 dated April 30, 2004 amounting to P111,800.00 for Cash Slip No. 193402.4

Based on the verification conducted in the establishments that issued the official receipts, it was
alleged that the cash slips were altered/falsified to enable Valdez to claim/receive reimbursement from
the Government the total amount of P279,150.00 instead of only P4,843.25; thus, an aggregate
overclaim of P274,306.75.

The Public Assistance and Corruption Prevention Office (PACPO), Office of the Ombudsman - Visayas
received the joint affidavit, which was thereafter resolved adverse to Valdez.

Consequently, Valdez was charged with eight cases four of which (SB-14-CRM-0317 to 0320) were for
Violation of Section 3 (e) of Republic Act No. 3019, while the remaining half (SB-14-CRM-0321 to
0324) were for the complex crime of Malversation of Public Funds thru Falsification of Official/Public
Documents under Articles 2175 and 171,6 in relation to Article 487 of the Revised Penal Code (RPC). All
the cases were raffled before public respondent.

Since the Ombudsman recommended "no bail" in SB-14-CRM-0321, 0322, and 0324, Valdez, who is
still at-large, caused the filing of a Motion to Set Aside No Bail Recommendation and to Fix the Amount
of Bail.8 She argued that the three cases are bailable as a matter of right because no aggravating or
modifying circumstance was alleged; the maximum of the indeterminate sentence shall be taken from
the medium period that ranged from 18 years, 8 months and 1 day to 20 years; and applying Article
48 of the RPC, the imposable penalty is 20 years, which is the maximum of the medium period.

Petitioner countered in its Comment/Opposition9 that the Indeterminate Sentence Law (ISL) is

inapplicable as the attending circumstances are immaterial because the charge constituting the
complex crime have the corresponding penalty of reclusion perpetua. Since the offense is punishable
by reclusion perpetua, bail is discretionary. Instead of a motion to fix bail, a summary hearing to
determine if the evidence of guilt is strong is, therefore, necessary conformably with Section 13,
Article III of the 1987 Constitution and Section 4, Rule 114 of the Rules.

Due to the issuance and release of a warrant of arrest, Valdez subsequently filed an Urgent
Supplemental Motion to the Motion to Set Aside No Bail Recommendation and to Fix the Amount of
Bail with Additional Prayer to Recall/Lift Warrant of Arrest.10 Petitioner filed a Comment/Opposition
thereto.11 Later, the parties filed their respective Memorandum of Authorities.12

As aforesaid, on October 10, 2014, public respondent granted the motions of Valdez. It recalled the
arrest order issued in Criminal Case Nos. SB-14-CRM-0321, 0322 and 0324. In lieu thereof, a new
arrest order was issued, fixing the bail for each offense charged in said cases in the amount of Two
Hundred Thousand Pesos (P200,000.00). Without filing a motion for reconsideration, petitioner
elevated the matter before Us to resolve the lone issue of whether an accused indicted for the complex
crime of Malversation of Public Funds thru Falsification of Official/Public Documents involving an
amount that exceeds P22,000.00 is entitled to bail as a matter of right.

The Court shall first tackle Valdez's procedural objection. She avers that the petition must be
dismissed outright on the ground that it was filed without first filing a motion for reconsideration
before public respondent, and that, even if there are exceptions to the general rule, this case does not
fall under any of them.

We disagree.

The general rule is that a motion for reconsideration is a condition sine qua non before a petition
for certiorari may lie, its purpose being to grant an opportunity for the court a quo to correct any error
attributed to it by a re-examination of the legal and factual circumstances of the case.

However, the rule is not absolute and jurisprudence has laid down the following exceptions when the
filing of a petition for certiorari is proper notwithstanding the failure to file a motion for
reconsideration:

(a) where the order is a patent nullity, as where the court a quo has no jurisdiction;

(b) where the questions raised in the certiorari proceedings have been duly raised and passed upon by
the lower court, or are the same as those raised and passed upon in the lower court;

(c) where there is an urgent necessity for the resolution of the question and any further delay would
prejudice the interests of the Government or of the petitioner or the subject matter of the petition is
perishable;

(d) where, under the circumstances, a motion for reconsideration would be useless;
(e) where petitioner was deprived of due process and there is extreme urgency for relief;

(f) where, in a criminal case, relief from an order of arrest is urgent and the granting of such relief by
the trial court is improbable;

(g) where the proceedings in the lower court are a nullity for lack of due process;

(h) where the proceeding was ex parte or in which the petitioner had no opportunity to object; and,

(i) where the issue raised is one purely of law or public interest is involved.13 ChanRoblesVirtualawlibrary

The issue being raised here is one purely of law and all the argument, pros and cons were already
raised in and passed upon by public respondent; thus, filing a motion for reconsideration would be an
exercise in futility. Likewise, as petitioner claims, the resolution of the question raised in this case is of
urgent necessity considering its implications on similar cases filed and pending before the
Sandiganbayan. As it appears, there have been conflicting views on the matter such that the different
divisions of the anti-graft court issue varying resolutions. Undeniably, the issue is of extreme
importance affecting public interest. It involves not just the right of the State to prosecute criminal
offenders but, more importantly, the constitutional right of the accused to bail.

Now, on the main issue: chanRoblesvirtualLawlibrary

The controversy is, in fact, not one of first impression. Mañalac, Jr. v. People14 already resolved that
an accused charged with Malversation of Public Funds thru Falsification of Official/Public Documents
where the amount involved exceeds P22,000.00 is not entitled to bail as a matter of right because it
has an actual imposable penalty of reclusion perpetua.

In Mañalac, Jr., the defendants argued that they should be allowed to post bail since reclusion
perpetua is not the prescribed penalty for the offense but merely describes the penalty actually
imposed on account of the fraud involved. It was also posited that Article 48 of the RPC applies "only
after the accused has been convicted in a full-blown trial such that the court is mandated to impose
the penalty of the most serious crime," and that the reason for the imposition of the penalty of the
most serious offense is "only for the purpose of determining the correct penalty upon the application of
the Indeterminate Sentence Law." This Court, through the Third Division, however, denied the petition
and resolved in the affirmative the issue of whether the constitutional right to bail of an accused is
restricted in cases whose imposable penalty ranges from reclusion temporal maximum to reclusion
perpetua. Citing People v. Pantaleon, Jr., et al.,15 in relation to Section 13, Article III of the
Constitution and Section 7, Rule 114 of the Rules, it was held that Mañalac, Jr. is not entitled to bail as
a matter of right since he is charged with a crime whose penalty is reclusion perpetua.

To recall, the amounts involved in Pantaleon, Jr. were manifestly in excess of P22,000.00. We opined
that the Sandiganbayan correctly imposed the penalty of reclusion perpetua and that the ISL is
inapplicable since it is an indivisible penalty. The Court's pronouncement is consistent with the earlier
cases of People v. Conwi, Jr.,16People v. Enfermo,17 and People v. Pajaro, et al.18 as well as with the
fairly recent case of Zafra v. People.19

The rulings in Pantaleon, Jr. and analogous cases are in keeping with the provisions of the RPC.
Specifically, Article 48 of which states that in complex crimes, "the penalty for the most serious crime
shall be imposed, the same to be applied in its maximum period." Thus, in Malversation of Public
Funds thru Falsification of Official/Public Documents, the prescribed penalties for malversation and
falsification should be taken into account. Under the RPC, the penalty for malversation of public funds
or property if the amount involved exceeds P22,000.00 shall be reclusion temporal in its maximum
period to reclusion perpetua, aside from perpetual special disqualification and a fine equal to the
amount of the funds malversed or equal to the total value of the property embezzled.20 On the other
hand, the penalty ofprision mayor and a fine not to exceed P5,000.00 shall be imposed for falsification
committed by a public officer.21 Considering that malversation is the more serious offense,
the imposable penalty for Malversation of Public Funds thru Falsification of Official/Public Documents
if the amount involved exceeds P22,000.00 is reclusion perpetua, it being the maximum period of
the prescribed penalty of reclusion temporal in its maximum period to reclusion perpetua.

For purposes of bail application, however, the ruling in Mañalac, Jr. should be revisited on the ground
that Pantaleon, Jr. (as well as Conwi, Jr., Enfermo, Pajaro, et al., and Zafra) was disposed in the
context of a judgment of conviction rendered by the lower court and affirmed on appeal by this Court.
As will be shown below, the appropriate rule is to grant bail as a matter of right to an accused who is
charged with a complex crime of Malversation of Public Funds thru Falsification of Official/Public
Documents involving an amount that exceeds P22,000.00.

Section 13, Article III of the 1987 Constitution states:

SECTION 13. All persons, except those charged with offenses punishable by reclusion perpetua when
evidence of guilt is strong, shall, before conviction, be bailable by sufficient sureties, or be released on
recognizance as may be provided by law. The right to bail shall not be impaired even when the
privilege of the writ of habeas corpus is suspended. Excessive bail shall not be required.22 ChanRoblesVirtualawlibrary

Pursuant thereto, Sections 4 and 7, Rule 114 of the Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure provide:

SEC. 4. Bail, a matter of right; exception. - All persons in custody shall be admitted to bail as a
matter of right, with sufficient sureties, or released on recognizance as prescribed by law or this Rule
(a) before or after conviction by the Metropolitan Trial Court, Municipal Trial Court, Municipal Trial
Court in Cities, or Municipal Circuit Trial Court, and (b) before conviction by the Regional Trial Court of
an offense not punishable by death, reclusion perpetua, or life imprisonment. (4a)

SEC. 7. Capital offense of an offense punishable by reclusion perpetua or life imprisonment,

not bailable. - No person charged with a capital offense, or an offense punishable by reclusion
perpetua or life imprisonment, shall be admitted to bail when evidence of guilt is strong, regardless of
the stage of the criminal prosecution. (7a)23ChanRoblesVirtualawlibrary

The pivotal question is: How should We construe the term "punishable" under the provisions above-
quoted?

In Our mind, the term "punishable" should refer to prescribed, not imposable, penalty. People v.
Temporada,24 which was even cited by petitioner, perceptibly distinguished these two concepts:

The RPC provides for an initial penalty as a general prescription for the felonies defined therein which
consists of a range of period of time. This is what is referred to as the "prescribed penalty." For
instance, under Article 249 of the RPC, the prescribed penalty for homicide is reclusion temporal which
ranges from 12 years and 1 day to 20 years of imprisonment. Further, the Code provides for attending
or modifying circumstances which when present in the commission of a felony affects the computation
of the penalty to be imposed on a convict. This penalty, as thus modified, is referred to as the
"imposable penalty." In the case of homicide which is committed with one ordinary aggravating
circumstance and no mitigating circumstances, the imposable penalty under the RPC shall be the
prescribed penalty in its maximum period. From this imposable penalty, the court chooses a single
fixed penalty (also called a straight penalty) which is the "penalty actually imposed" on a convict,
i.e., the prison term he has to serve.25
ChanRoblesVirtualawlibrary

Petitioner contends that the imposable penalty is the one provided by the RPC before conviction to
determine whether the charge is bailable or not, while the penalty actually imposed pertains to the
prison sentence upon conviction.26 Hence, it is maintained that the penalty imposable for the offense
charged against private respondent is reclusion perpetua, which makes Criminal Case Nos. SB-14-
CRM-0321, 0322 and 0324 non-bailable.

The argument is erroneous.

Following Temporada, for the complex crime of Malversation of Public Funds thru Falsification of
Official/Public Documents involving an amount that exceeds P22,000.00, the "prescribed penalty"
is reclusion temporal in its maximum period to reclusion perpetua. After trial, should the commission
of such crime be proven by the prosecution beyond reasonable doubt, the "imposable penalty"
is reclusion perpetua in view of the RPC mandate that the prescribed penalty of reclusion
temporal maximum to reclusion perpetua shall be applied in its maximum.27 The falsification, which is
the means used to commit the crime of malversation, is in the nature of a generic aggravating
circumstance that effectively directs the imposition of the prescribed penalty in its maximum
period.28 The phrases "shall be applied" and "shall impose," found in Articles 63 and 64, respectively,
of the RPC, are of similar import as the phrase "shall be imposed" found in Article 48. Both Articles 63
and 64 refer to the penalty to be imposed after considering the aggravating or mitigating
circumstance/s. Finally, the "penalty actually imposed" is still reclusion perpetua, considering that
the ISL finds no application as the penalty is indivisible.29

The October 10, 2014 Resolution of public respondent is spot on had it not
confused imposable penalty with prescribed penalty. Nonetheless, reading through the text of the
assailed Resolution reveals that the anti-graft court actually meant prescribed penalty whenever it
referred to imposable penalty. Therefore, in essence, the ruling is correct. Respondent court held:

If the complex crime of Malversation thru Falsification be imposed in its maximum period, there is no
doubt that, in case of conviction, the penalty to be imposed is reclusion perpetua. The cases, however,
are still at their inception. Criminal proceedings are yet to ensue. This is not the proper time,
therefore, to call for the application of the penalty contemplated under Article 48 by imposing the
same in its maximum period.

For purposes of determining whether a person can be admitted to bail as a matter of right, it is
the imposable penalty prescribed by law for the crime charged which should be considered and, not
the penalty to be actually imposed. Illustrative cases such as Catiis v. Court of Appeals, et
al. and People v. Hu Ruey Chun evidently confirm this to be so.

x x x x

In both cases, therefore, it is the penalty imposable for the offense charged that was considered for
purposes of bail.

A circumspect reading of substantive law validates this view. Section 13, Article III of the Constitution
provides that: x x x x
On the other hand, Section 4, Rule 114 of the Revised Rules of Court, as amended, provides: chanRoblesvirtualLawlibrary

x x x x

Notably, the word used is ["punishable,"] which practically bears the same meaning as "imposable." It
is only logical that the reference has a direct correlation with the time frame "before conviction" since
trial is yet to begin; hence, it can only be the penalty imposable of the offense charged that can be
considered for purposes of bail.

In these cases, the offenses charged are the complex crimes of Malversation of Public Funds thru
Falsification of Official/Public Documents. In determining the penalty imposable, it is the penalty for
the most serious crime which is considered. Between Malversation and Falsification, it is Malversation
which provides the graver penalty. As thus provided under Article 217 of the Revised Penal Code, "[i]f
the amount exceeds the latter, the penalty shall be reclusion temporal in its maximum period to
reclusion perpetua."

The penalty, however, cannot be immediately applied in its maximum period, or reclusion perpetua,
since this will already consider the application of the penalty in the event of a conviction.

A clear perusal of Article 48 of the Revised Penal Code states: chanRoblesvirtualLawlibrary

x x x x

The word used is "imposed," not imposable. Thus, the reference can only point to the time when a
judgment of conviction is impending. If and when "the penalty for the most serious crime shall
be  imposed, the same to be applied in its maximum period," is thus applied in the proper application
of the penalty to be imposed on the accused. Certainly, this cannot be considered for purposes of
bail.30
ChanRoblesVirtualawlibrary

Indeed, the trial is yet to proceed and the prosecution must still prove the guilt of the accused beyond
reasonable doubt. It is not amiss to point that in charging a complex crime, the information should
allege each element of the complex offense with the same precision as if the two (2) constituent
offenses were the subject of separate prosecutions.31 Where a complex crime is charged and the
evidence fails to support the charge as to one of the component offenses, the defendant can be
convicted of the offense proven.32

At this point, there is no certainty that Valdez would be found guilty of Malversation of Public Funds
thru Falsification of Official/Public Documents involving an amount that exceeds P22,000.00.
Falsification, like an aggravating circumstance, must be alleged and proved during the trial. For
purposes of bail proceedings, it would be premature to rule that the supposed crime committed is a
complex crime since it is only when the trial has terminated that falsification could be appreciated as a
means of committing malversation. Further, it is possible that only the elements of one of the
constituent offenses, i.e., either malversation or falsification, or worse, none of them, would be proven
after full-blown trial.

It would be the height of absurdity to deny Valdez the right to bail and grant her the same only after
trial if it turns out that there is no complex crime committed. Likewise, it is unjust for Us to give a
stamp of approval in depriving the accused person's constitutional right to bail for allegedly
committing a complex crime that is not even considered as inherently grievous, odious and hateful. To
note, Article 48 of the RPC on complex crimes does not change the nature of the constituent offenses;
it only requires the imposition of the maximum period of the penalty prescribed by law. When
committed through falsification of official/public documents, the RPC does not intend to classify
malversation as a capital offense. Otherwise, the complex crime of Malversation of Public Funds thru
Falsification of Official/Public Documents involving an amount that exceeds P22,000.00 should have
been expressly included in Republic Act No. 7659.33 If truly a non-bailable offense, the law should
have already considered it as a special complex crime like robbery with rape, robbery with homicide,
rape with homicide, and kidnapping with murder or homicide, which have prescribed penalty
of reclusion perpetua.

Just to stress, the inequity of denying bail as a matter of right to an accused charged with
Malversation of Public Funds thru Falsification of Official/Public Documents involving an amount that
exceeds P22,000.00 is palpable when compared with an accused indicted for plunder, which is a
heinous crime punishable under R.A. No. 7080,34 as amended by R.A. No. 765935 and R.A. No.
9346.36 Observe that bail is not a matter of right in plunder committed through malversation of public
funds, but the aggregate amount or total value of ill-gotten wealth amassed, accumulated or acquired
must be at least Fifty Million Pesos (P50,000,000.00). In contrast, an accused who is alleged to have
committed malversation of public funds thru falsification of official/public documents, which is not a
capital offense, is no longer entitled to bail as a matter of right if the amount exceeds P22,000.00, or
as low as P22,000.01. Such distinction is glaringly unfair and could not have been contemplated by the
law.

The foregoing interpretation is more favorable to Valdez as an accused following the rule of lenity:

Intimately related to the in dubio pro reo principle is the rule of lenity. The rule applies when the court
is faced with two possible interpretations of a penal statute, one that is prejudicial to the accused and
another that is favorable to him. The rule calls for the adoption of an interpretation which is more
lenient to the accused.37ChanRoblesVirtualawlibrary

The time-honored principle is that penal statutes are construed strictly against the State and liberally
in favor of the accused.38 When there is doubt on the interpretation of criminal laws, all must be
resolved in favor of the accused.39 Since penal laws should not be applied mechanically, the Court
must determine whether their application is consistent with the purpose and reason of the law.40

For having ruled that an accused charged with the complex crime of Malversation of Public Funds thru
Falsification of Official/Public Documents that involves an amount in excess of P22,000.00 is entitled to
bail as a matter of right, a summary hearing on bail application is, therefore, unnecessary. Consistent
with Miranda v. Tuliao,41 an affirmative relief may be obtained from the court despite the accused
being still at-large. Except in petition for bail, custody of the law is not required for the adjudication of
reliefs sought by the defendant (such as a motion to set aside no bail recommendation and to fix the
amount of bail in this case) where the mere application therefor constitutes a waiver of the defense of
lack of jurisdiction over the person of the accused.42

WHEREFORE, premises considered, the petition is DENIED for lack of merit. Private respondent
Luzviminda S. Valdez is entitled to bail, as a matter of right, in Criminal Case Nos. SB-14-CRM-0321,
0322 and 0324. Public respondent Sandiganbayan Fifth Division should be guided by the latest
Bailbond Guide. In any case, the amount should correspond to the medium penalty multiplied by Ten
Thousand Pesos (P10,000.00) for every year of imprisonment.
SO ORDERED.

5.

Republic of the Philippines

SUPREME COURT
Manila

SECOND DIVISION

G.R. No. 174629             February 14, 2008

REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES, Represented by THE ANTI-MONEY LAUNDERING COUNCIL

(AMLC), petitioner,
vs.
HON. ANTONIO M. EUGENIO, JR., AS PRESIDING JUDGE OF RTC, MANILA, BRANCH 34, PANTALEON
ALVAREZ and LILIA CHENG, respondents.

DECISION

TINGA, J.:

The present petition for certiorari and prohibition under Rule 65 assails the orders and resolutions issued by two
different courts in two different cases. The courts and cases in question are the Regional Trial Court of Manila,
Branch 24, which heard SP Case No. 06-1142001 and the Court of Appeals, Tenth Division, which heared CA-G.R.
SP No. 95198.2 Both cases arose as part of the aftermath of the ruling of this Court in Agan v. PIATCO3 nullifying the
concession agreement awarded to the Philippine International Airport Terminal Corporation (PIATCO) over the Ninoy
Aquino International Airport – International Passenger Terminal 3 (NAIA 3) Project.

I.

Following the promulgation of Agan, a series of investigations concerning the award of the NAIA 3 contracts to
PIATCO were undertaken by the Ombudsman and the Compliance and Investigation Staff (CIS) of petitioner Anti-
Money Laundering Council (AMLC). On 24 May 2005, the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) wrote the AMLC
requesting the latter’s assistance "in obtaining more evidence to completely reveal the financial trail of corruption
surrounding the [NAIA 3] Project," and also noting that petitioner Republic of the Philippines was presently defending
itself in two international arbitration cases filed in relation to the NAIA 3 Project. 4 The CIS conducted an intelligence
database search on the financial transactions of certain individuals involved in the award, including respondent
Pantaleon Alvarez (Alvarez) who had been the Chairman of the PBAC Technical Committee, NAIA-IPT3 Project. 5 By
this time, Alvarez had already been charged by the Ombudsman with violation of Section 3(j) of R.A. No. 3019. 6 The
search revealed that Alvarez maintained eight (8) bank accounts with six (6) different banks. 7

On 27 June 2005, the AMLC issued Resolution No. 75, Series of 2005, 8 whereby the Council resolved to authorize
the Executive Director of the AMLC "to sign and verify an application to inquire into and/or examine the [deposits] or
investments of Pantaleon Alvarez, Wilfredo Trinidad, Alfredo Liongson, and Cheng Yong, and their related web of
accounts wherever these may be found, as defined under Rule 10.4 of the Revised Implementing Rules and
Regulations;" and to authorize the AMLC Secretariat "to conduct an inquiry into subject accounts once the Regional
Trial Court grants the application to inquire into and/or examine the bank accounts" of those four individuals. 9 The
resolution enumerated the particular bank accounts of Alvarez, Wilfredo Trinidad (Trinidad), Alfredo Liongson
(Liongson) and Cheng Yong which were to be the subject of the inquiry. 10 The rationale for the said resolution was
founded on the cited findings of the CIS that amounts were transferred from a Hong Kong bank account owned by
Jetstream Pacific Ltd. Account to bank accounts in the Philippines maintained by Liongson and Cheng Yong. 11 The
Resolution also noted that "[b]y awarding the contract to PIATCO despite its lack of financial capacity, Pantaleon
Alvarez caused undue injury to the government by giving PIATCO unwarranted benefits, advantage, or preference in
the discharge of his official administrative functions through manifest partiality, evident bad faith, or gross inexcusable
negligence, in violation of Section 3(e) of Republic Act No. 3019." 12

Under the authority granted by the Resolution, the AMLC filed an application to inquire into or examine the deposits or
investments of Alvarez, Trinidad, Liongson and Cheng Yong before the RTC of Makati, Branch 138, presided by
Judge (now Court of Appeals Justice) Sixto Marella, Jr. The application was docketed as AMLC No. 05-005. 13 The
Makati RTC heard the testimony of the Deputy Director of the AMLC, Richard David C. Funk II, and received the
documentary evidence of the AMLC.14 Thereafter, on 4 July 2005, the Makati RTC rendered an Order (Makati RTC
bank inquiry order) granting the AMLC the authority to inquire and examine the subject bank accounts of Alvarez,
Trinidad, Liongson and Cheng Yong, the trial court being satisfied that there existed "[p]robable cause [to] believe that
the deposits in various bank accounts, details of which appear in paragraph 1 of the Application, are related to the
offense of violation of Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act now the subject of criminal prosecution before the
Sandiganbayan as attested to by the Informations, Exhibits C, D, E, F, and G." 15 Pursuant to the Makati RTC bank
inquiry order, the CIS proceeded to inquire and examine the deposits, investments and related web accounts of the
four.16

Meanwhile, the Special Prosecutor of the Office of the Ombudsman, Dennis Villa-Ignacio, wrote a letter dated 2
November 2005, requesting the AMLC to investigate the accounts of Alvarez, PIATCO, and several other entities
involved in the nullified contract. The letter adverted to probable cause to believe that the bank accounts "were used
in the commission of unlawful activities that were committed" in relation to the criminal cases then pending before the
Sandiganbayan.17 Attached to the letter was a memorandum "on why the investigation of the [accounts] is necessary
in the prosecution of the above criminal cases before the Sandiganbayan." 18

In response to the letter of the Special Prosecutor, the AMLC promulgated on 9 December 2005 Resolution No. 121
Series of 2005,19 which authorized the executive director of the AMLC to inquire into and examine the accounts
named in the letter, including one maintained by Alvarez with DBS Bank and two other accounts in the name of
Cheng Yong with Metrobank. The Resolution characterized the memorandum attached to the Special Prosecutor’s
letter as "extensively justif[ying] the existence of probable cause that the bank accounts of the persons and entities
mentioned in the letter are related to the unlawful activity of violation of Sections 3(g) and 3(e) of Rep. Act No. 3019,
as amended."20

Following the December 2005 AMLC Resolution, the Republic, through the AMLC, filed an application 21 before the
Manila RTC to inquire into and/or examine thirteen (13) accounts and two (2) related web of accounts alleged as
having been used to facilitate corruption in the NAIA 3 Project. Among said accounts were the DBS Bank account of
Alvarez and the Metrobank accounts of Cheng Yong. The case was raffled to Manila RTC, Branch 24, presided by
respondent Judge Antonio Eugenio, Jr., and docketed as SP Case No. 06-114200.

On 12 January 2006, the Manila RTC issued an Order (Manila RTC bank inquiry order) granting the Ex
Parte Application expressing therein "[that] the allegations in said application to be impressed with merit, and in
conformity with Section 11 of R.A. No. 9160, as amended, otherwise known as the Anti-Money Laundering Act
(AMLA) of 2001 and Rules 11.1 and 11.2 of the Revised Implementing Rules and Regulations." 22 Authority was thus
granted to the AMLC to inquire into the bank accounts listed therein.

On 25 January 2006, Alvarez, through counsel, entered his appearance 23 before the Manila RTC in SP Case No. 06-
114200 and filed an Urgent Motion to Stay Enforcement of Order of January 12, 2006. 24 Alvarez alleged that he
fortuitously learned of the bank inquiry order, which was issued following an ex parte application, and he argued that
nothing in R.A. No. 9160 authorized the AMLC to seek the authority to inquire into bank accounts ex parte.25 The day
after Alvarez filed his motion, 26 January 2006, the Manila RTC issued an Order 26 staying the enforcement of its bank
inquiry order and giving the Republic five (5) days to respond to Alvarez’s motion.

The Republic filed an Omnibus Motion for Reconsideration 27 of the 26 January 2006 Manila RTC Order and likewise
sought to strike out Alvarez’s motion that led to the issuance of said order. For his part, Alvarez filed a Reply and
Motion to Dismiss28 the application for bank inquiry order. On 2 May 2006, the Manila RTC issued an Omnibus
Order29 granting the Republic’s Motion for Reconsideration, denying Alvarez’s motion to dismiss and reinstating "in full
force and effect" the Order dated 12 January 2006. In the omnibus order, the Manila RTC reiterated that the material
allegations in the application for bank inquiry order filed by the Republic stood as "the probable cause for the
investigation and examination of the bank accounts and investments of the respondents." 30

Alvarez filed on 10 May 2006 an Urgent Motion 31 expressing his apprehension that the AMLC would immediately
enforce the omnibus order and would thereby render the motion for reconsideration he intended to file as moot and
academic; thus he sought that the Republic be refrained from enforcing the omnibus order in the meantime. Acting on
this motion, the Manila RTC, on 11 May 2006, issued an Order 32 requiring the OSG to file a comment/opposition and
reminding the parties that judgments and orders become final and executory upon the expiration of fifteen (15) days
from receipt thereof, as it is the period within which a motion for reconsideration could be filed. Alvarez filed his
Motion for Reconsideration33 of the omnibus order on 15 May 2006, but the motion was denied by the Manila RTC in
an Order34 dated 5 July 2006.

On 11 July 2006, Alvarez filed an Urgent Motion and Manifestation 35 wherein he manifested having received reliable
information that the AMLC was about to implement the Manila RTC bank inquiry order even though he was intending
to appeal from it. On the premise that only a final and executory judgment or order could be executed or
implemented, Alvarez sought that the AMLC be immediately ordered to refrain from enforcing the Manila RTC bank
inquiry order.

On 12 July 2006, the Manila RTC, acting on Alvarez’s latest motion, issued an Order 36 directing the AMLC "to refrain
from enforcing the order dated January 12, 2006 until the expiration of the period to appeal, without any appeal
having been filed." On the same day, Alvarez filed a Notice of Appeal 37 with the Manila RTC.

On 24 July 2006, Alvarez filed an Urgent Ex Parte Motion for Clarification.38 Therein, he alleged having learned that
the AMLC had began to inquire into the bank accounts of the other persons mentioned in the application for bank
inquiry order filed by the Republic.39 Considering that the Manila RTC bank inquiry order was issued ex parte, without
notice to those other persons, Alvarez prayed that the AMLC be ordered to refrain from inquiring into any of the other
bank deposits and alleged web of accounts enumerated in AMLC’s application with the RTC; and that the AMLC be
directed to refrain from using, disclosing or publishing in any proceeding or venue any information or document
obtained in violation of the 11 May 2006 RTC Order. 40

On 25 July 2006, or one day after Alvarez filed his motion, the Manila RTC issued an Order 41 wherein it clarified that
"the Ex Parte Order of this Court dated January 12, 2006 can not be implemented against the deposits or accounts of
any of the persons enumerated in the AMLC Application until the appeal of movant Alvarez is finally resolved,
otherwise, the appeal would be rendered moot and academic or even nugatory." 42 In addition, the AMLC was ordered
"not to disclose or publish any information or document found or obtained in [v]iolation of the May 11, 2006 Order of
this Court."43 The Manila RTC reasoned that the other persons mentioned in AMLC’s application were not served with
the court’s 12 January 2006 Order. This 25 July 2006 Manila RTC Order is the first of the four rulings being assailed
through this petition.

In response, the Republic filed an Urgent Omnibus Motion for Reconsideration 44 dated 27 July 2006, urging that it be
allowed to immediately enforce the bank inquiry order against Alvarez and that Alvarez’s notice of appeal be
expunged from the records since appeal from an order of inquiry is disallowed under the Anti money Laundering Act
(AMLA).

Meanwhile, respondent Lilia Cheng filed with the Court of Appeals a Petition for Certiorari, Prohibition and Mandamus
with Application for TRO and/or Writ of Preliminary Injunction 45 dated 10 July 2006, directed against the Republic of
the Philippines through the AMLC, Manila RTC Judge Eugenio, Jr. and Makati RTC Judge Marella, Jr.. She identified
herself as the wife of Cheng Yong 46 with whom she jointly owns a conjugal bank account with Citibank that is covered
by the Makati RTC bank inquiry order, and two conjugal bank accounts with Metrobank that are covered by the
Manila RTC bank inquiry order. Lilia Cheng imputed grave abuse of discretion on the part of the Makati and Manila
RTCs in granting AMLC’s ex parte applications for a bank inquiry order, arguing among others that the ex
parte applications violated her constitutional right to due process, that the bank inquiry order under the AMLA can
only be granted in connection with violations of the AMLA and that the AMLA can not apply to bank accounts opened
and transactions entered into prior to the effectivity of the AMLA or to bank accounts located outside the Philippines. 47

On 1 August 2006, the Court of Appeals, acting on Lilia Cheng’s petition, issued a Temporary Restraining
Order48 enjoining the Manila and Makati trial courts from implementing, enforcing or executing the respective bank
inquiry orders previously issued, and the AMLC from enforcing and implementing such orders. On even date, the
Manila RTC issued an Order49 resolving to hold in abeyance the resolution of the urgent omnibus motion for
reconsideration then pending before it until the resolution of Lilia Cheng’s petition for certiorari with the Court of
Appeals. The Court of Appeals Resolution directing the issuance of the temporary restraining order is the second of
the four rulings assailed in the present petition.

The third assailed ruling50 was issued on 15 August 2006 by the Manila RTC, acting on the Urgent Motion for
Clarification51 dated 14 August 2006 filed by Alvarez. It appears that the 1 August 2006 Manila RTC Order had
amended its previous 25 July 2006 Order by deleting the last paragraph which stated that the AMLC "should not
disclose or publish any information or document found or obtained in violation of the May 11, 2006 Order of this
Court."52 In this new motion, Alvarez argued that the deletion of that paragraph would allow the AMLC to implement
the bank inquiry orders and publish whatever information it might obtain thereupon even before the final orders of the
Manila RTC could become final and executory.53 In the 15 August 2006 Order, the Manila RTC reiterated that the
bank inquiry order it had issued could not be implemented or enforced by the AMLC or any of its representatives until
the appeal therefrom was finally resolved and that any enforcement thereof would be unauthorized. 54

The present Consolidated Petition55 for certiorari and prohibition under Rule 65 was filed on 2 October 2006, assailing
the two Orders of the Manila RTC dated 25 July and 15 August 2006 and the Temporary Restraining Order dated 1
August 2006 of the Court of Appeals. Through an Urgent Manifestation and Motion 56 dated 9 October 2006, petitioner
informed the Court that on 22 September 2006, the Court of Appeals hearing Lilia Cheng’s petition had granted a writ
of preliminary injunction in her favor.57 Thereafter, petitioner sought as well the nullification of the 22 September 2006
Resolution of the Court of Appeals, thereby constituting the fourth ruling assailed in the instant petition. 58

The Court had initially granted a Temporary Restraining Order 59 dated 6 October 2006 and later on a Supplemental
Temporary Restraining Order60 dated 13 October 2006 in petitioner’s favor, enjoining the implementation of the
assailed rulings of the Manila RTC and the Court of Appeals. However, on respondents’ motion, the Court, through a
Resolution61 dated 11 December 2006, suspended the implementation of the restraining orders it had earlier issued.

Oral arguments were held on 17 January 2007. The Court consolidated the issues for argument as follows:

1. Did the RTC-Manila, in issuing the Orders dated 25 July 2006 and 15 August 2006 which deferred the
implementation of its Order dated 12 January 2006, and the Court of Appeals, in issuing its Resolution dated
1 August 2006, which ordered the status quo in relation to the 1 July 2005 Order of the RTC-Makati and the
12 January 2006 Order of the RTC-Manila, both of which authorized the examination of bank accounts under
Section 11 of Rep. Act No. 9160 (AMLA), commit grave abuse of discretion?
 (a) Is an application for an order authorizing inquiry into or examination of bank accounts or
investments under Section 11 of the AMLA ex-parte in nature or one which requires notice and
hearing?

(b) What legal procedures and standards should be observed in the conduct of the proceedings for
the issuance of said order?

(c) Is such order susceptible to legal challenges and judicial review?

2. Is it proper for this Court at this time and in this case to inquire into and pass upon the validity of the 1 July
2005 Order of the RTC-Makati and the 12 January 2006 Order of the RTC-Manila, considering the pendency
of CA G.R. SP No. 95-198 (Lilia Cheng v. Republic) wherein the validity of both orders was challenged? 62

After the oral arguments, the parties were directed to file their respective memoranda, which they did, 63 and the
petition was thereafter deemed submitted for resolution.

II.

Petitioner’s general advocacy is that the bank inquiry orders issued by the Manila and Makati RTCs are valid and
immediately enforceable whereas the assailed rulings, which effectively stayed the enforcement of the Manila and
Makati RTCs bank inquiry orders, are sullied with grave abuse of discretion. These conclusions flow from the posture
that a bank inquiry order, issued upon a finding of probable cause, may be issued ex parte and, once issued, is
immediately executory. Petitioner further argues that the information obtained following the bank inquiry is necessarily
beneficial, if not indispensable, to the AMLC in discharging its awesome responsibility regarding the effective
implementation of the AMLA and that any restraint in the disclosure of such information to appropriate agencies or
other judicial fora would render meaningless the relief supplied by the bank inquiry order.

Petitioner raises particular arguments questioning Lilia Cheng’s right to seek injunctive relief before the Court of
Appeals, noting that not one of the bank inquiry orders is directed against her. Her "cryptic assertion" that she is the
wife of Cheng Yong cannot, according to petitioner, "metamorphose into the requisite legal standing to seek redress
for an imagined injury or to maintain an action in behalf of another." In the same breath, petitioner argues that Alvarez
cannot assert any violation of the right to financial privacy in behalf of other persons whose bank accounts are being
inquired into, particularly those other persons named in the Makati RTC bank inquiry order who did not take any step
to oppose such orders before the courts.

Ostensibly, the proximate question before the Court is whether a bank inquiry order issued in accordance with
Section 10 of the AMLA may be stayed by injunction. Yet in arguing that it does, petitioner relies on what it posits as
the final and immediately executory character of the bank inquiry orders issued by the Manila and Makati RTCs.
Implicit in that position is the notion that the inquiry orders are valid, and such notion is susceptible to review and
validation based on what appears on the face of the orders and the applications which triggered their issuance, as
well as the provisions of the AMLA governing the issuance of such orders. Indeed, to test the viability of petitioner’s
argument, the Court will have to be satisfied that the subject inquiry orders are valid in the first place. However, even
from a cursory examination of the applications for inquiry order and the orders themselves, it is evident that the orders
are not in accordance with law.

III.

A brief overview of the AMLA is called for.

Money laundering has been generally defined by the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) `as "any act
or attempted act to conceal or disguise the identity of illegally obtained proceeds so that they appear to have
originated from legitimate sources."64 Even before the passage of the AMLA, the problem was addressed by the
Philippine government through the issuance of various circulars by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. Yet ultimately,
legislative proscription was necessary, especially with the inclusion of the Philippines in the Financial Action Task
Force’s list of non-cooperative countries and territories in the fight against money laundering. 65 The original AMLA,
Republic Act (R.A.) No. 9160, was passed in 2001. It was amended by R.A. No. 9194 in 2003.

Section 4 of the AMLA states that "[m]oney laundering is a crime whereby the proceeds of an unlawful activity as
[defined in the law] are transacted, thereby making them appear to have originated from legitimate sources." 66 The
section further provides the three modes through which the crime of money laundering is committed. Section 7
creates the AMLC and defines its powers, which generally relate to the enforcement of the AMLA provisions and the
initiation of legal actions authorized in the AMLA such as civil forefeiture proceedings and complaints for the
prosecution of money laundering offenses. 67

In addition to providing for the definition and penalties for the crime of money laundering, the AMLA also authorizes
certain provisional remedies that would aid the AMLC in the enforcement of the AMLA. These are the "freeze order"
authorized under Section 10, and the "bank inquiry order" authorized under Section 11.

Respondents posit that a bank inquiry order under Section 11 may be obtained only upon the pre-existence of a
money laundering offense case already filed before the courts.68 The conclusion is based on the phrase "upon order
of any competent court in cases of violation of this Act," the word "cases" generally understood as referring to actual
cases pending with the courts.

We are unconvinced by this proposition, and agree instead with the then Solicitor General who conceded that the use
of the phrase "in cases of" was unfortunate, yet submitted that it should be interpreted to mean "in the event there are
violations" of the AMLA, and not that there are already cases pending in court concerning such violations. 69 If the
contrary position is adopted, then the bank inquiry order would be limited in purpose as a tool in aid of litigation of live
cases, and wholly inutile as a means for the government to ascertain whether there is sufficient evidence to sustain
an intended prosecution of the account holder for violation of the AMLA. Should that be the situation, in all likelihood
the AMLC would be virtually deprived of its character as a discovery tool, and thus would become less circumspect in
filing complaints against suspect account holders. After all, under such set-up the preferred strategy would be to allow
or even encourage the indiscriminate filing of complaints under the AMLA with the hope or expectation that the
evidence of money laundering would somehow surface during the trial. Since the AMLC could not make use of the
bank inquiry order to determine whether there is evidentiary basis to prosecute the suspected malefactors, not filing
any case at all would not be an alternative. Such unwholesome set-up should not come to pass. Thus Section 11
cannot be interpreted in a way that would emasculate the remedy it has established and encourage the unfounded
initiation of complaints for money laundering.

Still, even if the bank inquiry order may be availed of without need of a pre-existing case under the AMLA, it does not
follow that such order may be availed of ex parte. There are several reasons why the AMLA does not generally
sanction ex parte applications and issuances of the bank inquiry order.

IV.

It is evident that Section 11 does not specifically authorize, as a general rule, the issuance ex parte of the bank
inquiry order. We quote the provision in full:

SEC. 11. Authority to Inquire into Bank Deposits. ― Notwithstanding the provisions of Republic Act No. 1405,
as amended, Republic Act No. 6426, as amended, Republic Act No. 8791, and other laws, the AMLC may inquire into or
examine any particular deposit or investment with any banking institution or non bank financial institution upon order of
any competent court in cases of violation of this Act, when it has been established that there is probable cause that
the deposits or investments are related to an unlawful activity as defined in Section 3(i) hereof or a money
 laundering offense under Section 4 hereof, except that no court order shall be required in cases involving unlawful
activities defined in Sections 3(i)1, (2) and (12).

To ensure compliance with this Act, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) may inquire into or examine any
deposit of investment with any banking institution or non bank financial institution when the examination is
made in the course of a periodic or special examination, in accordance with the rules of examination of the
BSP.70 (Emphasis supplied)

Of course, Section 11 also allows the AMLC to inquire into bank accounts without having to obtain a judicial order in
cases where there is probable cause that the deposits or investments are related to kidnapping for ransom, 71 certain
violations of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002, 72 hijacking and other violations under R.A. No. 6235,
destructive arson and murder. Since such special circumstances do not apply in this case, there is no need for us to
pass comment on this proviso. Suffice it to say, the proviso contemplates a situation distinct from that which presently
confronts us, and for purposes of the succeeding discussion, our reference to Section 11 of the AMLA excludes said
proviso.

In the instances where a court order is required for the issuance of the bank inquiry order, nothing in Section 11
specifically authorizes that such court order may be issued ex parte. It might be argued that this silence does not
preclude the ex parte issuance of the bank inquiry order since the same is not prohibited under Section 11. Yet this
argument falls when the immediately preceding provision, Section 10, is examined.

SEC. 10. Freezing of Monetary Instrument or Property. ― The Court of Appeals, upon application ex parte by
the AMLC and after determination that probable cause exists that any monetary instrument or property is in any way
related to an unlawful activity as defined in Section 3(i) hereof, may issue a freeze order which shall be effective
immediately. The freeze order shall be for a period of twenty (20) days unless extended by the court. 73

Although oriented towards different purposes, the freeze order under Section 10 and the bank inquiry order under
Section 11 are similar in that they are extraordinary provisional reliefs which the AMLC may avail of to effectively
combat and prosecute money laundering offenses. Crucially, Section 10 uses specific language to authorize an ex
parte application for the provisional relief therein, a circumstance absent in Section 11. If indeed the legislature had
intended to authorize ex parte proceedings for the issuance of the bank inquiry order, then it could have easily
expressed such intent in the law, as it did with the freeze order under Section 10.

Even more tellingly, the current language of Sections 10 and 11 of the AMLA was crafted at the same time, through
the passage of R.A. No. 9194. Prior to the amendatory law, it was the AMLC, not the Court of Appeals, which had
authority to issue a freeze order, whereas a bank inquiry order always then required, without exception, an order from
a competent court.74 It was through the same enactment that ex parte proceedings were introduced for the first time
into the AMLA, in the case of the freeze order which now can only be issued by the Court of Appeals. It certainly
would have been convenient, through the same amendatory law, to allow a similar ex parte procedure in the case of a
bank inquiry order had Congress been so minded. Yet nothing in the provision itself, or even the available legislative
record, explicitly points to an ex parte judicial procedure in the application for a bank inquiry order, unlike in the case
of the freeze order.

That the AMLA does not contemplate ex parte proceedings in applications for bank inquiry orders is confirmed by the
present implementing rules and regulations of the AMLA, promulgated upon the passage of R.A. No. 9194. With
respect to freeze orders under Section 10, the implementing rules do expressly provide that the applications for
freeze orders be filed ex parte,75 but no similar clearance is granted in the case of inquiry orders under Section
11.76 These implementing rules were promulgated by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the Insurance Commission and
the Securities and Exchange Commission,77 and if it was the true belief of these institutions that inquiry orders could
be issued ex parte similar to freeze orders, language to that effect would have been incorporated in the said Rules.
This is stressed not because the implementing rules could authorize ex parte applications for inquiry orders despite
the absence of statutory basis, but rather because the framers of the law had no intention to allow such ex
parte applications.

Even the Rules of Procedure adopted by this Court in A.M. No. 05-11-04-SC 78 to enforce the provisions of the AMLA
specifically authorize ex parte applications with respect to freeze orders under Section 10 79 but make no similar
authorization with respect to bank inquiry orders under Section 11.

The Court could divine the sense in allowing ex parte proceedings under Section 10 and in proscribing the same
under Section 11. A freeze order under Section 10 on the one hand is aimed at preserving monetary instruments or
property in any way deemed related to unlawful activities as defined in Section 3(i) of the AMLA. The owner of such
monetary instruments or property would thus be inhibited from utilizing the same for the duration of the freeze order.
To make such freeze order anteceded by a judicial proceeding with notice to the account holder would allow for or
lead to the dissipation of such funds even before the order could be issued.

On the other hand, a bank inquiry order under Section 11 does not necessitate any form of physical seizure of
property of the account holder. What the bank inquiry order authorizes is the examination of the particular deposits or
investments in banking institutions or non-bank financial institutions. The monetary instruments or property deposited
with such banks or financial institutions are not seized in a physical sense, but are examined on particular details
such as the account holder’s record of deposits and transactions. Unlike the assets subject of the freeze order, the
records to be inspected under a bank inquiry order cannot be physically seized or hidden by the account holder. Said
records are in the possession of the bank and therefore cannot be destroyed at the instance of the account holder
alone as that would require the extraordinary cooperation and devotion of the bank.

Interestingly, petitioner’s memorandum does not attempt to demonstrate before the Court that the bank inquiry order
under Section 11 may be issued ex parte, although the petition itself did devote some space for that argument. The
petition argues that the bank inquiry order is "a special and peculiar remedy, drastic in its name, and made necessary
because of a public necessity… [t]hus, by its very nature, the application for an order or inquiry must necessarily,
be ex parte." This argument is insufficient justification in light of the clear disinclination of Congress to allow the
issuance ex parte of bank inquiry orders under Section 11, in contrast to the legislature’s clear inclination to allow
the ex parte grant of freeze orders under Section 10.

Without doubt, a requirement that the application for a bank inquiry order be done with notice to the account holder
will alert the latter that there is a plan to inspect his bank account on the belief that the funds therein are involved in
an unlawful activity or money laundering offense.80 Still, the account holder so alerted will in fact be unable to do
anything to conceal or cleanse his bank account records of suspicious or anomalous transactions, at least not without
the whole-hearted cooperation of the bank, which inherently has no vested interest to aid the account holder in such
manner.

V.

The necessary implication of this finding that Section 11 of the AMLA does not generally authorize the issuance ex
parte of the bank inquiry order would be that such orders cannot be issued unless notice is given to the owners of the
account, allowing them the opportunity to contest the issuance of the order. Without such a consequence, the
legislated distinction between ex parte proceedings under Section 10 and those which are not ex parte under Section
11 would be lost and rendered useless.

There certainly is fertile ground to contest the issuance of an ex parte order. Section 11 itself requires that it be
established that "there is probable cause that the deposits or investments are related to unlawful activities," and it
obviously is the court which stands as arbiter whether there is indeed such probable cause. The process of inquiring
into the existence of probable cause would involve the function of determination reposed on the trial court.
Determination clearly implies a function of adjudication on the part of the trial court, and not a mechanical application
of a standard pre-determination by some other body. The word "determination" implies deliberation and is, in normal
legal contemplation, equivalent to "the decision of a court of justice." 81

The court receiving the application for inquiry order cannot simply take the AMLC’s word that probable cause exists
that the deposits or investments are related to an unlawful activity. It will have to exercise its

own determinative function in order to be convinced of such fact. The account holder would be certainly capable of
contesting such probable cause if given the opportunity to be apprised of the pending application to inquire into his
account; hence a notice requirement would not be an empty spectacle. It may be so that the process of obtaining the
inquiry order may become more cumbersome or prolonged because of the notice requirement, yet we fail to see any
unreasonable burden cast by such circumstance. After all, as earlier stated, requiring notice to the account holder
should not, in any way, compromise the integrity of the bank records subject of the inquiry which remain in the
possession and control of the bank.

Petitioner argues that a bank inquiry order necessitates a finding of probable cause, a characteristic similar to a
search warrant which is applied to and heard ex parte. We have examined the supposed analogy between a search
warrant and a bank inquiry order yet we remain to be unconvinced by petitioner.

The Constitution and the Rules of Court prescribe particular requirements attaching to search warrants that are not
imposed by the AMLA with respect to bank inquiry orders. A constitutional warrant requires that the judge personally
examine under oath or affirmation the complainant and the witnesses he may produce, 82 such examination being in
the form of searching questions and answers.83 Those are impositions which the legislative did not specifically
prescribe as to the bank inquiry order under the AMLA, and we cannot find sufficient legal basis to apply them to
Section 11 of the AMLA. Simply put, a bank inquiry order is not a search warrant or warrant of arrest as it
contemplates a direct object but not the seizure of persons or property.

Even as the Constitution and the Rules of Court impose a high procedural standard for the determination of probable
cause for the issuance of search warrants which Congress chose not to prescribe for the bank inquiry order under the
AMLA, Congress nonetheless disallowed ex parte applications for the inquiry order. We can discern that in exchange
for these procedural standards normally applied to search warrants, Congress chose instead to legislate a right to
notice and a right to be heard— characteristics of judicial proceedings which are not ex parte. Absent any
demonstrable constitutional infirmity, there is no reason for us to dispute such legislative policy choices.

VI.

The Court’s construction of Section 11 of the AMLA is undoubtedly influenced by right to privacy considerations. If
sustained, petitioner’s argument that a bank account may be inspected by the government following an ex
parte proceeding about which the depositor would know nothing would have significant implications on the right to
privacy, a right innately cherished by all notwithstanding the legally recognized exceptions thereto. The notion that the
government could be so empowered is cause for concern of any individual who values the right to privacy which, after
all, embodies even the right to be "let

alone," the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized people. 84

One might assume that the constitutional dimension of the right to privacy, as applied to bank deposits, warrants our
present inquiry. We decline to do so. Admittedly, that question has proved controversial in American jurisprudence.
Notably, the United States Supreme Court in U.S. v. Miller85 held that there was no legitimate expectation of privacy
as to the bank records of a depositor.86 Moreover, the text of our Constitution has not bothered with the triviality of
allocating specific rights peculiar to bank deposits.
However, sufficient for our purposes, we can assert there is a right to privacy governing bank accounts in the
Philippines, and that such right finds application to the case at bar. The source of such right is statutory, expressed as
it is in R.A. No. 1405 otherwise known as the Bank Secrecy Act of 1955. The right to privacy is enshrined in Section 2
of that law, to wit:

SECTION 2. All deposits of whatever nature with banks or banking institutions in the Philippines
including investments in bonds issued by the Government of the Philippines, its political subdivisions
and its instrumentalities, are hereby considered as of an absolutely confidential nature and may not be
examined, inquired or looked into by any person, government official, bureau or office, except upon written
permission of the depositor, or in cases of impeachment, or upon order of a competent court in cases of
bribery or dereliction of duty of public officials, or in cases where the money deposited or invested is the
subject matter of the litigation. (Emphasis supplied)

Because of the Bank Secrecy Act, the confidentiality of bank deposits remains a basic state policy in the
Philippines.87 Subsequent laws, including the AMLA, may have added exceptions to the Bank Secrecy Act, yet the
secrecy of bank deposits still lies as the general rule. It falls within the zones of privacy recognized by our laws. 88 The
framers of the 1987 Constitution likewise recognized that bank accounts are not covered by either the right to
information89 under Section 7, Article III or under the requirement of full public disclosure 90 under Section 28, Article
II.91 Unless the Bank Secrecy Act is repealed or

amended, the legal order is obliged to conserve the absolutely confidential nature of Philippine bank deposits.

Any exception to the rule of absolute confidentiality must be specifically legislated. Section 2 of the Bank Secrecy Act
itself prescribes exceptions whereby these bank accounts may be examined by "any person, government official,
bureau or office"; namely when: (1) upon written permission of the depositor; (2) in cases of impeachment; (3) the
examination of bank accounts is upon order of a competent court in cases of bribery or dereliction of duty of public
officials; and (4) the money deposited or invested is the subject matter of the litigation. Section 8 of R.A. Act No.
3019, the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act, has been recognized by this Court as constituting an additional
exception to the rule of absolute confidentiality,92 and there have been other similar recognitions as well. 93

The AMLA also provides exceptions to the Bank Secrecy Act. Under Section 11, the AMLC may inquire into a bank
account upon order of any competent court in cases of violation of the AMLA, it having been established that there is
probable cause that the deposits or investments are related to unlawful activities as defined in Section 3(i) of the law,
or a money laundering offense under Section 4 thereof. Further, in instances where there is probable cause that the
deposits or investments are related to kidnapping for ransom, 94 certain violations of the Comprehensive Dangerous
Drugs Act of 2002,95 hijacking and other violations under R.A. No. 6235, destructive arson and murder, then there is
no need for the AMLC to obtain a court order before it could inquire into such accounts.

It cannot be successfully argued the proceedings relating to the bank inquiry order under Section 11 of the AMLA is a
"litigation" encompassed in one of the exceptions to the Bank Secrecy Act which is when "the money deposited or
invested is the subject matter of the litigation." The orientation of the bank inquiry order is simply to serve as a
provisional relief or remedy. As earlier stated, the application for such does not entail a full-blown trial.

Nevertheless, just because the AMLA establishes additional exceptions to the Bank Secrecy Act it does not mean
that the later law has dispensed with the general principle established in the older law that "[a]ll deposits of whatever
nature with banks or banking institutions in the Philippines x x x are hereby considered as of an absolutely
confidential nature."96 Indeed, by force of statute, all bank deposits are absolutely confidential, and that nature is
unaltered even by the legislated exceptions referred to above. There is disfavor towards construing these exceptions
in such a manner that would authorize unlimited discretion on the part of the government or of any party seeking to
enforce those exceptions and inquire into bank deposits. If there are doubts in upholding the absolutely confidential
nature of bank deposits against affirming the authority to inquire into such accounts, then such doubts must be
resolved in favor of the former. Such a stance would persist unless Congress passes a law reversing the general
state policy of preserving the absolutely confidential nature of Philippine bank accounts.

The presence of this statutory right to privacy addresses at least one of the arguments raised by petitioner, that Lilia
Cheng had no personality to assail the inquiry orders before the Court of Appeals because she was not the subject of
said orders. AMLC Resolution No. 75, which served as the basis in the successful application for the Makati inquiry
order, expressly adverts to Citibank Account No. 88576248 "owned by Cheng Yong and/or Lilia G. Cheng with
Citibank N.A.,"97 whereas Lilia Cheng’s petition before the Court of Appeals is accompanied by a certification from
Metrobank that Account Nos. 300852436-0 and 700149801-7, both of which are among the subjects of the Manila
inquiry order, are accounts in the name of "Yong Cheng or Lilia Cheng." 98 Petitioner does not specifically deny that
Lilia Cheng holds rights of ownership over the three said accounts, laying focus instead on the fact that she was not
named as a subject of either the Makati or Manila RTC inquiry orders. We are reasonably convinced that Lilia Cheng
has sufficiently demonstrated her joint ownership of the three accounts, and such conclusion leads us to acknowledge
that she has the standing to assail via certiorari the inquiry orders authorizing the examination of her bank accounts
as the orders interfere with her statutory right to maintain the secrecy of said accounts.

While petitioner would premise that the inquiry into Lilia Cheng’s accounts finds root in Section 11 of the AMLA, it
cannot be denied that the authority to inquire under Section 11 is only exceptional in character, contrary as it is to the
general rule preserving the secrecy of bank deposits. Even though she may not have been the subject of the inquiry
orders, her bank accounts nevertheless were, and she thus has the standing to vindicate the right to secrecy that
attaches to said accounts and their owners. This statutory right to privacy will not prevent the courts from authorizing
the inquiry anyway upon the fulfillment of the requirements set forth under Section 11 of the AMLA or Section 2 of the
Bank Secrecy Act; at the same time, the owner of the accounts have the right to challenge whether the requirements
were indeed complied with.

VII.

There is a final point of concern which needs to be addressed. Lilia Cheng argues that the AMLA, being a substantive
penal statute, has no retroactive effect and the bank inquiry order could not apply to deposits or investments opened
prior to the effectivity of Rep. Act No. 9164, or on 17 October 2001. Thus, she concludes, her subject bank accounts,
opened between 1989 to 1990, could not be the subject of the bank inquiry order lest there be a violation of the
constitutional prohibition against ex post facto laws.

No ex post facto law may be enacted,99 and no law may be construed in such fashion as to permit a criminal
prosecution offensive to the ex post facto clause. As applied to the AMLA, it is plain that no person may be
prosecuted under the penal provisions of the AMLA for acts committed prior to the enactment of the law on 17
October 2001. As much was understood by the lawmakers since they deliberated upon the AMLA, and indeed there
is no serious dispute on that point.

Does the proscription against ex post facto laws apply to the interpretation of Section 11, a provision which does not
provide for a penal sanction but which merely authorizes the inspection of suspect accounts and deposits? The
answer is in the affirmative. In this jurisdiction, we have defined an ex post facto law as one which either:

(1) makes criminal an act done before the passage of the law and which was innocent when done, and
punishes such an act;

(2) aggravates a crime, or makes it greater than it was, when committed;

(3) changes the punishment and inflicts a greater punishment than the law annexed to the crime when
committed;
 (4) alters the legal rules of evidence, and authorizes conviction upon less or different testimony than the law
required at the time of the commission of the offense;

(5) assuming to regulate civil rights and remedies only, in effect imposes penalty or deprivation of a right for
something which when done was lawful; and

(6) deprives a person accused of a crime of some lawful protection to which he has become entitled,
such as the protection of a former conviction or acquittal, or a proclamation of amnesty. (Emphasis
supplied)100

Prior to the enactment of the AMLA, the fact that bank accounts or deposits were involved in activities later on
enumerated in Section 3 of the law did not, by itself, remove such accounts from the shelter of absolute
confidentiality. Prior to the AMLA, in order that bank accounts could be examined, there was need to secure either the
written permission of the depositor or a court order authorizing such examination, assuming that they were involved in
cases of bribery or dereliction of duty of public officials, or in a case where the money deposited or invested was itself
the subject matter of the litigation. The passage of the AMLA stripped another layer off the rule on absolute
confidentiality that provided a measure of lawful protection to the account holder. For that reason, the application of
the bank inquiry order as a means of inquiring into records of transactions entered into prior to the passage of the
AMLA would be constitutionally infirm, offensive as it is to the ex post facto clause.

Still, we must note that the position submitted by Lilia Cheng is much broader than what we are willing to affirm. She
argues that the proscription against ex post facto laws goes as far as to prohibit any inquiry into deposits or
investments included in bank accounts opened prior to the effectivity of the AMLA even if the suspect transactions
were entered into when the law had already taken effect. The Court recognizes that if this argument were to be
affirmed, it would create a horrible loophole in the AMLA that would in turn supply the means to fearlessly engage in
money laundering in the Philippines; all that the criminal has to do is to make sure that the money laundering activity
is facilitated through a bank account opened prior to 2001. Lilia Cheng admits that "actual money launderers could
utilize the ex post facto provision of the Constitution as a shield" but that the remedy lay with Congress to amend the
law. We can hardly presume that Congress intended to enact a self-defeating law in the first place, and the courts are
inhibited from such a construction by the cardinal rule that "a law should be interpreted with a view to upholding rather
than destroying it."101

Besides, nowhere in the legislative record cited by Lilia Cheng does it appear that there was an unequivocal intent to
exempt from the bank inquiry order all bank accounts opened prior to the passage of the AMLA. There is a cited
exchange between Representatives Ronaldo Zamora and Jaime Lopez where the latter confirmed to the former that
"deposits are supposed to be exempted from scrutiny or monitoring if they are already in place as of the time the law
is enacted."102 That statement does indicate that transactions already in place when the AMLA was passed are indeed
exempt from scrutiny through a bank inquiry order, but it cannot yield any interpretation that records of transactions
undertaken after the enactment of the AMLA are similarly exempt. Due to the absence of cited authority from the
legislative record that unqualifiedly supports respondent Lilia Cheng’s thesis, there is no cause for us to sustain her
interpretation of the AMLA, fatal as it is to the anima of that law.

IX.

We are well aware that Lilia Cheng’s petition presently pending before the Court of Appeals likewise assails the
validity of the subject bank inquiry orders and precisely seeks the annulment of said orders. Our current declarations
may indeed have the effect of preempting that0 petition. Still, in order for this Court to rule on the petition at bar which
insists on the enforceability of the said bank inquiry orders, it is necessary for us to consider and rule on the same
question which after all is a pure question of law.

WHEREFORE, the PETITION is DISMISSED. No pronouncement as to costs.

SO ORDERED.

6.

G.R. No. 152133             February 9, 2006

ROLLIE CALIMUTAN, Petitioner,
vs.
PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, ET AL., Respondents.

DECISION

CHICO-NAZARIO, J.:

In this Petition for Review on Certiorari under Rule 45 of the Revised Rules of Court, petitioner Rollie Calimutan prays
for the reversal of the Decision of the Court of Appeals in CA-G.R. CR No. 23306, dated 29 August 2001, 1 affirming
the Decision of the Regional Trial Court (RTC), Branch 46, of Masbate, Masbate, in Criminal Case No. 8184, dated
19 November 1998,2 finding petitioner Calimutan guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the crime of homicide under
Article 249 of the Revised Penal Code.

The Information3 filed with the RTC charged petitioner Calimutan with the crime of homicide, allegedly committed as
follows –

That on or about February 4, 1996, in the morning thereof, at sitio Capsay, Barangay Panique, Municipality of Aroroy,
Province of Masbate, Philippines within the jurisdiction of this Honorable Court, the above-named accused with intent
to kill, did then and there willfully, unlawfully and feloniously attack, assault and throw a stone at PHILIP CANTRE,
hitting him at the back left portion of his body, resulting in laceration of spleen due to impact which caused his death a
day after.

CONTRARY TO LAW.

Masbate, Masbate, September 11, 1996.

Accordingly, the RTC issued, on 02 December 1996, a warrant 4 for the arrest of petitioner Calimutan. On 09 January
1997, however, he was provisionally released 5 after posting sufficient bailbond. 6 During the arraignment on 21 May
1997, petitioner Calimutan pleaded not guilty to the crime of homicide charged against him. 7

In the course of the trial, the prosecution presented three witnesses, namely: (1) Dr. Ronaldo B. Mendez, a Senior
Medico-Legal Officer of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI); (2) Belen B. Cantre, mother of the victim, Philip
Cantre; and (3) Rene L. Sañano, companion of the victim Cantre when the alleged crime took place. Their
testimonies are collectively summarized below.

On 04 February 1996, at around 10:00 a.m., the victim Cantre and witness Sañano, together with two other
companions, had a drinking spree at a videoke bar in Crossing Capsay, Panique, Aroroy, Masbate. From the videoke
bar, the victim Cantre and witness Sañano proceeded to go home to their respective houses, but along the way, they
crossed paths with petitioner Calimutan and a certain Michael Bulalacao. Victim Cantre was harboring a grudge
against Bulalacao, suspecting the latter as the culprit responsible for throwing stones at the Cantre’s house on a
previous night. Thus, upon seeing Bulalacao, victim Cantre suddenly punched him. While Bulalacao ran away,
petitioner Calimutan dashed towards the backs of victim Cantre and witness Sañano. Petitioner Calimutan then
picked up a stone, as big as a man’s fist, which he threw at victim Cantre, hitting him at the left side of his back. When
hit by the stone, victim Cantre stopped for a moment and held his back. Witness Sañano put himself between the
victim Cantre and petitioner Calimutan, and attempted to pacify the two, even convincing petitioner Calimutan to put
down another stone he was already holding. He also urged victim Cantre and petitioner Calimutan to just go home.
Witness Sañano accompanied victim Cantre to the latter’s house, and on the way, victim Cantre complained of the
pain in the left side of his back hit by the stone. They arrived at the Cantre’s house at around 12:00 noon, and witness
Sañano left victim Cantre to the care of the latter’s mother, Belen. 8

Victim Cantre immediately told his mother, Belen, of the stoning incident involving petitioner Calimutan. He again
complained of backache and also of stomachache, and was unable to eat. By nighttime, victim Cantre was alternately
feeling cold and then warm. He was sweating profusely and his entire body felt numb. His family would have wanted
to bring him to a doctor but they had no vehicle. At around 3:00 a.m. of the following day, 05 February 1996, Belen
was wiping his son with a piece of cloth, when victim Cantre asked for some food. He was able to eat a little, but he
also later vomited whatever he ate. For the last time, he complained of backache and stomachache, and shortly
thereafter, he died.9

Right after his death, victim Cantre was examined by Dr. Conchita S. Ulanday, the Municipal Health Officer of Aroroy,
Masbate. The Post-Mortem Examination Report10 and Certification of Death,11 issued and signed by Dr. Ulanday,
stated that the cause of death of victim Cantre was cardio-respiratory arrest due to suspected food poisoning. The
body of victim Cantre was subsequently embalmed and buried on 13 February 1996.

Unsatisfied with the findings of Dr. Ulanday, the Cantre family, with the help of the Lingkod Bayan-Circulo de
Abogadas of the ABS-CBN Foundation, requested for an exhumation and autopsy of the body of the victim Cantre by
the NBI. The exhumation and autopsy of the body of the victim Cantre was conducted by Dr. Ronaldo B. Mendez on
15 April 1996,12 after which, he reported the following findings –

Body; fairly well-preserved with sign of partial autopsy; clad in white Barong Tagalog and blue pants placed inside a
wooden golden-brown coffin and buried in a concrete niche.

Contused-abrasion, 2.3 x 1.0 cms., posterior chest wall, left side.

Hematoma, 16.0 x 8.0 cms., abdomen, along mid-line.

Hemoperitoneum, massive, clotte [sic].

Laceration, spleen.

Other visceral organ, pale and embalmed.

Stomach contains small amount of whitish fluid and other partially digested food particles.

xxxx

CAUSE OF DEATH: TRAUMATIC INJURY OF THE ABDOMEN.

In his testimony before the RTC, Dr. Mendez affirmed the contents of his exhumation and autopsy report. He
explained that the victim Cantre suffered from an internal hemorrhage and there was massive accumulation of blood
in his abdominal cavity due to his lacerated spleen. The laceration of the spleen can be caused by any blunt
instrument, such as a stone. Hence, Dr. Mendez confirmed the possibility that the victim Cantre was stoned to death
by petitioner Calimutan.13

To counter the evidence of the prosecution, the defense presented the sole testimony of the accused, herein
petitioner, Calimutan.

According to petitioner Calimutan, at about 1:00 p.m. on 04 February 1996, he was walking with his house helper,
Michael Bulalacao, on their way to Crossing Capsay, Panique, Aroroy, Masbate, when they met with the victim Cantre
and witness Sañano. The victim Cantre took hold of Bulalacao and punched him several times. Petitioner Calimutan
attempted to pacify the victim Cantre but the latter refused to calm down, pulling out from his waist an eight-inch
Batangas knife and uttering that he was looking for trouble, either "to kill or be killed." At this point, petitioner
Calimutan was about ten meters away from the victim Cantre and was too frightened to move any closer for fear that
the enraged man would turn on him; he still had a family to take care of. When he saw that the victim Cantre was
about to stab Bulalacao, petitioner Calimutan picked up a stone, which he described as approximately one-inch in
diameter, and threw it at the victim Cantre. He was able to hit the victim Cantre on his right buttock. Petitioner
Calimutan and Bulalacao then started to run away, and victim Cantre chased after them, but witness Sañano was
able to pacify the victim Cantre. Petitioner Calimutan allegedly reported the incident to a kagawad of Barangay
Panique and to the police authorities and sought their help in settling the dispute between Bulalacao and the victim
Cantre. Bulalacao, meanwhile, refused to seek medical help despite the advice of petitioner Calimutan and, instead,
chose to go back to his hometown.14

Petitioner Calimutan was totally unaware of what had happened to the victim Cantre after the stoning incident on 04
February 1996. Some of his friends told him that they still saw the victim Cantre drinking at a videoke bar on the night
of 04 February 1996. As far as he knew, the victim Cantre died the following day, on 05 February 1996, because of
food poisoning. Petitioner Calimutan maintained that he had no personal grudge against the victim Cantre previous to
the stoning incident.15

On 19 November 1998, the RTC rendered its Decision, 16 essentially adopting the prosecution’s account of the incident
on 04 February 1996, and pronouncing that –

It cannot be legally contended that the throwing of the stone by the accused was in defense of his companion, a
stranger, because after the boxing Michael was able to run. While it appears that the victim was the unlawful
aggressor at the beginning, but the aggression already ceased after Michael was able to run and there was no more
need for throwing a stone. The throwing of the stone to the victim which was a retaliatory act can be considered
unlawful, hence the accused can be held criminally liable under paragraph 1 of Art. 4 of the Revised Penal Code.

The act of throwing a stone from behind which hit the victim at his back on the left side was a treacherous one and
the accused committed a felony causing physical injuries to the victim. The physical injury of hematoma as a result of
the impact of the stone resulted in the laceration of the spleen causing the death of the victim. The accused is
criminally liable for all the direct and natural consequences of this unlawful act even if the ultimate result had not been
intended. (Art. 4, Par. 1, Revised Penal Code; People vs. Narciso, CA-G.R. No. 03532-CR, Jan. 13, 1964)

One is not relieved from criminal liability for the natural consequences of one’s illegal acts merely because one does
not intend to produce such consequences (U.S. vs. Brobst, 14 Phil. 310).

The crime committed is Homicide as defined and penalized under Art. 249 of the Revised Penal Code.

WHEREFORE, the Court finds and so holds that accused ROLLIE CALIMUTAN is GUILTY beyond reasonable doubt
of the crime of Homicide defined and penalized under Art. 249 of the Revised Penal Code with no mitigating or
aggravating circumstance and applying the Indeterminate Sentence Law hereby imposes the penalty of imprisonment
from EIGHT (8) YEARS of Prision Mayor as minimum, to TWELVE (12) YEARS and ONE (1) DAY of Reclusion
Temporal as maximum, and to indemnify the heirs of Philip Cantre the sum of Fifty Thousand (₱50,000.00) Pesos as
compensatory damages and the sum of Fifty Thousand (₱50,000.00) Pesos as moral damages, without subsidiary
imprisonment in case of insolvency.

Petitioner Calimutan appealed the Decision of the RTC to the Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals, in its Decision,
dated 29 August 2001,17 sustained the conviction of homicide rendered by the RTC against petitioner Calimutan,
ratiocinating thus –

The prosecution has sufficiently established that the serious internal injury sustained by the victim was caused by the
stone thrown at the victim by the accused which, the accused-appellant does not deny. It was likewise shown that the
internal injury sustained by the victim was the result of the impact of the stone that hit the victim. It resulted to a
traumatic injury of the abdomen causing the laceration of the victim’s spleen.

This is clearly shown by the autopsy report prepared by Dr. Ronaldo Mendez, a Senior Medico Legal Officer of the
NBI after the exhumation of the victim’s cadaver…

The Court cannot give credence to the post mortem report prepared by Municipal Health Officer Dr. Conchita Ulanday
stating that the cause of the victim’s death was food poisoning. Dr. Ulanday was not even presented to testify in court
hence she was not even able to identify and/or affirm the contents of her report. She was not made available for
cross-examination on the accuracy and correctness of her findings.

Dr. Conchita Ulanday’s post mortem report cannot prevail over the autopsy report (Exh. "C") of the Medico-Legal
Officer of the NBI who testified and was cross-examined by the defense.

Besides, if accused-appellant was convinced that the victim indeed died of food poisoning, as reported by Dr.
Conchita Ulanday, why did they not present her as their witness to belie the report of the Medico-Legal Officer of the
NBI.

The trial court’s evaluation of the testimony of Dr. Mendez is accorded the highest respect because it had the
opportunity to observe the conduct and demeanor of said witness.

WHEREFORE, in view of the foregoing, the decision of the Regional Trial Court of Masbate, Branch 46, finding
accused-appellant guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the crime of homicide is hereby AFFIRMED.

The Court of Appeals, in its Resolution, dated 15 January 2002, 18 denied the Motion for Reconsideration filed by
petitioner Calimutan for lack of merit since the issues raised therein had already been passed and ruled upon in its
Decision, dated 29 August 2001.

Comes now petitioner Calimutan, by way of the present Petition for Review on Certiorari, seeking (1) the reversal of
the Decisions of the RTC, dated 19 November 1998, and of the Court of Appeals, dated 29 August 2001, convicting
him of the crime of homicide; and, (2) consequently, his acquittal of the said crime based on reasonable doubt.

Petitioner Calimutan contended that the existence of the two autopsy reports, with dissimilar findings on the cause of
death of the victim Cantre, constituted reasonable doubt as to the liability of petitioner Calimutan for the said death,
arguing that –

x x x [I]t was Dra. Conchita Ulanday, Municipal Health Officer of Aroroy, Masbate was the first physician of the
government who conducted an examination on the cadaver of the victim Philip Cantre whose findings was that the
cause of his death was due to food poisoning while the second government physician NBI Medico Legal Officer Dr.
Ronaldo Mendez whose findings was that the cause of the death was due to a traumatic injury of the abdomen
caused by a lacerated spleen and with these findings of two (2) government physicians whose findings are at
variance with each other materially, it is humbly contended that the same issue raised a reasonable doubt on the
culpability of the petitioner.

As there are improbabilities and uncertainties of the evidence for the prosecution in the case at bar, it suffices to
reaise [sic] reasonable doubt as to the petitioner’s guilt and therefore, he is entitled to acquittal (People vs. Delmendo,
G.R. No. 32146, November 23, 1981). 19

In this jurisdiction, an accused in a criminal case may only be convicted if his or her guilt is established by proof
beyond reasonable doubt. Proof beyond reasonable doubt requires only a moral certainty or that degree of proof
which produces conviction in an unprejudiced mind; it does not demand absolute certainty and the exclusion of all
possibility of error.20

In the Petition at bar, this Court finds that there is proof beyond reasonable doubt to hold petitioner Calimutan liable
for the death of the victim Cantre.

Undoubtedly, the exhumation and autopsy report and the personal testimony before the RTC of prosecution witness,
NBI Senior Medico-Legal Officer Dr. Mendez, are vital pieces of evidence against petitioner Calimutan. Dr. Mendez
determined that the victim Cantre died of internal hemorrhage or bleeding due to the laceration of his spleen. In his
testimony, Dr. Mendez clearly and consistently explained that the spleen could be lacerated or ruptured when the
abdominal area was hit with a blunt object, such as the stone thrown by petitioner Calimutan at the victim Cantre.

It bears to emphasize that Dr. Mendez was presented by the prosecution as an expert witness, whose "competency
and academic qualification and background" was admitted by the defense itself. 21 As a Senior Medico-Legal
Officer of the NBI, Dr. Mendez is presumed to possess sufficient knowledge of pathology, surgery, gynecology,
toxicology, and such other branches of medicine germane to the issues involved in a case. 22

Dr. Mendez’s testimony as an expert witness is evidence, 23 and although it does not necessarily bind the courts, both
the RTC and the Court of Appeals had properly accorded it great weight and probative value. Having testified as to
matters undeniably within his area of expertise, and having performed a thorough autopsy on the body of the victim
Cantre, his findings as to the cause of death of the victim Cantre are more than just the mere speculations of an
ordinary person. They may sufficiently establish the causal relationship between the stone thrown by the petitioner
Calimutan and the lacerated spleen of the victim Cantre which, subsequently, resulted in the latter’s death. With no
apparent mistake or irregularity, whether in the manner by which Dr. Mendez performed the autopsy on the body of
the victim Cantre or in his findings, then his report and testimony must be seriously considered by this Court.

Moreover, reference to other resource materials on abdominal injuries would also support the conclusion of Dr.
Mendez that the stone thrown by petitioner Calimutan caused the death of the victim Cantre.

One source explains the nature of abdominal injuries 24 in the following manner –

The skin may remain unmarked inspite of extensive internal injuries with bleeding and disruption of the internal
organs. The areas most vulnerable are the point of attachment of internal organs, especially at the source of its blood
supply and at the point where blood vessels change direction.

The area in the middle superior half of the abdomen, forming a triangle bounded by the ribs on the two sides and a
line drawn horizontally through the umbilicus forming its base is vulnerable to trauma applied from any direction.
In this triangle are found several blood vessels changing direction, particularly the celiac trunk, its branches (the
hepatic, splenic and gastric arteries) as well as the accompanying veins. The loop of the duodenum, the ligament
of Treitz and the pancreas are in the retroperitoneal space, and the stomach and transverse colon are in the triangle,
located in the peritoneal cavity. Compression or blow on the area may cause detachment, laceration, stretch-stress,
contusion of the organs (Legal Medicine 1980, Cyril H. Wecht et., p. 41).
As to injuries to the spleen, in particular,25 the same source expounds that –

The spleen usually suffers traumatic rupture resulting from the impact of a fall or blow from the crushing and grinding
effects of wheels of motor vehicles. Although the organ is protected at its upper portion by the ribs and also by the air-
containing visceral organs, yet on account of its superficiality and fragility, it is usually affected by trauma. x x x.

Certainly, there are some terms in the above-quoted paragraphs difficult to comprehend for people without medical
backgrounds. Nevertheless, there are some points that can be plainly derived therefrom: (1) Contrary to common
perception, the abdominal area is more than just the waist area. The entire abdominal area is divided into different
triangles, and the spleen is located in the upper triangle, bounded by the rib cage; (2) The spleen and all internal
organs in the same triangle are vulnerable to trauma from all directions. Therefore, the stone need not hit the victim
Cantre from the front. Even impact from a stone hitting the back of the victim Cantre, in the area of the afore-
mentioned triangle, could rupture the spleen; and (3) Although the spleen had already been ruptured or lacerated,
there may not always be a perceptible external injury to the victim. Injury to the spleen cannot, at all times, be
attributed to an obvious, external injury such as a cut or bruise. The laceration of the victim Cantre’s spleen can be
caused by a stone thrown hard enough, which qualifies as a nonpenetrating trauma 26 –

Nonpenetrating Trauma. The spleen, alone or in combination with other viscera, is the most frequently injured
organ following blunt trauma to the abdomen or the lower thoracic cage. Automobile accidents provide the
predominating cause, while falls, sledding and bicycle injuries, and blows incurred during contact sports are frequently
implicated in children. x x x

The sheer impact of the stone thrown by petitioner Calimutan at the back of the victim Cantre could rupture or
lacerate the spleen – an organ described as vulnerable, superficial, and fragile – even without causing any other
external physical injury. Accordingly, the findings of Dr. Mendez that the victim Cantre died of internal hemorrhage
from his lacerated spleen, and the cause of the laceration of the spleen was the stone thrown by petitioner Calimutan
at the back of the victim Cantre, does not necessarily contradict his testimony before the RTC that none of the
external injuries of the victim Cantre were fatal.

Based on the foregoing discussion, the prosecution was able to establish that the proximate cause of the death of the
victim Cantre was the stone thrown at him by petitioner Calimutan. Proximate cause has been defined as "that cause,
which, in natural and continuous sequence, unbroken by any efficient intervening cause, produces the injury, and
without which the result would not have occurred." 27

The two other witnesses presented by the prosecution, namely Sañano and Belen Cantre, had adequately recounted
the events that transpired on 04 February 1996 to 05 February 1996. Between the two of them, the said witnesses
accounted for the whereabouts, actions, and physical condition of the victim Cantre during the said period. Before the
encounter with petitioner Calimutan and Bulalacao, the victim Cantre seemed to be physically fine. However, after
being hit at the back by the stone thrown at him by petitioner Calimutan, the victim Cantre had continuously
complained of backache. Subsequently, his physical condition rapidly deteriorated, until finally, he died. Other than
being stoned by petitioner Calimutan, there was no other instance when the victim Cantre may have been hit by
another blunt instrument which could have caused the laceration of his spleen.

Hence, this Court is morally persuaded that the victim Cantre died from a lacerated spleen, an injury sustained after
being hit by a stone thrown at him by petitioner Calimutan. Not even the post-mortem report of Dr. Ulanday, the
Municipal Health Officer who first examined the body of the victim Cantre, can raise reasonable doubt as to the cause
of death of the victim Cantre. Invoking Dr. Ulanday’s post-mortem report, the defense insisted on the possibility that
the victim Cantre died of food poisoning. The post-mortem report, though, cannot be given much weight and probative
value for the following reasons –

First, a closer scrutiny of the words used by Dr. Ulanday in her post-mortem report, as well as in the death certificate
of the victim Cantre, reveals that although she suspected food poisoning as the cause of death, she held back from
making a categorical statement that it was so. In the post-mortem report, 28 she found that "x x x the provable (sic)
cause of death was due to cardio-respiratory arrest. Food poisoning must be confirm (sic) by laboratory e(x)am." In
the death certificate of the victim Cantre, 29 she wrote that the immediate cause of death was "Cardio-Respiratory
Arrest" and the antecedent cause was "Food Poisoning Suspect." There was no showing that further laboratory tests
were indeed conducted to confirm Dr. Ulanday’s suspicion that the victim Cantre suffered from food poisoning, and
without such confirmation, her suspicion as to the cause of death remains just that – a suspicion.

Second, Dr. Ulanday executed before the NBI a sworn statement 30 in which she had explained her findings in the
post-mortem report, to wit –

05. Q: Did you conduct an autopsy on his cadaver?

A: I did sir, but not as exhaustive as that done by the NBI Medico-legal.

06. Q: Now, what do you want to state regarding your certification on the death of PHILIP B. CANTRE?

A: I stated in the certification and even in the Death Certificate about "Food Poisoning". What I stated in the Death
Certificate was that CANTRE was a SUSPECTED victim of food poisoning. I didn’t state that he was a case of food
poisoning. And in the Certification, I even recommended that an examination be done to confirm that suspicion.

07. Q: What gave you that suspicion of poisoning?

A: As there were no external signs of fatal injuries except that of the contusion or abrasion, measuring as that size of
a 25 centavo coin, I based my suspicion from the history of the victim and from the police investigation.

08. Q: You also mentioned in your Certification that there was no internal hemorrhage in the cadaver. Did you open
the body of the cadaver?

A: As I have already stated sir, I did not conduct an exhaustive autopsy. I made an incision on the abdomen and I
explored the internal organs of the cadaver with my hand in search for any clotting inside. But I found none. I did not
open the body of the cadaver.

09. Q: You mentioned about a contusion you have observed on the cadaver. Where was it located?

A: On the left portion of his back, sir.

10. Q: Now, is it possible that if somebody be hit by a hard object on that part of his body, his SPLEEN could be
injured?

A: Yes, sir. But that would depend on how strong or forceful the impact was.

In contrast, Dr. Mendez described in his testimony before the RTC31 how he conducted the autopsy of the body of the
victim Cantre, as follows –

Q What specific procedure did you do in connection with the exhumation of the body of the victim in this case?

A We opened the head, chest and the abdomen.

Q That was part of the autopsy you have conducted?

A Yes, sir.

Q Aside from opening the head as well as the body of the victim Philip Cantre, what other matters did you do in
connection therewith?

A We examined the internal organs.

Q What in particular internal organs you have examined?

A The brain, the heart, the lungs, the liver, the kidneys, the pancreas plus the intestines.

xxxx

Q The cause of death as you have listed here in your findings is listed as traumatic injury of the abdomen, will you
kindly tell us Doctor what is the significance of this medical term traumatic injury of the abdomen?

A We, medico-legal officers of the NBI don’t do what other doctors do as they make causes of death as internal
hemorrhage we particularly point to the injury of the body like this particular case the injury was at the abdomen of the
victim.

Q Will you tell as Doctor what particular portion of the abdomen of the victim this traumatic injury is located?

A Along the midline but the damaged organ was at the left.

Q What particular organ are you referring to?

A The spleen, sir.

The difference in the extent of the examinations conducted by the two doctors of the body of the victim Cantre
provides an adequate explanation for their apparent inconsistent findings as to the cause of death. Comparing the
limited autopsy conducted by Dr. Ulanday and her unconfirmed suspicion of food poisoning of the victim Cantre, as
opposed to the exhaustive autopsy performed by Dr. Mendez and his definitive finding of a ruptured spleen as the
cause of death of the victim Cantre, then the latter, without doubt, deserves to be given credence by the courts.

Third, that the prosecution no longer presented Dr. Ulanday before the RTC despite being included in its list of
witnesses did not amount to a willful suppression of evidence that would give rise to the presumption that her
testimony would be adverse to the prosecution if produced. 32 As this Court already expounded in the case of People
v. Jumamoy33 –

The prosecution's failure to present the other witnesses listed in the information did not constitute, contrary to the
contention of the accused, suppression of evidence. The prosecutor has the exclusive prerogative to determine the
witnesses to be presented for the prosecution. If the prosecution has several eyewitnesses, as in the instant case, the
prosecutor need not present all of them but only as many as may be needed to meet the quantum of proof necessary
to establish the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt. The testimonies of the other witnesses may, therefore,
be dispensed with for being merely corroborative in nature. This Court has ruled that the non-presentation of
corroborative witnesses would not constitute suppression of evidence and would not be fatal to the prosecution's
case. Besides, there is no showing that the eyewitnesses who were not presented in court as witnesses were not
available to the accused. We reiterate the rule that the adverse presumption from a suppression of evidence is not
applicable when (1) the suppression is not willful; (2) the evidence suppressed or withheld is merely corroborative or
cumulative; (3) the evidence is at the disposal of both parties; and (4) the suppression is an exercise of a privilege.
Moreover, if the accused believed that the failure to present the other witnesses was because their testimonies would
be unfavorable to the prosecution, he should have compelled their appearance, by compulsory process, to testify as
his own witnesses or even as hostile witnesses.

It was a judgment call for the prosecution to no longer present Dr. Ulanday before the RTC, perhaps believing that it
had already presented sufficient evidence to merit the conviction of petitioner Calimutan even without her testimony.
There was nothing, however, preventing the defense from calling on, or even compelling, with the appropriate court
processes, Dr. Ulanday to testify in court as its witness if it truly believed that her testimony would be adverse to the
case presented by the prosecution.

While this Court is in accord with the factual findings of the RTC and the Court of Appeals and affirms that there is
ample evidence proving that the death of the victim Cantre was caused by his lacerated spleen, an injury which
resulted from being hit by the stone thrown at him by petitioner Calimutan, this Court, nonetheless, is at variance with
the RTC and the Court of Appeals as to the determination of the appropriate crime or offense for which the petitioner
should have been convicted for.

Article 3 of the Revised Penal Code classifies felonies according to the means by which they are committed, in
particular: (1) intentional felonies, and (2) culpable felonies. These two types of felonies are distinguished from each
other by the existence or absence of malicious intent of the offender –

In intentional felonies, the act or omission of the offender is malicious. In the language of Art. 3, the act is performed
with deliberate intent (with malice). The offender, in performing the act or in incurring the omission, has the intention
to cause an injury to another. In culpable felonies, the act or omission of the offender is not malicious. The injury
caused by the offender to another person is "unintentional, it being simply the incident of another act
performed without malice." (People vs. Sara, 55 Phil. 939). As stated in Art. 3, the wrongful act results from
imprudence, negligence, lack of foresight or lack of skill. 34

In the Petition at bar, this Court cannot, in good conscience, attribute to petitioner Calimutan any malicious intent to
injure, much less to kill, the victim Cantre; and in the absence of such intent, this Court cannot sustain the conviction
of petitioner Calimutan for the intentional crime of homicide, as rendered by the RTC and affirmed by the Court of
Appeals. Instead, this Court finds petitioner Calimutan guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the culpable felony
of reckless imprudence resulting in homicide under Article 365 of the Revised Penal Code.

Article 365 of the Revised Penal Code expressly provides for the definition of 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 precaution on the part of the person performing or failing to perform
such act, taking into consideration his employment or occupation, degree of intelligence, physical condition and other
circumstances regarding persons, time and place.

There are several circumstances, discussed in the succeeding paragraphs, that demonstrate petitioner Calimutan’s
lack of intent to kill the victim Cantre, and conversely, that substantiate the view of this Court that the death of victim
Cantre was a result of petitioner Calimutan’s reckless imprudence. The RTC and the Court of Appeals may have
failed to appreciate, or had completely overlooked, the significance of such circumstances.

It should be remembered that the meeting of the victim Cantre and witness Sañano, on the one hand, and petitioner
Calimutan and his helper Bulalacao, on the other, was a chance encounter as the two parties were on their way to
different destinations. The victim Cantre and witness Sañano were on their way home from a drinking spree in
Crossing Capsay, while petitioner Calimutan and his helper Bulalacao were walking from the market to Crossing
Capsay. While the evidence on record suggests that a running grudge existed between the victim Cantre and
Bulalacao, it did not establish that there was likewise an existing animosity between the victim Cantre and petitioner
Calimutan. 1avvphil.net
In both versions of the events of 04 February 1996 submitted by the prosecution and the defense, it was the victim
Cantre who was the initial aggressor. He suddenly punched Bulalacao, the helper and companion of petitioner
Calimutan, when they met on the road. The attack of the victim Cantre was swift and unprovoked, which spurred
petitioner Calimutan into responsive action. Given that this Court dismisses the claim of petitioner Calimutan that the
victim Cantre was holding a knife, it does take into account that the victim Cantre was considerably older and bigger,
at 26 years of age and with a height of five feet and nine inches, compared to Bulalacao, the boy he attacked, who
was only 15 years old and stood at about five feet. Even with his bare hands, the victim Cantre could have hurt
Bulalacao. Petitioner Calimutan sought only to protect Bulalacao and to stop the assault of the victim Cantre against
the latter when he picked up a stone and threw it at the victim Cantre. The stone was readily available as a weapon to
petitioner Calimutan since the incident took place on a road. That he threw the stone at the back of the victim Cantre
does not automatically imply treachery on the part of petitioner Calimutan as it is highly probable that in the midst of
the fray, he threw the stone rashly and impulsively, with no regard as to the position of the victim Cantre. When the
victim Cantre stopped his aggression after being hit by the stone thrown by petitioner Calimutan, the latter also
desisted from any other act of violence against the victim Cantre.

The above-described incident could not have taken more than just a few minutes. It was a very brief scuffle, in which
the parties involved would hardly have the time to ponder upon the most appropriate course of action to take. With
this in mind, this Court cannot concur in the declaration made by the Court of Appeals that petitioner Calimutan threw
the stone at the victim Cantre as a retaliatory act. It was evidently a swift and spontaneous reaction to an unexpected
and unprovoked attack by the victim Cantre on Bulalacao. That Bulalacao was already able to run away from the
victim Cantre may have escaped the notice of the petitioner Calimutan who, under the pressure of the circumstances,
was forced to act as quickly as possible.

The prosecution did not establish that petitioner Calimutan threw the stone at the victim Cantre with the specific intent
of killing, or at the very least, of harming the victim Cantre. What is obvious to this Court was petitioner Calimutan’s
intention to drive away the attacker who was, at that point, the victim Cantre, and to protect his helper Bulalacao who
was, as earlier described, much younger and smaller in built than the victim Cantre. 35

Granting that petitioner Calimutan was impelled by a lawful objective when he threw the stone at the victim Cantre,
his act was committed with inexcusable lack of precaution. He failed to consider that a stone the size of a man’s fist
could inflict substantial injury on someone. He also miscalculated his own strength, perhaps unaware, or even
completely disbelieving, that he could throw a stone with such force as to seriously injure, or worse, kill someone, at a
quite lengthy distance of ten meters.

Since it is irrefragable that the stone thrown by petitioner Calimutan at the victim Cantre was the proximate cause of
the latter’s death, despite being done with reckless imprudence rather than with malicious intent, petitioner Calimutan
remains civilly liable for such death. This Court, therefore, retains the reward made by the RTC and the Court of
Appeals to the heirs of the victim Cantre of the amount of ₱50,000.00 as civil indemnity for his death and another
₱50,000.00 as moral damages.

WHEREFORE, the assailed Decision of the Court of Appeals in CA-G.R. CR No. 23306, dated 29 August 2001,
affirming the Decision of the RTC in Criminal Case No. 8184, dated 19 November 1998, is hereby MODIFIED.
Petitioner Calimutan is found GUILTY beyond reasonable doubt of reckless imprudence resulting in homicide, under
Article 365 of the Revised Penal Code, and is accordingly sentenced to imprisonment for a minimum period of 4
months of arresto mayor to a maximum period of two years and one day of prision correccional. Petitioner Calimutan
is further ORDERED to pay the heirs of the victim Cantre the amount of ₱50,000.00 as civil indemnity for the latter’s
death and ₱50,000.00 as moral damages.

SO ORDERED.

7.
 Republic of the Philippines
SUPREME COURT

SECOND DIVISION

G.R. No. 155791. March 16, 2005

MELBA QUINTO, Petitioners,
vs.
DANTE ANDRES and RANDYVER PACHECO, Respondents.

DECISION

CALLEJO, SR., J.:

At around 7:30 a.m. on November 13, 1995, eleven-year-old Edison Garcia, a Grade 4 elementary school pupil, and
his playmate, Wilson Quinto, who was also about eleven years old, were at Barangay San Rafael, Tarlac, Tarlac.
They saw respondents Dante Andres and Randyver Pacheco by the mouth of a drainage culvert. Andres and
Pacheco invited Wilson to go fishing with them inside the drainage culvert. 1 Wilson assented. When Garcia saw that it
was dark inside, he opted to remain seated in a grassy area about two meters from the entrance of the drainage
system.2

Respondent Pacheco had a flashlight. He, along with respondent Andres and Wilson, entered the drainage system
which was covered by concrete culvert about a meter high and a meter wide, with water about a foot deep. 3 After a
while, respondent Pacheco, who was holding a fish, came out of the drainage system and left 4 without saying a word.
Respondent Andres also came out, went back inside, and emerged again, this time, carrying Wilson who was already
dead. Respondent Andres laid the boy’s lifeless body down in the grassy area. 5 Shocked at the sudden turn of events,
Garcia fled from the scene.6 For his part, respondent Andres went to the house of petitioner Melba Quinto, Wilson’s
mother, and informed her that her son had died. Melba Quinto rushed to the drainage culvert while respondent
Andres followed her.7

The cadaver of Wilson was buried without any autopsy thereon having been conducted. The police authorities of
Tarlac, Tarlac, did not file any criminal complaint against the respondents for Wilson’s death.

Two weeks thereafter, or on November 28, 1995, National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) investigators took the sworn
statements of respondent Pacheco, Garcia and petitioner Quinto. 8 Respondent Pacheco alleged that he had never
been to the drainage system catching fish with respondent Andres and Wilson. He also declared that he saw Wilson
already dead when he passed by the drainage system while riding on his carabao.

On February 29, 1996, the cadaver of Wilson was exhumed. Dr. Dominic Aguda of the NBI performed an autopsy
thereon at the cemetery and submitted his autopsy report containing the following postmortem findings:

POSTMORTEM FINDINGS

Body in previously embalmed, early stage of decomposition, attired with white long sleeves and dark pants and
placed inside a wooden coffin in a niche-apartment style.

Hematoma, 14.0 x 7.0 cms., scalp, occipital region.

Abrasion, 4.0 x 3.0 cms., right face, 5.0 x 3.0 cms., left forearm.
Laryngo – tracheal lumina – congested and edematous containing muddy particles with bloody path.

Lungs – hyperinflated, heavy and readily pits on pressure; section contains bloody froth.

Brain – autolyzed and liquefied.

Stomach – partly autolyzed.

CAUSE OF DEATH: Asphyxia by drowning; traumatic head injuries, contributory. 9

The NBI filed a criminal complaint for homicide against respondents Andres and Pacheco in the Office of the
Provincial Prosecutor, which found probable cause for homicide by dolo against the two.

An Information was later filed with the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Tarlac, Tarlac, charging the respondents with
homicide. The accusatory portion reads:

That at around 8 o’clock in the morning of November 13, 1995, in the Municipality of Tarlac, Province of Tarlac,
Philippines, and within the jurisdiction of this Honorable Court, the said accused Dante Andres and Randyver
Pacheco y Suliven @ Randy, conspiring, confederating, and helping one another, did then and there willfully,
unlawfully, and feloniously attack, assault, and maul Wilson Quinto inside a culvert where the three were fishing,
causing Wilson Quinto to drown and die.

CONTRARY TO LAW.10

After presenting Garcia, the prosecution presented Dr. Dominic Aguda, who testified on direct examination that the
hematoma at the back of the victim’s head and the abrasion on the latter’s left forearm could have been caused by a
strong force coming from a blunt instrument or object. The injuries in the larynx and trachea also indicated that the
victim died of drowning, as some muddy particles were also found on the lumina of the larynx and trachea
("Nakahigop ng putik"). Dr. Aguda stated that such injury could be caused when a person is put under water by
pressure or by force.11 On cross-examination, Dr. Aguda declared that the hematoma on the scalp was caused by a
strong pressure or a strong force applied to the scalp coming from a blunt instrument. He also stated that the victim
could have fallen, and that the occipital portion of his head could have hit a blunt object.

Dr. Aguda also declared that the 14x7-centimeter hematoma at the back of Wilson’s head could have rendered the
latter unconscious, and, if he was thrown in a body of water, the boy could have died by drowning.

In answer to clarificatory questions made by the court, the doctor declared that the 4x3-centimeter abrasion on the
right side of Wilson’s face could have also been caused by rubbing against a concrete wall or pavement, or by contact
with a rough surface. He also stated that the trachea region was full of mud, but that there was no sign of
strangulation.12

After the prosecution had presented its witnesses and the respondents had admitted the pictures showing the
drainage system including the inside portions thereof, 13 the prosecution rested its case.

The respondents filed a demurer to evidence which the trial court granted on the ground of insufficiency of evidence,
per its Order dated January 28, 1998. It also held that it could not hold the respondents liable for damages because of
the absence of preponderant evidence to prove their liability for Wilson’s death.

The petitioner appealed the order to the Court of Appeals (CA) insofar as the civil aspect of the case was concerned.
In her brief, she averred that –
THE TRIAL COURT ERRED IN DISMISSING THE CASE AND IN RULING THAT NO PREPONDERANT EVIDENCE
EXISTS TO HOLD ACCUSED-APPELLEES CIVILLY LIABLE FOR THE DEATH OF THE VICTIM WILSON
QUINTO.14

The CA rendered judgment affirming the assailed order of the RTC on December 21, 2001. It ruled as follows:

The acquittal in this case is not merely based on reasonable doubt but rather on a finding that the accused-appellees
did not commit the criminal acts complained of. Thus, pursuant to the above rule and settled jurisprudence, any civil
action ex delicto cannot prosper. Acquittal in a criminal action bars the civil action arising therefrom where the
judgment of acquittal holds that the accused did not commit the criminal acts imputed to them. (Tan v. Standard
Vacuum Oil Co., 91 Phil. 672)15

The petitioner filed the instant petition for review and raised the following issues:

WHETHER OR NOT THE EXTINCTION OF RESPONDENTS’ CRIMINAL LIABILITY, LIKEWISE, CARRIES WITH IT
THE EXTINCTION OF THEIR CIVIL LIABILITY.

II

WHETHER OR NOT PREPONDERANT EVIDENCE EXISTS TO HOLD RESPONDENTS CIVILLY LIABLE FOR THE
DEATH OF WILSON QUINTO.16

The petitioner avers that the trial court indulged in mere possibilities, surmises and speculations when it held that
Wilson died because (a) he could have fallen, his head hitting the stones in the drainage system since the culvert was
slippery; or (b) he might have been bitten by a snake which he thought was the prick of a fish fin, causing his head to
hit hard on the top of the culvert; or (c) he could have lost consciousness due to some ailment, such as epilepsy. The
petitioner also alleges that the trial court erred in ruling that the prosecution failed to prove any ill motive on the part of
the respondents to kill the victim, and in considering that respondent Andres even informed her of Wilson’s death.

The petitioner posits that the trial court ignored the testimony of the Medico-Legal Expert, Dr. Aguda; the nature,
location and number of the injuries sustained by the victim which caused his death; as well as the locus criminis. The
petitioner insists that the behavior of the respondents after the commission of the crime betrayed their guilt,
considering that respondent Pacheco left the scene, leaving respondent Andres to bring out Wilson’s cadaver, while
respondent Andres returned inside the drainage system only when he saw Garcia seated in the grassy area waiting
for his friend Wilson to come out.

The petitioner contends that there is preponderant evidence on record to show that either or both the respondents
caused the death of her son and, as such, are jointly and severally liable therefor.

In their comment on the petition, the respondents aver that since the prosecution failed to adduce any evidence to
prove that they committed the crime of homicide and caused the death of Wilson, they are not criminally and civilly
liable for the latter’s death.

The petition has no merit.

Every person criminally liable for a felony is also civilly liable. 17 The civil liability of such person established in Articles
100, 102 and 103 of the Revised Penal Code includes restitution, reparation of the damage caused, and
indemnification for consequential damages.18 When a criminal action is instituted, the civil action for the recovery of
civil liability arising from the offense charged shall be deemed instituted with the criminal action unless the offended
party waives the civil action, reserves the right to institute it separately or institutes the civil action prior to the criminal
action.19 With the implied institution of the civil action in the criminal action, the two actions are merged into one
composite proceeding, with the criminal action predominating the civil. 20

The prime purpose of the criminal action is to punish the offender in order to deter him and others from committing the
same or similar offense, to isolate him from society, to reform and rehabilitate him or, in general, to maintain social
order.21 The sole purpose of the civil action is the restitution, reparation or indemnification of the private offended party
for the damage or injury he sustained by reason of the delictual or felonious act of the accused. 22 While the
prosecution must prove the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt for the crime charged, it is required to
prove the cause of action of the private complainant against the accused for damages and/or restitution.

The extinction of the penal action does not carry with it the extinction of the civil action. However, the civil action
based on delict shall be deemed extinguished if there is a finding in a final judgment in the civil action that the act or
omission from where the civil liability may arise does not exist. 23

Moreover, a person committing a felony is criminally liable for all the natural and logical consequences resulting
therefrom although the wrongful act done be different from that which he intended. 24 "Natural" refers to an occurrence
in the ordinary course of human life or events, while "logical" means that there is a rational connection between the
act of the accused and the resulting injury or damage. The felony committed must be the proximate cause of the
resulting injury. Proximate cause is that cause which in natural and continuous sequence, unbroken by an efficient
intervening cause, produces the injury, and without which the result would not have occurred. The proximate legal
cause is that acting first and producing the injury, either immediately, or by setting other events in motion, all
constituting a natural and continuous chain of events, each having a close causal connection with its immediate
predecessor.25

There must be a relation of "cause and effect," the cause being the felonious act of the offender, the effect being the
resultant injuries and/or death of the victim. The "cause and effect" relationship is not altered or changed because of
the pre-existing conditions, such as the pathological condition of the victim (las condiciones patologica del lesionado);
the predisposition of the offended party (la predisposicion del ofendido); the physical condition of the offended party
(la constitucion fisica del herido); or the concomitant or concurrent conditions, such as the negligence or fault of the
doctors (la falta de medicos para sister al herido); or the conditions supervening the felonious act such as tetanus,
pulmonary infection or gangrene. 26

The felony committed is not the proximate cause of the resulting injury when:

(a) there is an active force that intervened between the felony committed and the resulting injury, and the active force
is a distinct act or fact absolutely foreign from the felonious act of the accused; or

(b) the resulting injury is due to the intentional act of the victim. 27

If a person inflicts a wound with a deadly weapon in such a manner as to put life in jeopardy and death follows as a
consequence of their felonious act, it does not alter its nature or diminish its criminality to prove that other causes
cooperated in producing the factual result. The offender is criminally liable for the death of the victim if his delictual act
caused, accelerated or contributed to the death of the victim. 28 A different doctrine would tend to give immunity to
crime and to take away from human life a salutary and essential safeguard. 29 This Court has emphasized that:

… Amid the conflicting theories of medical men, and the uncertainties attendant upon the treatment of bodily ailments
and injuries, it would be easy in many cases of homicide to raise a doubt as to the immediate cause of death, and
thereby to open a wide door by which persons guilty of the highest crime might escape conviction and punishment. …
30

In People v. Quianzon,31 the Supreme Court held:

… The Supreme Court of Spain, in a Decision of April 3, 1879, said in a case similar to the present, the following:
Inasmuch as a man is responsible for the consequences of his act – and in this case, the physical condition and
temperament of the offended party nowise lessen the evil, the seriousness whereof is to be judged, not by the
violence of the means employed, but by the result actually produced; and as the wound which the appellant inflicted
upon the deceased was the cause which determined his death, without his being able to counteract its effects, it is
evident that the act in question should be qualified as homicide, etc.32

In the present case, the respondents were charged with homicide by dolo. In People v. Delim,33 the Court delineated
the burden of the prosecution to prove the guilt of the accused for homicide or murder:

In the case at bar, the prosecution was burdened to prove the corpus delicti which consists of two things: first, the
criminal act and second, defendant’s agency in the commission of the act. Wharton says that corpus delicti includes
two things: first, the objective; second, the subjective element of crimes. In homicide (by dolo) and in murder cases,
the prosecution is burdened to prove: (a) the death of the party alleged to be dead; (b) that the death was produced
by the criminal act of some other than the deceased and was not the result of accident, natural cause or suicide; and
(c) that defendant committed the criminal act or was in some way criminally responsible for the act which produced
the death. To prove the felony of homicide or murder, there must be incontrovertible evidence, direct or
circumstantial, that the victim was deliberately killed (with malice); in other words, that there was intent to kill. Such
evidence may consist inter alia in the use of weapons by the malefactors, the nature, location and number of wounds
sustained by the victim and the words uttered by the malefactors before, at the time or immediately after the killing of
the victim. If the victim dies because of a deliberate act of the malefactor, intent to kill is conclusively presumed. 34

Insofar as the civil aspect of the case is concerned, the prosecution or the private complainant is burdened to adduce
preponderance of evidence or superior weight of evidence. Although the evidence adduced by the plaintiff is stronger
than that presented by the defendant, he is not entitled to a judgment if his evidence is not sufficient to sustain his
cause of action. The plaintiff must rely on the strength of his own evidence and not upon the weakness of that of the
defendants’.35

Section 1, Rule 133 of the Revised Rules of Evidence provides how preponderance of evidence is determined:

Section 1. Preponderance of evidence, how determined. – In civil cases, the party having the burden of proof must
establish his case by a preponderance of evidence. In determining where the preponderance or superior weight of
evidence on the issues involved lies, the court may consider all the facts and circumstance of the case, the witnesses’
manner of testifying, their intelligence, their means and opportunity of knowing the facts to which they are testifying,
the nature of the facts to which they testify, the probability of their testimony, their interest or want of interest, and also
their personal credibility so far as the same may legitimately appear upon the trial. The court may also consider the
number of witnesses, though the preponderance is not necessarily with the greater number. 36

In the present case, we rule that, as held by the trial court and the CA, the prosecution failed to adduce preponderant
evidence to prove the facts on which the civil liability of the respondents rest, i.e., that the petitioner has a cause of
action against the respondents for damages.

It bears stressing that the prosecution relied solely on the collective testimonies of Garcia, who was not an
eyewitness, and Dr. Aguda.

We agree with the petitioner that, as evidenced by the Necropsy Report of Dr. Dominic Aguda, the deceased
sustained a 14x7-centimeter hematoma on the scalp. But as to how the deceased sustained the injury, Dr. Aguda
was equivocal. He presented two possibilities: (a) that the deceased could have been hit by a blunt object or
instrument applied with full force; or (b) the deceased could have slipped, fell hard and his head hit a hard object:

COURT:
The Court would ask questions.

Q So it is possible that the injury, that is – the hematoma, caused on the back of the head might be due to the victim’s
falling on his back and his head hitting a pavement?

A Well, the 14x7-centimeter hematoma is quite extensive, so if the fall is strong enough and would fall from a high
place and hit a concrete pavement, then it is possible.

Q Is it possible that if the victim slipped on a concrete pavement and the head hit the pavement, the injury might be
caused by that slipping?

A It is also possible.

Q So when the victim was submerged under water while unconscious, it is possible that he might have taken in some
mud or what?

A Yes, Sir.

Q So it is your finding that the victim was submerged while still breathing?

A Yes, Your Honor, considering that the finding on the lung also would indicate that the victim was still alive when he
was placed under water.37

The doctor also admitted that the abrasion on the right side of the victim’s face could have been caused by rubbing
against a concrete wall or pavement:

Q The abrasion 4x3 centimeters on the right [side of the] face, would it be caused by the face rubbing against a
concrete wall or pavement?

A Yes, Sir. Abrasion is usually caused by a contact of a skin to a rough surface.

Q Rough surface?

A Yes, Your Honor.

Q When you say that the trachea region was full of mud, were there no signs that the victim was strangled?

A There was no sign of strangulation, Your Honor. 38

The trial court gave credence to the testimony of Dr. Aguda that the deceased might have slipped, causing the latter
to fall hard and hit his head on the pavement, thus:

Q -Could it be possible, Doctor, that this injury might have been caused when the victim fell down and that portion of
the body or occipital portion hit a blunt object and might have been inflicted as a result of falling down?

A - If the fall … if the victim fell and he hit a hard object, well, it is also possible. 39

The trial court took into account the following facts:

Again, it could be seen from the pictures presented by the prosecution that there were stones inside the culvert. (See
Exhibit "D" to "D-3"). The stones could have caused the victim to slip and hit his head on the pavement. Since there
was water on the culvert, the portion soaked with water must be very slippery, aside from the fact that the culvert is
round. If the victim hit his head and lost consciousness, he will naturally take in some amount of water and drown. 40

The CA affirmed on appeal the findings of the trial court, as well as its conclusion based on the said findings.

We agree with the trial and appellate courts. The general rule is that the findings of facts of the trial court, its
assessment of probative weight of the evidence of the parties, and its conclusion anchored on such findings, affirmed
no less by the CA, are given conclusive effect by this Court, unless the trial court ignored, misapplied or misconstrued
cogent facts and circumstances which, if considered, would change the outcome of the case. The petitioner failed to
show any justification to warrant a reversal of the findings or conclusions of the trial and appellate courts.

That the deceased fell or slipped cannot be totally foreclosed because even Garcia testified that the drainage culvert
was dark, and that he himself was so afraid that he refused to join respondents Andres and Pacheco
inside.41 Respondent Andres had no flashlight; only respondent Pacheco had one.

Moreover, Dr. Aguda failed to testify and explain what might have caused the abrasion on the left forearm of the
deceased. He, likewise, failed to testify whether the abrasions on the face and left forearm of the victim were
made ante mortem or post mortem.

The petitioner even failed to adduce preponderance of evidence that either or both the respondents hit the deceased
with a blunt object or instrument, and, consequently, any blunt object or instrument that might have been used by any
or both of the respondents in hitting the deceased.

It is of judicial notice that nowadays persons have killed or committed serious crimes for no reason at all. 42 However,
the absence of any ill-motive to kill the deceased is relevant and admissible in evidence to prove that no violence was
perpetrated on the person of the deceased. In this case, the petitioner failed to adduce proof of any ill-motive on the
part of either respondent to kill the deceased before or after the latter was invited to join them in fishing. Indeed, the
petitioner testified that respondent Andres used to go to their house and play with her son before the latter’s death:

Q Do you know this Dante Andres personally?

A Not much but he used to go to our house and play with my son after going from her mother who is gambling, Sir.

Q But you are acquainted with him, you know his face?

A Yes, Sir.

Q Will you please look around this courtroom and see if he is around?

A (Witness is pointing to Dante Andres, who is inside the courtroom.) 43

When the petitioner’s son died inside the drainage culvert, it was respondent Andres who brought out the deceased.
He then informed the petitioner of her son’s death. Even after informing the petitioner of the death of her son,
respondent Andres followed the petitioner on her way to the grassy area where the deceased was:

Q Did not Dante Andres follow you?

A He went with me, Sir.

Q So when you went to the place where your son was lying, Dante Andres was with you?

A No, Sir. When I was informed by Dante Andres that my son was there at the culvert, I ran immediately. He [was]
just left behind and he just followed, Sir.

Q So when you reached the place where your son was lying down, Dante Andres also came or arrived?

A It was only when we boarded the jeep that he arrived, Sir.44

In sum, the petitioner failed to adduce preponderance of evidence to prove a cause of action for damages based on
the deliberate acts alleged in the Information.

IN LIGHT OF ALL THE FOREGOING, the petition is DENIED for lack of merit. No costs.

SO ORDERED.

8.

Republic of the Philippines

SUPREME COURT
Manila

THIRD DIVISION

G.R. No. 157221             March 30, 2007

PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, Appellee,

vs.
CESAR GALVEZ, Appellant.

DECISION

AUSTRIA-MARTINEZ, J.:

For review before this Court is the Decision1 of the Court of Appeals (CA) in CA-G.R. CR No. 18255 dated March 30,
2001, which affirmed the Decision2 of the Regional Trial Court (RTC) Isabela, Basilan finding the accused-appellant
Cesar Galvez (Galvez), guilty of Murder, but modifying the penalty of the RTC from a sentence of "seventeen (17)
years, four (4) months and one (1) day as minimum to twenty (20) years as maximum" to reclusion perpetua.

The facts are as follows:

At around 11 o’clock in the evening of July 27, 1991, Danilo Perez, Rosalio Enojarda, Noel Cugal, Ricardo Francisco
and Wilfredo Rellios, took a break from making copra to eat leftover dinner inside the copra kiln in the farm of Perez in
Matarling, Lantawan, Basilan. When Enojarda stood up from the circle where they were eating to drink water, shots
rang out and Enojarda fell to the ground shouting "Dan ya tupa comigo" (Dan, I am hit). The rest of the group took
cover, crawling to different directions. After the attack, Rellios reported the incident to the barangay captain and they
brought Enojarda’s dead body to his family.3

On May 28, 1992, an Information was filed against Cesar Galvez (Galvez), a member of the Philippine National Police
(PNP) for Murder, which reads:
That on or about the 27th day of July, 1991, and within the jurisdiction of this Honorable Court, viz. at Matarling,
Municipality of Lantawan, Province of Basilan, Philippines, the above named accused, armed with an M16 armalite
rifle, with treachery and evident premeditation, and with intent to kill, did then and there willfully, unlawfully and
feloniously assault, attack and shoot one Rosalio Enojarda with the said M16 armalite rifle, thereby inflicting gunshot
wound on the body of the latter which caused his death. 4

The prosecution presented evidence showing that: after Enojarda fell, the rest of the group took cover and Rellios
while in a crawling position, saw Galvez about 5 meters away holding an armalite rifle and firing at their direction;
Rellios also saw that Galvez had companions but did not recognize them as well as the firearms they carried because
they were approximately nine meters away;5 Perez, also crawled and hid in the bushes about 5 meters away; when
the firing stopped, one of the attackers passed by about two meters from where Perez was hiding and because the
moon was bright, he recognized Galvez, his cousin, who was wearing a fatigue uniform and armed with an armalite
rifle; he also saw that Galvez had three armed companions but did not recognize them nor the firearms they were
carrying because they were about nine meters from Galvez.6

Galvez put up denial and alibi as his defenses. He testified that he was staying at his father-in-law’s house on July 27,
1991 and drank tuba at around 10:30 p.m. at a nearby store. He went home and slept with his wife soon after. 7 To
corroborate his testimony, he presented SPO2 Danilo Ramillano, a visitor at his father-in-law’s house and Wilhelmina
Espinosa, a sari-sari store owner. 8 He also presented Athena Elisa Anderson, Document Examiner and Forensic
Analyst of the PNP Crime Laboratory of Region 9, Zamboanga City, who testified that the paraffin test conducted on
both his hands showed that there was no nitrate present; 9 and Police Inspector Lemuel Caser, Ballistic Examiner, who
testified that the shells found at the scene of the crime were not fired from the firearm issued to Galvez. 10

After trial, the RTC rendered its Decision dated February 27, 1995 with the following findings:

From the foregoing facts as well as from the records of this case, this Court finds the following facts to be
undisputable, to wit:

1) That at the late night of July 27, 1991, Rosalio Enojarda, while making copra in the coconut land of Danilo
Perez at Matarling, Lantawan, Basilan, was shot to death by one of the four (4) men. How many gunshot
wounds he suffered and what part of his body was hit by the gunfire, the evidence is found wanting.

2) That a day before the incident and on the date of the incident which was July 27, 1991, the accused Cesar
Galvez has not fired any firearms.

xxx

3) That the five (5) empty shells of armalite rifle…allegedly found by Barangay Captain Inocente Manicap from
the scene of the crime and later turned over to PFC Samuel Omoso, the Police Investigator of this case, did
not come from the M16 armalite rifle with Serial No. 117460, the gun issued to the accused Cesar Galvez.
(citations omitted).11

Further, the trial court found that the testimonies of the prosecution witnesses, Rellios and Perez, were credible and
trustworthy as there was no motive to perjure themselves; that the testimony of defense witness SPO2 Ramillano was
full of loopholes; and that the testimony of the store owner was insufficient to disprove the presence of the accused at
the scene of the crime.12

The RTC concluded:

xxx since this accused, Cesar Galvez, has not fired his M16 armalite rifle on that night of July 27, 1991, and those five
(5) empty shells were not fired from his armalite, then xxx the bullet that hit and instantly killed Rosalio Enojarda
on that night of July 27, 1991 at the copra kiln of Danilo Perez came from the gun fired by any of the three (3)
unidentified persons who were the companions of the accused, Cesar Galvez at the night of the
incident xxx.13 (emphasis supplied)

Despite the fact that the Information failed to allege conspiracy and the aggravating circumstances of nocturnity and
armed band, the RTC still convicted Galvez of murder based on conspiracy since Galvez was seen by two witnesses
at the scene of the crime carrying a firearm together with his unidentified armed companions. 14 The trial court also
held that the offer of Galvez to have the case settled out of court is an indication of his guilt. 15

The RTC then disposed of the case as follows:

WHEREFORE, all factual and circumstantial matters surrounding the commission of the crime, being carefully and
meticulously examined and studied, this Court finds the accused SPO2 Cesar Galvez, a member of the Philippine
National Police GUILTY beyond reasonable doubt as principal in committing the crime of Murder as alleged in the
Information and which crime is defined and penalized under Art. 248 of the Revised Penal Code, but considering his
good military records after the commission of the crime, hereby sentences him to suffer an imprisonment of
SEVENTEEN (17) YEARS, FOUR (4) MONTHS and ONE (1) DAY as minimum, to TWENTY (20) YEARS as
maximum, which is the minimum period of Reclusion Temporal in its maximum period to death. And to indemnify the
heirs of the late Rosalio Enojarda, the amount of P50,000.00 as moral damages and to pay the Court the amount of
P500.00 as judicial costs and other accessory penalties attached to the penalty of Reclusion Temporal.

And further this accused is hereby stripped of all the military ranks he now hold [sic] in the Armed Forces of the
Philippines.

And upon the promulgation of this decision, the accused shall immediately be committed to the Provincial Jail where
the Provincial Warden is directed to immediately transfer him to the National Penitentiary at San Ramon Penal Colony
at Zamboanga City for commitment thereat.

And the property bail bond he has posted for his provisional liberty is hereby ordered cancelled and its pertinent
papers returned, upon receipt to the bondsman.16

Galvez appealed the case to the CA, docketed as CA-G.R. CR No. 18255, which rendered its Decision on March 30,
2001 affirming his guilt but modifying the penalty to be imposed, thus:

WHEREFORE, with the MODIFICATION that appellant CESAR GALVEZ is hereby sentenced to reclusion perpetua,
the decision appealed from is hereby AFFIRMED in all other respects.17

The CA held that the RTC erred in holding Galvez criminally liable based on conspiracy when such fact was not
alleged in the Information. However, it still found Galvez guilty of Murder. 18 The CA reasoned that: the negative results
of the paraffin and ballistic tests do not negate the possibility that Galvez used another gun in shooting the victim; the
eyewitnesses of the prosecution identified Galvez as the perpetrator if not one of the perpetrators of the crime; alibi,
which was offered by Galvez, is the weakest of all defenses and cannot prevail over positive identification; the offer of
Galvez to the wife of the victim to have the case settled is also a strong indication of Galvez’s culpability; and
treachery was adequately established as the attack was sudden, unexpected and did not accord the victim an
opportunity to defend himself.19 The CA further held that since there was no mitigating circumstance, the proper
penalty should be reclusion perpetua.20

Galvez filed a Motion for Reconsideration 21 which the CA denied in its Resolution dated August 21, 2001, stating that
it was a mere rehash of the arguments already addressed in the decision. 22
The entire records of the case were forwarded to this Court pursuant to Section 13, Rule 124 of the Rules of Criminal
Procedure. On April 8, 2003, the Court issued a Resolution 23 accepting the case; committing the accused to the
Davao Prison and Penal Farm; and informing the accused and the Solicitor General that they may file additional briefs
with this Court.24

In his Appellant’s Brief, Galvez argued that the trial court erred:

… IN HOLDING THAT (HE) THE ACCUSED-APPELLANT IS LIABLE FOR MURDER FOR THE DEATH OF
ROSALIO ENOJARDA ON JULY 27, 1991 DESPITE ITS EXPRESS FINDINGS THAT THE ACCUSED-APPELLANT
DID NOT FIRE HIS RIFLE ON THAT FATAL NIGHT AND THAT THE BULLET THAT HIT AND KILLED ROSALIO
ENOJARDA COULD HAVE BEEN FIRED FROM ANY OF THE GUNS OR RIFLES BELONGING TO ANY OF THE
THREE UNIDENTIFIED PERSONS WHO WERE NOT CHARGED NOR INDICTED TOGETHER WITH THE
ACCUSED IN THE SAME CRIMINAL INFORMATION IN QUESTION.

II

… IN HOLDING THAT DANILO PEREZ AND WILFREDO RELLIOS, WHILE IN CRAWLING POSITION WHOSE
CHESTS WERE ALMOST TOUCHING THE GROUND AND UNDER CONDITIONS DESCRIBED BY THEM, HAD
SEEN THE ACCUSED-APPELLANT ARMED WITH M16 ARMALITE RIFLE IN THE NIGHTIME, OF 27 JULY 1991
DESPITE DANILO PEREZ’ [sic] POSITIVE ASSERTION THAT IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE OF HIS (SIC) TO IDENTIFY
THE ACCUSED WHEN ASKED TO DEMONSTRATE IN OPEN COURT IN THE MANNER AND CIRCUMSTANCE
NARRATED BY HIM.25

In his Supplemental Appellant’s Brief, Galvez further claims that it was seriously erroneous:

I.

…TO CONCLUDE THAT THERE WAS CONSPIRACY BETWEEN ACCUSED-APPELLANT AND THE OTHER
MALEFACTORS NOT INCLUDED IN THE PRESENT CASE.

II.

…TO BE SELECTIVE IN APPRECIATING MATTERS NOT INCLUDED IN THE INFORMATION, MORE SO THE
THEORY OF CONSPIRACY AGAINST ACCUSED-APPELLANT, THERE BEING NO OTHER PERSONS CHARGED
IN THE PRESENT CASE.

III.

…TO FIND THE ACCUSED-APPELLANT GUILTY OF MURDER UNDER CIRCUMSTANCES FAR DIFFERENT
FROM THE INFORMATION, IN EFFECT DENYING ACCUSED-APPELLANT [THE] RIGHT TO BE INFORMED OF
THE NATURE AND CAUSE OF ACCUSATION AGAINST HIM.

IV.

…TO GIVE CREDENCE TO THE TESTIMONIES OF THE TWO ALLEGED EYE WITNESSES WHOSE
DECLARATIONS WERE CLEARLY BELIED DURING THEIR CROSS EXAMINATION.

V.
…NOT TO CONSIDER THE DEFENSE OF ALIBI OF ACCUSED-APPELLANT.

VI.

…TO MAKE UNSUBSTANTIATED, BASELESS PRESUMPTIONS AND CONCLUSIONS IN A CRIMINAL CASE

WHERE THE INNOCENCE OF THE ACCUSED IS PRESUMED. 26

Galvez also filed an Addendum to Supplemental Appellant’s Brief adding that:

VII

THE HONORABLE COURT OF APPEALS SERIOUSLY ERRED IN DISREGARDING THE RESULTS OF THE
PARAFFIN AND BALLISTIC TESTS AND IN ASSUMING THAT THE ACCUSED-APPELLANT SHOT THE
DECEASED USING AN M16 RIFLE OTHER THAN THE ONE ISSUED TO HIM. 27

Galvez contends that: the degree of proof required in criminal cases is proof beyond reasonable doubt because an
accused is always presumed to be innocent unless proven otherwise; 28 when circumstances yield two or more
inferences, one of which is consistent with the presumption of innocence and the other compatible with the finding of
guilt, the court must side with that which will acquit the accused; in this case, the RTC found undisputed the fact that
he did not shoot the victim on the night of July 27, 1991 and the firearm that was used in killing the victim was owned
and possessed by another man, as shown by the negative results of the paraffin and ballistic tests; the statement of
Danilo Perez that he saw the accused on the night of July 27, 1991 is not credible since Perez was in a crawling
position with his chest almost touching the ground at the time he allegedly saw the accused; Judge Memoracion, who
penned the decision could not have assessed the demeanor of the prosecution witnesses while testifying as it was
another judge who heard and received their testimonies; 29 the two defense witnesses, who corroborated his
(Galvez’s) alibi are unbiased and unrelated to him; while alibi is the weakest defense, it is the only defense if it is the
truth and it assumes importance where the prosecution evidence is weak; the statement of the trial court that the offer
of the accused to have the case extra-judicially settled is a tacit admission of guilt is also unsubstantiated as there is
nothing in the records that shows that the accused made an offer to settle the case out of court. 30

For the plaintiff-appellee, the Solicitor General argued that: the paraffin test and the ballistic examination are not
conclusive proof that Galvez did not fire a gun during the incident; in this case, the paraffin test was conducted on
Galvez two days from the date of the incident; Galvez was also positively identified by the prosecution witnesses as
one of four armed men who attacked them during the incident; Perez clarified that while he was in a crawling position,
he was looking upward, thus, he was able to identify Galvez; between Galvez’s alibi and the positive declarations of
witnesses whose testimonies have not been assailed nor discredited by improper motive, the latter deserves greater
credence; the trial court correctly convicted Galvez of murder as there was treachery since the victim was not in a
position to defend himself from the attack of the accused; the proper penalty should be reclusion perpetua under Art.
248 of the Revised Penal Code as there was no mitigating circumstance; 31 Galvez is also liable for temperate
damages of ₱25,000.00 since pecuniary loss has been suffered although its exact amount could not be determined,
and exemplary damages of ₱25,000.00 due to the presence of the qualifying circumstance of treachery; the amount
of ₱50,000.00 as civil indemnity should also be awarded to the heirs of the victim together with the ₱50,000.00
awarded by the trial court for moral damages. 32

After reviewing the entire records of the case, the Court resolves to acquit Galvez.

Conspiracy must be alleged in the information in order that an accused may be held liable for the acts of his co-
accused. In the absence of any averment of conspiracy in the information, an accused can only be made liable for the
acts committed by him alone and such criminal responsibility is individual and not collective. 33

As explained in People v. Tampis,34

The rule is that conspiracy must be alleged, not merely inferred, in the information. Absence of a particular statement
in the accusatory portion of the charge sheet concerning any definitive act constituting conspiracy renders the
indictment insufficient to hold one accused liable for the individual acts of his co-accused. Thus, each of them would
be held accountable only for their respective participation in the commission of the offense. 35

The rationale for this rule has long been settled. In People v. Quitlong, the Court explained:

Overwhelming, such as it may have been thought of by the trial court, evidence of conspiracy is not enough for an
accused to bear and respond to all its grave legal consequences; it is equally essential that such accused has been
apprised when the charge is made conformably with prevailing substantive and procedural requirements. Article III,
Section 14, of the 1987 Constitution, in particular, mandates that no person shall be held answerable for a criminal
offense without due process of law and that in all criminal prosecutions the accused shall first be informed of the
nature and cause of the accusation against him. The right to be informed of any such indictment is likewise explicit in
procedural rules. x x x

xxx

x x x Quite unlike the omission of an ordinary recital of fact which, if not excepted from or objected to during trial, may
be corrected or supplied by competent proof, an allegation, however, of conspiracy, or one that would impute criminal
liability to an accused for the act of another or others, is indispensable in order to hold such person, regardless of the
nature and extent of his own participation, equally guilty with the other or others in the commission of the crime.
Where conspiracy exists and can rightly be appreciated, the individual acts done to perpetrate the felony becomes of
secondary importance, the act of one being imputable to all the others. Verily, an accused must know from the
information whether he faces a criminal responsibility not only for his acts but also for the acts of his co-accused as
well.36

Since conspiracy was not alleged in the Information in this case, it is imperative that the prosecution prove Galvez’s
direct participation in the killing of the victim. This, the prosecution failed to do.

The CA, in holding Galvez guilty of Murder, gave weight to the testimonies of the prosecution witnesses Rellios and
Perez that they saw Galvez fire an armalite rifle in their direction on the night in question. The positive identification of
these witnesses, the CA ruled, has more weight than the negative results of the paraffin and ballistic tests. 37

We disagree.

The prosecution witnesses never actually saw Galvez shoot the victim. While this Court does not ordinarily interfere
with the findings of the lower courts on the trustworthiness of witnesses, when there appears on the records,
however, facts and circumstances of real weight which might have been overlooked or misapprehended, this Court
cannot shirk from its duty to render the law and apply justice. 38

During his direct examination, Perez testified as follows:

Q: While you were eating your merienda at about 11:00 o’clock in the evening on July 27, 1991 what happened?

A: Suddenly we heard shots and we could not determine where it came from and one of our companion was
hit.

Q: Do you know who was that companion of yours who was hit?

A: Yes, Rosalio Enojarda.

xxx

Q: After you heard the gun fire which hit your companion Rosalio Enojarda, what did you do?

A: I dropped and crawled, sir.

xxx

Q: And then did the gunfire stop after you hid yourself among the grasses?

A: Yes sir.

Q: What happened after the firings stopped, when you were already hiding among the grasses?

A: I recognized the culprit sir because he passed by where I was hiding about two meters from me.

Q: You said you recognized the culprit when he passed by where you were hiding, who was that culprit?

A: Cesar Galvez, sir.

xxx

COURT:

After you heard the shots how long after you saw him passed by?

xxx

Q: Was it 30 minutes after?

xxx

A: In my own estimate about 20 to 25 minutes.

Q: In other words more or less you saw him (accused) passed by together with his companions around 20 to 25
minutes after you heard the shots, is that what you want to impress this Court?

A: Yes, Your Honor.

xxx

Q: Did you see him really shoot?

A: No, Your Honor. 39 (Emphasis supplied)

During his cross-examination, Perez further testified:

Q: So, when you said the explosions came from different directions, was not true?
A: We heard shots but we do not know where it came from, what we did was to drop and crawl.

COURT: (To the witness)

You did not see the one firing?

Yes, your Honor, because I crawled.

Q: And how many minutes after you heard firings you saw this accused and companions pass by?

A: I am not sure Your Honor about the exact time but I think it has about 20 to 25 minutes. 40

xxx

Q: Mr. Perez, you did not see the accused shot at Mr. Enojarda?

A: No sir.41 (Emphasis supplied).

Rellios also admitted during his cross-examination the following:

Q: You did not actually see Mr. Galvez shoot at Mr. Enojarda?

A: No sir.

COURT: (To the witness)

In other words you were only presuming that it was him.

A: No, Your Honor, I saw him.

ATTY. MARTIN: (Continuing)

Did you understand the question when you were asked by the Court. Since you did not actually see Mr.
Galvez shoot at the victim, and reportedly you saw him only five minutes thereafter, you only presume Mr.
Galvez to have shoot Mr. Enojarda?

A: Yes sir.42 (Emphasis supplied)

Based on the above testimonies, the following circumstances appear to have been established: (1) at around 11 p.m.,
Enojarda, Rellios, Perez, and their two companions were eating merienda near the copra kiln when they were
sprayed with gunfire; (2) Enojarda was fatally hit and fell on the ground; (3) Rellios, Perez and their two companions
ducked and crawled to seek cover; (4) about five minutes after the first burst of gunfire, Galvez, armed with an M16
armalite rifle, was seen firing at Rellios, Perez and their two companions as well as in the direction of the copra kiln;
and (5) about 20 to 25 minutes after the first burst of gunfire, Galvez was again seen clad in fatigue uniform and
carrying an M16 armalite rifle along with three armed companions, after which, their group left the scene of the crime.

However, these circumstances are not sufficient to establish the guilt of Galvez beyond reasonable doubt.

It is well to emphasize the four basic guidelines that must be observed in assaying the probative value of
circumstantial evidence:
x x x (a) It should be acted upon with caution; (b) All the essential facts must be consistent with the hypothesis of
guilt; (c) The facts must exclude every other theory but that of guilt of the accused; and, (d) The facts must establish
with certainty the guilt of the accused as to convince beyond reasonable doubt that he was the perpetrator of the
offense. The peculiarity of circumstantial evidence is that the series of events pointing to the commission of a felony is
appreciated not singly but collectively. The guilt of the accused cannot be deduced from scrutinizing just one (1)
particular piece of evidence. It is more like a puzzle which when put together reveals a convincing picture pointing to
the conclusion that the accused is the author of the crime. 43

as well as the doctrines enunciated by the Court that the prosecution must establish beyond reasonable doubt every
circumstance essential to the guilt of the accused; 44 and that every circumstance or doubt favoring the innocence of
the accused must be duly taken into account. 45

The "incriminating circumstances" enumerated above are mainly based on the testimonies of prosecution witnesses
Perez and Rellios. A perusal of said testimonies reveals, however, other circumstances that should be appreciated in
favor of Galvez, to wit:

(a) Both Perez and Rellios testified that they saw Galvez with three other armed companions minutes after
Enojarda was shot but they did not testify that they saw him in the vicinity before the shooting of Enojarda.46

(b) Perez testified that only one shot hit Enojarda. 47

(c) Perez testified that he did not see Galvez shoot at Enojarda and that he merely assumed that Galvez was
the one who shot the victim when the latter passed by him. 48 Rellios testified that he only presumed that
Galvez shot at Enojarda.49

(d) Perez testified that he had no misunderstanding with Galvez 50 and that he does not know any motive why
Enojarda was killed.51

In considering both favorable and "incriminating" circumstances for or against Galvez, the following must always be
borne in mind: that the Information charged Galvez as the sole perpetrator of the crime of Murder; that the three other
armed men were not included as John Does; and that there was no allegation of conspiracy in the Information.

Consequently, it was incumbent upon the prosecution to prove that Galvez was the sole author of the shot that killed
Enojarda. The "incriminating circumstances" do not point to Galvez as the sole perpetrator of the crime. The presence
of the three armed men raises the probability that any one of those men inflicted the fatal shot. It must be stressed
that the prosecution witnesses merely presumed that it was Galvez who shot Enojarda.

Moreover, the fact that Galvez was seen minutes after Enojarda was shot does not sufficiently establish that Galvez
was the one who shot Enojarda. There is no evidence that Galvez was seen or was together with the three other
armed men when Enojarda was hit. There is a missing link that precludes the Court from concluding that it was
Galvez who shot Enojarda.52 It cannot be said therefore that there was positive identification of Galvez through
circumstantial evidence.

In People v. Comendador,53 the Court held:

While no general rule can be laid down as to the quantity of circumstantial evidence which will suffice in a given case,
all the circumstances proved must be consistent with each other, consistent with the hypothesis that the accused
is guilty, and at the same time inconsistent with the hypothesis that he is innocent, and with every other
rational hypothesis except that of guilt. The circumstances proved should constitute an unbroken chain which
leads to one fair and reasonable conclusion which points to the accused, to the exclusion of all others as the
guilty person.54 (Emphasis supplied)
And in Dela Cruz v. People,55 the Court stressed, thus:

To emphasize, the foundation of the ruling of acquittal is reasonable doubt, which simply means that the prosecution’s
evidence was not sufficient to sustain the guilt of the accused-petitioner beyond the point of moral certainty – certainty
that convinces and satisfies the reason and the conscience of those who are to act upon it. It is such proof to the
satisfaction of the court, keeping in mind the presumption of innocence, as precludes every reasonable hypothesis
except that which it is given to support it. An acquittal based on reasonable doubt will prosper even though the
accused’s innocence may be doubted, for a criminal conviction rests on the strength of the evidence of the
prosecution and not on the weakness of the defense. And, if the inculpatory facts and circumstances are
capable of two or more explanations, one of which is consistent with the innocence of the accused and the
other consistent with his guilt, then the evidence does not fulfill the test of moral certainty and is not
sufficient to support a conviction, and, thus, that which is favorable to the accused should be
considered.56 (Emphasis supplied).

And when the evidence on the commission of the crime is purely circumstantial or inconclusive, motive is vital. As
held in Crisostomo v. Sandiganbayan,57

Motive is generally held to be immaterial because it is not an element of the crime. However, motive becomes
important when the evidence on the commission of the crime is purely circumstantial or inconclusive. Motive is thus
vital in this case.58

In this case, prosecution witness Perez testified that he did not know of any motive on the part of Galvez to kill
Enojarda.59 This is a circumstance that should be taken in favor of Galvez.

In line with the ruling of the Court in Torralba v. People,60 to wit:

Time and again, this Court has faithfully observed and given effect to the constitutional presumption of innocence
which can only be overcome by contrary proof beyond reasonable doubt – one which requires moral certainty, a
certainty that convinces and satisfies the reason and conscience of those who are to act upon it. As we have so
stated in the past –

Accusation is not, according to the fundamental law, synonymous with guilt, the prosecution must overthrow the
presumption of innocence with proof of guilt beyond reasonable doubt. To meet this standard, there is need for the
most careful scrutiny of the testimony of the State, both oral and documentary, independently of whatever defense is
offered by the accused. Only if the judge below and the appellate tribunal could arrive at a conclusion that the
crime had been committed precisely by the person on trial under such an exacting test should the sentence
be one of conviction. It is thus required that every circumstance favoring innocence be duly taken into
account. The proof against him must survive the test of reason; the strongest suspicion must not be
permitted to sway judgment.61 (Emphasis supplied)

There could not be any doubt that the facts, as established by the circumstantial evidence, failed to exclude the
possibility that another person shot Enojarda. There were three other armed men, any one of whom could be the
culprit.

When a crime is committed, it is the duty of the prosecution to prove the identity of the perpetrator of the crime
beyond reasonable doubt for there can be no conviction even if the commission of the crime is established. 62 Indeed,
the State, aside from showing the existence of a crime, has the burden of correctly identifying the author of such
crime.63 Both facts must be proved by the State beyond reasonable doubt on the strength of its evidence and without
solace from the weakness of the defense.64
Galvez correctly pointed out in his supplemental brief before this Court that it was erroneous for the CA to have
affirmed the RTC ruling that Galvez’s offer to the victim’s wife to settle the case is a tacit admission of guilt. 65

While the Court agrees that in criminal cases, an offer of compromise by the accused may be received in evidence as
an implied admission of guilt,66 such principle is not applicable in this case.

The only basis of the RTC in concluding that Galvez made on offer of compromise, 67 is the March 3, 1993 Order of the
RTC which reads as follows:

Considering that the accused as well as his Counsel, Atty. Bienvenido G. Martin appeared in Court together with
Rosaflor Enojarda, the wife of the victim, and manifested that there is a possibility of understanding and settlement
between the parties, the above-entitled case is hereby reset for new assignment. 68

Galvez’s supposed offer of compromise was not formally offered and admitted as evidence during the trial. The
victim’s widow or any prosecution witness did not testify on any offer of compromise made by Galvez. We have held
that when the evidence on the alleged offer of compromise is amorphous, the same shall not benefit the prosecution
in its case against the accused.69

The Court also recognizes that there may be instances when an offer of compromise will not amount to an admission
of guilt. Thus, in People v. Godoy,70 the Court pronounced that:

…In criminal cases, an offer of compromise is generally admissible as evidence against the party making it. It is a
legal maxim, which assuredly constitutes one of the bases of the right to penalize, that in the matter of public crimes
which directly affect the public interest, no compromise whatever may be entered into as regards the penal action. It
has long been held, however, that in such cases the accused is permitted to show that the offer was not
made under a consciousness of guilt, but merely to avoid the inconvenience of imprisonment or for some
other reason which would justify a claim by the accused that the offer to compromise was not in truth an
admission of guilt or an attempt to avoid the legal consequences which would ordinarily ensue
therefrom.71 (Emphasis supplied).

As the alleged offer of compromise was not presented in court, it was not shown that Galvez indeed made such an
offer under the consciousness of guilt. Galvez was not given the opportunity to explain that it was given for some
other reason that would justify a claim that it was not an admission of guilt or an attempt to avoid its legal
consequences.

In this case, the presumption of innocence of Galvez prevails over the alleged implied admission of guilt. In Godoy,
the Court, in acquitting the accused, explained that:

It frequently happens that in a particular case two or more presumptions are involved. Sometimes the presumptions
conflict, one tending to demonstrate the guilt of the accused and the other his innocence. In such case, it is necessary
to examine the basis for each presumption and determine what logical or social basis exists for each presumption,
and then determine which should be regarded as the more important and entitled to prevail over the other. It must,
however, be remembered that the existence of a presumption indicating his guilt does not in itself destroy the
presumption against innocence unless the inculpating presumption, together with all the evidence, or the lack of any
evidence or explanation, is sufficient to overcome the presumption of innocence by proving the defendant’s guilt
beyond a reasonable doubt. Until the defendant’s guilt is shown in this manner, the presumption of innocence
continues.72

xxx
The presumption of innocence, x x x is founded upon the first principles of justice, and is not a mere form but a
substantial part of the law. It is not overcome by mere suspicion or conjecture; a probability that the defendant
committed the crime; nor by the fact that he had the opportunity to do so. Its purpose is to balance the scales in what
would otherwise be an uneven contest between the lone individual pitted against the People and all the resources at
their command. Its inexorable mandate is that, for all the authority and influence of the prosecution, the accused must
be acquitted and set free if his guilt cannot be proved beyond the whisper of a doubt. This is in consonance with the
rule that conflicts in evidence must be resolved upon the theory of innocence rather than upon a theory of guilt when it
is possible to do so.73

Thus, taking into account all the circumstances in favor of Galvez, there could not be a moral certainty as to the guilt
of Galvez. The prosecution has not proven the guilt of Galvez beyond reasonable doubt.

It may be pointed out that the following circumstances support the conviction of Galvez as charged:

(a) the negative findings of the paraffin and ballistic tests do not prove that Galvez did not fire a gun;

(b) Galvez was a police officer who could have justified his presence at the scene of the crime with a lawful
purpose, yet he put up alibi which is inherently weak;

(c) Galvez did not present his wife and father-in-law as witnesses to corroborate his story that he was at their
house on the night in question; and

(d) Galvez refused three times to give a statement to the investigating police officer.

These circumstances do not help the prosecution in the discharge of its duty to prove the guilt of Galvez beyond
reasonable doubt.

It is true that a negative finding in a paraffin test is not a conclusive proof that one has not fired a gun, as held by this
Court in People v. Pagal74 and People v. Teehankee75 which were cited by the CA in its Decision, since it is possible
for a person to fire a gun and yet bear no traces of nitrate or gunpowder as when the hands are bathed in perspiration
or washed afterwards.76 Such principle, however, has no bearing in the present case. In
the Pagal and Teehankee cases, the Court concluded that a negative finding does not prove that the accused therein
had not fired a gun because the accused were positively identified by witnesses as having shot their victims, unlike in
the case at hand where Galvez is not positively identified by direct or circumstantial evidence that he shot Enojarda. If
the principle should be given any weight at all, it should be in favor of Galvez, that is, considering that he is not
positively identified, then, the negative results of the paraffin test bolster his claim that he did not shoot Enojarda, and
not the other way around.

The argument that the negative result of the ballistic examination does not prove that Galvez did not fire a gun during
the incident as it was possible that he used another gun, should also be struck down. It is the prosecution which has
the burden of showing that Galvez used a firearm other than the one issued to him and that such firearm, which
Galvez used, was the one that killed the victim. It is not for Galvez to prove the opposite of the possibility adverted to
by the prosecution as it is the prosecution which must prove his guilt beyond reasonable doubt and not for him to
prove his innocence.

Thus, while it is true that the negative results of the paraffin and ballistic tests do not conclusively prove that Galvez
did not shoot the victim, the same negative results cannot be used as circumstantial evidence against Galvez to prove
that he shot Enojarda. To do otherwise would violate the basic precepts of criminal law which presumes the
innocence of the accused. Every circumstance favoring an accused’s innocence must be duly taken into account, the
proof against him must survive the test of reason, and the strongest suspicion must not be permitted to sway
judgment.77
That Galvez was a police officer who could have justified his presence at the scene of the crime with a lawful
purpose, yet he put up an alibi which is inherently weak; and that Galvez did not present his wife and father-in-law as
witnesses to corroborate his story that he was at their house on the night in question, pertain to the weakness of
Galvez’s alibi which may cast doubt on his innocence. However, these circumstances do not prove beyond
reasonable doubt Galvez’s guilt. Although an accused must satisfactorily prove his alibi, the burden in criminal cases
still rests on the prosecution to prove the accused’s guilt. The prosecution evidence must stand or fall on its own
weight and cannot draw strength from the weakness of the defense. Unless the prosecution overturns the
constitutional presumption of innocence of an accused by competent and credible evidence proving his guilt beyond
reasonable doubt, the presumption remains.78 Courts must judge the guilt or innocence of the accused based on facts
and not on mere conjectures, presumptions, or suspicions. 79

That Galvez refused three times to give a statement to the investigating police officer is a prerogative given to the
accused and should not be given evidentiary value to establish his guilt. In People v. Saavedra,80 the Court held that
an accused has the right to remain silent and his silence should not be construed as an admission of guilt.

Even if the defense of the appellant may be weak, the same is inconsequential if, in the first place, the prosecution
failed to discharge the onus of his identity and culpability. 81 Conviction must be based on the strength of the
prosecution and not on the weakness of the defense, i.e., the obligation is upon the shoulders of the prosecution to
prove the guilt of the accused and not the accused to prove his innocence. 82 The prosecution’s job is to prove that the
accused is guilty beyond reasonable doubt. 83 Thus, when the evidence for the prosecution is insufficient to sustain a
conviction, it must be rejected and the accused absolved and released at once. 84

Time and again, the Court has pronounced that the great goal of our criminal law and procedure is not to send people
to jail but to render justice.85 Under our criminal justice system, the overriding consideration is not whether the court
doubts the innocence of the accused, but whether it entertains reasonable doubt as to his guilt. 86

It is indeed lamentable that because of the lapses of the Prosecution, justice could not be rendered in this case for the
untimely death of Enojarda. Justice, however, would also not be served with the conviction of the herein accused. It is
well to quote Justice Josue N. Bellosillo:

In fine, we are not unmindful of the gravity of the crime charged; but justice must be dispensed with an even
hand. Regardless of how much we want to punish the perpetrators of this ghastly crime and give justice to
the victim and her family, the protection provided by the Bill of Rights is bestowed upon all individuals,
without exception, regardless of race, color, creed, gender or political persuasion – whether privileged or
less privileged – to be invoked without fear or favor. Hence, the accused deserves no less than an acquittal;
ergo, he is not called upon to disprove what the prosecution has not proved.87 (Emphasis supplied)

As the prosecution in this case failed to discharge its burden of proving Galvez’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt, the
Court has no choice but to acquit him.

WHEREFORE, the Decision of the Regional Trial Court, Isabela, Basilan, Branch 1 in Criminal Case No. 1816 dated
February 2, 1995 and the Decision of the Court of Appeals in CA-G.R. CR No. 18255 dated March 30, 2001
are REVERSED and SET ASIDE. The accused-appellant Cesar Galvez is hereby ACQUITTED on the ground that
his guilt was not proven beyond reasonable doubt. The Director of the Bureau of Corrections is ordered to cause the
immediate release of Cesar Galvez unless he is being lawfully held for another crime and to inform this Court
accordingly within ten (10) days from notice.

SO ORDERED.

9.
G.R. No. 166479             February 28, 2006

RODOLFO C. VELASCO, Petitioner,
vs.
PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, Respondent.

DECISION

CHICO-NAZARIO, J.:

Before Us is a petition for review on certiorari which seeks to set aside the decision 1 of the Court of Appeals in CA-
G.R. CR No. 23366 dated 30 July 2004 which affirmed the decision 2 of Branch 41 of the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of
Dagupan City in Criminal Case No. 98-02175-D dated 29 June 1999, finding accused-petitioner Rodolfo C. Velasco
guilty of Attempted Murder, and its Resolution3 dated 21 December 2004 denying petitioner’s motion for
reconsideration.

An Information4 dated 20 April 1998 charged petitioner with the crime of Attempted Murder committed as follows:

That on or about the 19th day of April, 1998, in the City of Dagupan, Philippines, and within the jurisdiction of this
Honorable Court, the above-named accused, SN I RODOLFO C. VELASCO, being then armed with a gun, with
treachery and with intent to kill one FREDERICK MARAMBA, did then and there, wilfully, unlawfully and criminally,
attack, assault and use personal violence upon the latter by shooting him, hitting him on the left upper arm, the said
accused having thus commenced a felony directly by overt acts but did not perform all the acts of execution which
could have produced the crime of murder, by reason of some cause or accident other than his own spontaneous
desistance, to the damage and prejudice of said FREDERICK MARAMBA.

When arraigned, petitioner, with the assistance of counsel de oficio, pleaded not guilty to the crime charged. 5

On 29 September 1998, the Hon. Luis M. Fontanilla, Executive Judge of RTC of Dagupan City, ordered the release of
petitioner after a surety bond was posted by the Mega Pacific Insurance Corporation in the amount of ₱120,000.00. 6

The evidence is summarized by the trial court as follows:

The evidence of the prosecution tends to show that on April 19, 1998, at about 7:30 o’clock in the morning, private
complainant Frederick Maramba was cleaning and washing his owner type jeep in front of his house at Lasip Grande,
Dagupan City when a motorized tricycle stopped near him. Accused Rodolfo Velasco dashed out of the tricycle,
approached the complainant and fired at him several times with a .45 caliber pistol. The accused missed with his first
shot but the second one hit the complainant at the upper arm, causing him to stumble on the ground. The
complainant stood up and ran, while the accused continued firing at him but missed.

The shooting incident was reported to the police sub-station in Malued District by Barangay Captain Dacasin of Lasip
Grande, describing the suspect as wearing a vest or a "chaleco." The police, composed of SPO4 Romulo Villamil,
PO3 Rolando Alvendo, and SPO1 Soliven respondent and pursued the accused who proceeded on board a
motorized tricycle to the highway going to Barangay Banaoang in Calasiao town.

The police caught up with the tricycle and brought the accused to the police sub-station. A firearm (Exhibit "A")
protruding from the waistline of the accused, three (3) magazines (Exhibit "B", "B-1" & "B-2") and fourteen (14) live
ammunitions (Exhibits ‘C" to "C-13") were confiscated from the possession of the accused. The police also recovered
seven (7) spent ammunitions (Exhibits "D" to "D-6") at the crime scene. At the City Jail in Dagupan City where the
accused was subsequently brought, the private complainant Frederick Maramba identified and pointed to the accused
as the one who fired at him, hitting him on the upper left arm. Complainant identified the affidavit which he executed
naming the accused as his assailant (Exhibit "H") and who shot him on the morning of April 19, 1998 in front of his
residence at Lasip Grande.

Private complainant further testified that he was hospitalized and treated at the Region 1 Medical Center, Dagupan
City by Dr. Arturo de Vera, Jr. who issued a Medico-Legal Certificate stating that the victim sustained, "Gunshot
wound point of entry: 1.5 cm lateral aspect distal, 3rd arm left" and; "Gunshot wound point of exit: 4 cm lateral aspect
posterior, 3rd arm left" (Exhibit "I"). By reason of his wounds, complainant incurred expenses for hospitalization and
medicines in the total amount of ₱2,696.06 (Exhibit "J" to "J-14").

Armando Maramba, the driver of the tricycle in which the accused rode, testified that he picked up the accused who
was wearing a chaleco, at the intersection of Pogo-Lasip Road. Upon reaching the parked jeep which was being
washed by the private complainant, the accused ordered him to stop. The accused alighted and fired several shots at
the victim. Then the accused went back to the tricycle and ordered him to proceed to Calasiao. The accused alighted
at the intersection of the De Venecia Highway and Malued Road and took another tricycle. Witness executed an
affidavit before the Police Headquarters in Dagupan City (Exhibit "G") and identified the accused as the one who shot
the private complainant.

The accused, on the other hand, interposed the defense of alibi. He said that on April 18, 1998, he went to a friend’s
house in Lingayen, Pangasinan and spent the night there. The following morning, April 19, 1998, between 6:00 to
7:00 o’clock, he left Lingayen riding in the Volkswagen car of Berting Soriano. He alighted at the corner of Banaoang
diversion road. From there he took a tricycle and told the driver to bring him at the foot of the bridge going to
Bayambang. While on his way to Calasiao, he heard a jeep behind him blowing its horn and when he looked back he
saw three men on board pointing their guns at him. He told the tricycle driver to stop and thereupon the three men
approached him and introduced themselves as policemen. They confiscated his gun and then brought him to the
police station for interrogation. Thereafter, the police lodged him in the City Jail of Dagupan.

Accused testified that he did not know personally the complaining witness and denied having fired at him. He further
said that his .45 caliber pistol which was seized from him by the police is licensed (Exhibit "2"). 7

In its decision dated 29 June 1999, the RTC of Dagupan City, Branch 41, found petitioner guilty of the crime charged,
disposing of the case in this wise:

WHEREFORE, finding accused Rodolfo C. Velasco guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the crime of attempted murder,
defined and penalized under Article 248, in relation to the 3rd par. of Arts. 6 and 51 of the Revised Penal Code, he is
hereby sentenced to suffer the indeterminate penalty of Four (4) years of prision correccional, as minimum to Eight
(8) years and One (1) day of prision mayor, as maximum.

Accused is further ordered to indemnify the complaining witness the amount of ₱2,696.00, as actual damages. 8

The trial court gave credence to the testimonies of the private complainant Frederick Maramba and Armando
Maramba when they identified petitioner as the assailant. It rejected petitioner’s defense of alibi saying it was not
impossible for him to be at the crime scene when the crime was committed because the place where he allegedly
alighted from the car of a certain Berting Soriano was only about ten minutes away. It concluded that his defense
cannot prevail over the positive identification made by the prosecution witnesses.

On 1 July 1999, petitioner filed a Notice of Appeal signifying his intention to appeal to the Court of Appeals. 9

Pending appeal with the Court of Appeals, petitioner, after filing a Motion to Bail, was allowed to post bail in the
amount of ₱160,000.00.10 To obviate the possibility of flight, the Bureau of Immigration and Deportation (BID) was
directed to include petitioner in its hold departure list.11
On 30 July 2004, the Court of Appeals dismissed the appeal and affirmed the decision of the RTC. The decretal
portion of the decision reads:

WHEREFORE, for lack of merit, the appeal is DISMISSED. The assailed Decision dated June 29, 1999 of the
Regional Trial Court, Branch 41 of Dagupan City, in Criminal Case No. 98-02175-D, is hereby AFFIRMED. Costs
against accused-appellant.12

Petitioner moved for a reconsideration of the decision which motion was denied per resolution 13 dated 21 December
2004.

Petitioner is now before us via petition for review on certiorari, raising the following grounds:

THE COURT OF APPEALS GRAVELY ERRED WHEN IT AFFIRMED THE DECISION OF THE REGIONAL
TRIAL COURT.

II

THE COURT OF APPEALS GRAVELY ERRED WHEN IT DENIED THE MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION
PER THE RESOLUTION DATED DECEMBER 21, 2004. 14

Petitioner invokes the defenses of denial and alibi. He denies having shot the victim. He alleges that the prosecution
was not able to sufficiently establish the identity of the assailant because the Barangay Chairman, who reported the
incident to the policemen, identified the assailant as one wearing a "chaleco," was not presented to corroborate the
testimony of petitioner. He contends that had the Barangay Chairman been presented, the latter’s testimony would
have been adverse to the prosecution. Instead, he points out that the prosecution presented police officers who were
not eyewitnesses. He adds that he had no motive to harm, much less kill, the victim, the latter being a total stranger.
He explains that since the identity of the assailant is in doubt, motive becomes important and his alibi gains weight
and value.15

In a resolution dated 6 April 2005, the Court, without giving due course to the petition, required respondent to file a
Comment.16

In its Comment17 dated 8 September 2005, respondent People of the Philippines, through the Office of the Solicitor
General (OSG), argues that the factual findings of the Court of Appeals cannot be reviewed since the issue (i.e.,
positive identification) petitioner is raising involves the credibility of witnesses and the weighing of evidence. It asserts
that since the same deals with a question of fact and there being no instance present to take the case out of the
general rule that factual findings of the Court of Appeals may be reviewed, a review thereof cannot be made because
only a question of law can be re-examined if a petition for review on certiorari under Rule 45 of the Rules of Court has
been filed. It adds that even if the case is to be decided on the merits, the petition likewise will fail.

In his Reply,18 petitioner submits that a review of the facts of the case is justified on the ground that the Court of
Appeals sanctioned substantial and jurisprudential departures committed by the trial court. He maintains that (1) the
trial court precipitately observed that alibi is a weak defense; (2) the trial court did not consider that the prosecution
had no evidence proving his intention to kill; (3) the trial court did not consider the fact that victim did not know him
and vice-versa; (4) it was impossible for him, a navy man – a protector of the people – to have failed to fatally hit the
victim after firing seven shots; and (5) the instant case is a frame up.

On 17 October 2005, the Court gave due course to the petition and required the parties to submit their respective
memoranda.19
In his memorandum, petitioner further argues that the findings of fact in this case should be reviewed because the
Court of Appeals erroneously restated the factual findings of the trial court when it purposely omitted and added
words changing the tenor of the shooting incident as found by the trial court. He adds that the findings of fact of the
trial court do not support a conviction of attempted murder but only attempted homicide as there was no treachery
since private complainant was still able to focus his eyes on the gunman until he was fired upon. Further, he points
out that the Court of Appeals made different findings as to where the seven spent shells were recovered. He
maintains there was suppression of evidence when the prosecution failed to present a ballistic report on the seven
empty shells that would show the identity of the assailant. In addition, he claims that since there was suppression of
evidence on the part of the prosecution, the testimony of Armando Maramba is not credible, he being a relative of the
victim.

Petitioner primarily invokes the defenses of denial and alibi. It is his claim that the prosecution failed to conclusively
establish the identity of the assailant and that he was merely framed-up.

At the outset, it must be stressed that the instant petition for review on certiorari was filed pursuant to Rule 45 of the
Rules of Court where a review is not a matter of right but of sound judicial discretion and will be granted only when
there are special and important reasons therefor. It is not the function of this Court to re-examine the evidence
submitted by the parties unless the findings of fact of the Court of Appeals are not supported by evidence on record or
the judgment is based on a misapprehension of facts. This Court is limited to the review or revision of errors of law
and not to analyze or weigh the evidence all over again. 20

We agree with the OSG that as ruled by this Court, no questions of facts may be raised in this Court under Rule 45 of
the Rules of Court, unless, among other grounds, there is clear and convincing proof that the judgment of the Court of
Appeals is based on a misapprehension of facts or when the Court of Appeals failed to notice and appreciate certain
relevant facts of substance which if properly considered would justify a different conclusion, and when there is a grave
abuse of discretion in the appreciation of facts in the light of the evidence on record. Anything less will not suffice to
overturn the decision of the Court of Appeals affirming on appeal the decision of the trial court. It bears stressing that
the findings of facts of the trial court, its calibration of the testimonial evidence of the parties and the assessment of
the credibility and probative weight of the evidence of the parties and its conclusion anchored on its findings are given
high respect if not conclusive effect by this Court, especially if affirmed by the Court of Appeals because of the unique
advantage of the trial court of observing and monitoring the demeanor, conduct and deportment of the witnesses as
they regale the court with their testimonies. The exception to this rule is when the trial court ignored, overlooked,
misconstrued or misappreciated cogent facts and circumstances of substance which if considered would alter the
outcome of the case.21 After scrutinizing the records of the case and thoroughly evaluating all the evidence proffered,
we find no reason to deviate from the findings of facts of the trial court as affirmed by the Court of Appeals.

In the case at bar, the testimonies of private complainant Frederick Maramba and Armando Maramba were given
credence and full probative weight and credence by the trial court in the identification of petitioner as the assailant.
Private complainant saw petitioner alight from the tricycle of Armando Maramba before he successively shot at him at
a distance of about four meters while chasing him for 25 to 30 meters. 22 Armando Maramba witnessed the shooting
because he was the driver of the tricycle in which petitioner rode in going to the house of private complainant and in
leaving the crime scene.23 After the shooting incident, private complainant went to the City Jail and identified petitioner
as the person who shot him.24 At the Dagupan City Police Station, Armando Maramba pointed to petitioner as the
assailant not because he saw a man wearing a chaleco, but because it was he whom he saw shoot the private
complainant.25

Petitioner asks that the findings of fact of the case should be reviewed because the Court of Appeals erroneously
restated the factual findings of the trial court when it purposely omitted and added words changing the tenor of the
shooting incident as found by the trial court. Petitioner said the Court of Appeals purposely added the word "suddenly"
and replaced the phrase "near him" with "in front of." He adds that the Court of Appeals added the phrase "without
any warning" and removed the phrase "approached the complainant." He even claims that the Court of Appeals
changed the manner how private complainant was shot, when he was hit, and how he stumbled and how he was able
to stand up and continue running. He further states that the Court of Appeals made a different finding as to where the
seven spent shells were recovered. He points out that the Court said the seven spent shells were recovered from the
accused while the trial court found that the same were found in the crime scene.

As above discussed, the findings of the trial court on its assessment of the credibility of the witnesses and their
testimonies and the probative weight thereof, are accorded by the appellate court high respect if not conclusive effect,
unless the trial court ignored, misconstrued or misinterpreted facts and circumstances, which if considered, would
alter the outcome of the case.26 In the case at bar, the addition or omission of these words, and the difference
between the findings of the trial court and the Court of Appeals as to where the seven spent shells were found, are
too minor and inconsequential to affect the outcome of this case. These, even if considered, would not overturn the
established fact that petitioner was identified as the assailant. Nothing in the record shows that there was any
inconsistency as regards the identity of the assailant. Both private complainant and Armando Maramba were one in
pointing to petitioner as the culprit.

Petitioner interposes the defenses of denial and alibi. He denies participation in the crime claiming that he was aboard
a tricycle on his way to Calasiao, Pangasinan, when policemen arrested him and brought him to the Dagupan Police
Station. On the other hand, the victim himself identified petitioner as his attacker which statement was corroborated
by Armando Maramba.

To be believed, denial must be buttressed by strong evidence of non-culpability. Otherwise, it is purely self-serving
and without merit.27 Settled is the rule that the defense of alibi is inherently weak and crumbles in the light of positive
declarations of truthful witnesses who testified on affirmative matters. 28 Greater weight is given to the categorical
identification of the accused by the prosecution witnesses than to the accused's plain denial of participation in the
commission of the crime.29 There being no strong and credible evidence adduced to overcome the testimonies of
private complainant and Armando Maramba pointing to him as the culprit, no weight can be given petitioner’s denial.

Petitioner’s defense of alibi likewise fails. As against positive identification by prosecution witnesses, the accused’s
alibi is worthless.30 Having been identified by two credible witnesses, petitioner cannot escape liability. Moreover, for
alibi to prosper, it must be proven that during the commission of the crime, the accused was in another place and that
it was physically impossible for him to be at the locus criminis. 31 Courts view the defense of alibi with suspicion and
caution not only because it is inherently weak and unreliable, but also it can be fabricated easily. 32 As found by the
trial court, it was not physically impossible for petitioner to be at the crime scene when the crime was committed since
it only takes a ten-minute ride from the place where he allegedly alighted from the car of one Berting Soriano to the
crime scene. We have held that:

Alibi, the plea of having been elsewhere than at the scene of the crime at the time of the commission of the felony, is
a plausible excuse for the accused. Let there be no mistake about it. Contrary to the common notion, alibi is in fact a
good defense. But to be valid for purposes of exoneration from a criminal charge, the defense of alibi must be such
that it would have been physically impossible for the person charged with the crime to be at the locus criminis at the
time of its commission, the reason being that no person can be in two places at the same time. The excuse must be
so airtight that it would admit of no exception. Where there is the least possibility of accused’s presence at the crime
scene, the alibi will not hold water.33

Petitioner contends there was suppression of evidence when the prosecution did not place on the witness stand
Barangay Captain Dacasain of Lasip Grande and when it failed to present a ballistic report on the seven empty shells
because both are vital evidence to prove the identity of the assailant.

We find such contention untenable.

As to the non-presentation of Barangay Captain Dacasin, the same does not constitute suppression of evidence.
Barangay Captain Dacasin was not an eyewitness to the shooting incident contrary to the claim of petitioner. Although
he was the one who reported the incident to the police station, he was merely informed by Armando Maramba that
the person who shot private complainant wore a "chaleko" or vest. 34 Thus, not being an eyewitness, his testimony,
even if taken, would have nothing to do with the identification of the assailant. If he really wanted to have Barangay
Captain Dacasin take the witness stand, he could have asked the trial court for a subpoena ad testificandum. This, he
did not do.

As regards the failure of the police to present a ballistic report on the seven spent shells recovered from the crime
scene, the same does not constitute suppression of evidence. A ballistic report serves only as a guide for the courts
in considering the ultimate facts of the case.35 It would be indispensable if there are no credible eyewitnesses to the
crime inasmuch as it is corroborative in nature. 36 The presentation of weapons or the slugs and bullets used and
ballistic examination are not prerequisites for conviction. The corpus delicti and the positive identification of accused-
appellant as the perpetrator of the crime are more than enough to sustain his conviction. 37 Even without a ballistic
report, the positive identification by prosecution witnesses is more than sufficient to prove accused’s guilt beyond
reasonable doubt. 38 In the instant case, since the identity of the assailant has been sufficiently established, a ballistic
report on the slugs can be dispensed with in proving petitioner’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

Petitioner’s asseveration that it is unthinkable for him to shoot private complainant because he has no motive to harm,
much less kill the latter, he being a total stranger, deserves scant consideration. It must be stressed that motive is a
state of (one’s) mind which others cannot discern. It is not an element of the crime, and as such does not have to be
proved. In fact, lack of motive for committing a crime does not preclude conviction. It is judicial knowledge that
persons have been killed or assaulted for no reason at all. 39 Even in the absence of a known motive, the time-honored
rule is that motive is not essential to convict when there is no doubt as to the identity of the culprit. 40 Motive assumes
significance only where there is no showing of who the perpetrator of the crime was. 41 In the case at bar, since
petitioner has been positively identified as the assailant, the lack of motive is no longer of consequence.

Petitioner argues that the testimony of prosecution witness Armando Maramba should not be given weight because
the same is biased and incredible on the ground that he is the uncle of the private complainant.

This argument does not inspire belief. The blood relationship of Armando Maramba and private complainant would
not render the former’s testimony unworthy of belief. On the contrary, relationship could strengthen the witnesses’
credibility, for it is unnatural for an aggrieved relative to falsely accuse someone other than the actual culprit. Their
natural interest in securing the conviction of the guilty would deter them from implicating a person other than the true
offender.42 It is settled that where there is no evidence and nothing to indicate that the principal witnesses for the
prosecution were actuated by improper motive, the presumption is that they were not so actuated and their
testimonies are entitled to full faith and credit. 43 The weight of the testimony of witnesses is not impaired nor in
anyway affected by their relationship to the victim when there is no showing of improper motive on their
part.44 Jurisprudence likewise holds that if an accused had really nothing to do with a crime, it would be against the
natural order of events and of human nature, and against the presumption of good faith, that a prosecution witness
would falsely testify against him.45 In the case before us, aside from petitioner’s claim that he was framed-up, there is
nothing in the records that shows that Armando Maramba had ulterior motives in testifying against him. Necessarily,
the testimony of Armando Maramba must be given full credit.

Petitioner claims that as a navy man who is trained to kill enemies of the state, a "protector of the people," he could
not have acted in the manner which the prosecution pointed out. He said it is against human experience to attempt to
kill a person in the presence of a witness and in broad daylight, and that it is preposterous that after firing seven shots
at close range, he failed to fatally hit the private complainant. All these, he said, only point to a different assailant.

We are not convinced. The records show that the shooting happened at around 7:30 a.m. The fact that the shooting
occurred in broad daylight does not render its commission impossible. 46 This Court takes notice that it is not unusual
that killings are perpetrated in front of witnesses. In the instant case, the attempted killing was witnessed by Armando
Maramba, the driver of the tricycle which petitioner rode in going to, and in leaving, the crime scene.
Petitioner argues that he could not have been the assailant because it was simply impossible for him, being a navy
man, not to fatally hit private complainant after firing seven shots at close range. In effect, what he is saying is that the
bungled killing cannot be the handiwork of an experienced soldier like him. Such an argument does not hold water. In
the case of People v. Mamarion,47 we brushed aside the very same argument raised by the accused therein who was
an experienced military man. We ruled that an accused is not entitled to an acquittal simply because of his previous,
or even present, good moral character and exemplary conduct. The fact that petitioner was a navy man -- a protector
of the people -- does not mean that he is innocent of the crime charged or that he is incapable of doing it. This
argument fails in light of the identification made by the victim himself and by Armando Maramba that it was petitioner
who was the assailant.

Finally, petitioner submits that if ever he committed a crime, he merely committed attempted homicide. He maintains
there was no sudden firing because the victim testified he was observing the alleged gunman for a period of ten
seconds before the latter finally drew his .45 caliber pistol and fired at him. After the first shot, the victim was able to
run away.

The lower court was correct in appreciating treachery in the commission of the crime. There is treachery when the
following essential elements are present, viz: (a) at the time of the attack, the victim was not in a position to defend
himself; and (b) the accused consciously and deliberately adopted the particular means, methods or forms of attack
employed by him.48 The essence of treachery is the swift and unexpected attack on an unarmed victim without the
slightest provocation on the part of the victim. 49 It was clearly established that private complainant, while washing his
jeep, was suddenly fired upon by petitioner for no reason at all. The suddenness of the shooting and the fact that he
was unarmed left private complainant with no option but to run for his life. It is likewise apparent that petitioner
consciously and deliberately adopted his mode of attack making sure that private complainant will have no chance to
defend himself by reason of the surprise attack. Petitioner’s claim that the shooting was not sudden because private
complainant was observing him from the time he alighted from the tricycle is belied by the fact that private
complainant was not able to run when he was first fired upon. Though private complainant was looking at him, the
former was not forewarned by any outward sign that an attack was forthcoming. It was only after the first shot that he
felt his life was in danger.

Having commenced the criminal act by overt acts but failing to perform all acts of execution as to produce the felony
by reason of some cause other than his own desistance, petitioner committed an attempted felony. Petitioner already
commenced his attack with a manifest intent to kill by shooting private complainant seven times, but failed to perform
all the acts of execution by reason of causes independent of his will, that is, poor aim and the swiftness of the latter.
Private complainant sustained a wound on the left arm that is not sufficient to cause his death. The settled rule is that
where the wound inflicted on the victim is not sufficient to cause his death, the crime is only attempted murder, since
the accused did not perform all the acts of execution that would have brought about death. 50

The penalty imposed by the trial court is correct. Under Article 51 of the Revised Penal Code, the penalty lower than
two degrees than that prescribed by law for the consummated felony shall be imposed upon the principal in an
attempted felony. Under Article 248 of the Revised Penal Code, the penalty for murder is reclusion perpertua to
death. The penalty two degrees lower is prision mayor. Applying the Indeterminate Sentence Law, and there being no
aggravating or mitigating circumstances, the minimum of the penalty to be imposed should be within the range
of prision correccional, and the maximum of the penalty to be imposed should be within the range of prision mayor in
its medium period.

WHEREFORE, in view of the foregoing, the petition is DENIED. Costs against petitioner.

SO ORDERED.

10.

G.R. No. 215319

PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, Plaintiff-Appellee
vs.
APOLONIO BABOR @ "JULITO", Accused-Appellant

DECISION

VILLARAMA. JR., J.:

On appeal is the July 4, 2014 Decision  of the Court of Appeals (CA) in CA-G.R. CEB CR BC No. 01618 convicting
1

accused-appellant Apolonio "Julito" Babor of murder.

We state the antecedents as summarized by the CA : 2

In an Information  dated 14 April 2005, accused-appellant was charged with Murder, the accusatory portion of which
3

reads as follows:

"That at about 10: 00 o'clock in the evening of January 25, 2005 at Sitio M[o]logpolog, Barangay Nalundan, Bindoy,
Negros Oriental, Philippines, and within the jurisdiction of this Honorable Court, the above-named accused with intent
to kill, evident premeditation and treachery, and then and there willfully, unlawfully and feloniously attack, assault and
hack many times one Bartolome Amahit with the use of long bolo "pinuti" with which the accused was then armed and
provided, thereby inflicting the following iajuries, thus:

1. (+) hacking wound, oblique, 11 cm x 4 cm, muscle deep, proximal 3rd, posterolateral aspect, left leg.

2. Abrasion, 1 x 1 cm, medial 3rd, posterior aspect, right forearm.

3. (+) hacking wound, 4 x 2 cm, oblique, right preauricular area.

4. (+) hacking wound, 9 x 3 cm, oblique penetrating the skull bone, right temporal area.

5. (+) hacking wound, 11 x 7.5 cm, circular, exposing the brain and blood vessels, coronal area.

which injuries caused the instantaneous death of the victim.

To the damage and prejudice of the heirs of the victim Bartolome Amahit.

CONTRARY TO Article 248 of the Revised Penal Code."

When arraigned on 27 June 2005, accused-appellant, duly assisted by counsel, pleaded "not guilty" to the crime
charged. Pre-trial was then set and after the same was concluded, trial on the merits ensued with both parties
presenting their respective evidence.

Version of the Prosecution

The prosecution presented Marife Babor and Dr. Leah [Brun]- Salvatierra  as witnesses.
4

Marife Babor testified, in substance, that she is the wife of accused-appellant Apolonia "Julito" Babor. On 25 January
2005, she and her husband (accused-appellant) went to her parents' house in Sitio M[o]logpolog, Nalundan, Bindoy,
[Negros Oriental]. At about 8:00 o'clock in the evening, accused-appellant asked permission from Marife Babor that
he will go to his father's house, to which the latter consented. After the accused-appellant left, Marife went to sleep
together with her parents and her six-year-old son. All of them slept in one room. At about 10[:00] o'clock in the
evening, Marife was awakened by noise coming from the door. So she lighted a kerosene lamp and it was then that
she saw her husband (accused-appellant) bringing a bolo. She approached him but then, the accused-appellant
stooped down and hacked her left foot. Immediately thereafter, accused-appellant hacked her father, Bartolome
Amahit, who was still asleep[,] hitting his head. Upon being hit, Bartolome squatted and then fell down lying. While
Bartolome was lying down, accused-appellant continued hacking him[,] hitting Bartolome' s face and arm after which
the accused-appellant left the house through the door. Marife knew that it was the accused-appellant who hacked her
father and inflicted [a] wound on her because the accusedappellant was her husband and the place was illuminated
by the kerosene lamp. Marife and her mother shouted for help but nobody came. As Marife was already wounded and
her father already dead, she and her

mother proceeded to Bindoy Hospital to have her wounded foot treated.

Dr. Leah [Brun-]Salvatierra, on the other hand, testified on the post-mortem examination she conducted on Bartolome
Amahit's body on 26 January 2005. She said that when she conducted the examination, Bartolome Amahit's body
was already in the state of rigor mortis. She reduced her findings into writing as follows:

1. (+) hacking wound, oblique, 11 cm x 4 cm, muscle deep, proximal 3rd, posterolateral aspect, left leg.

2. Abrasion, 1 x 1 cm, medial 3 r , posterior aspect, right forearm.

3. (+)hacking wound, 4 x 2 cm, oblique, right preauricular area.

4. (+) hacking wound, 9 x 3 cm, oblique penetrating the skull bone, right temporal area.

5. (+) hacking wound, 11 x 7.5 cm, circular, exposing the brain and blood vessels, coronal area.

Dr. [Brun-]Salvatierra explained that except wound number 2, which is an abrasion, all the four wounds were caused
by a sharp bladed instrument like a bolo, and that wounds numbers (sic) 1, 4 and 5 are fatal. The victim died due to
hemorrhagic shock secondary to multiple hacking wounds. During her cross-examination, counsel for the defense
asked if it would be possible that wound number 2 may be caused by a struggle and if wounds numbers (sic) 3, 4 and
5 may be caused while the victim was standing and facing the assailant. Dr. [Brun-]Salvatierra answered in the
affirmative.

Version of the Defense

Accused-appellant was presented as the lone witness for the defense. He testified that his name is Julita Babor and
that the prosecution gave the wrong name (Apolonia) in filing the instant case. However, since accused-appellant
admitted during the pre-trial his identity as Apolonio Babor, the Court allowed the prosecution to amend the
information to reflect the other name of the [accused-appellant] also known as Julito. Accused-appellant Apolonio
a.lea. "Julita" Babor denied killing his father-in-law and testified as to what happened on the night of 25 January 2005.
According to him, he and his wife, Marife, went to the house of his parents-in-law to spend the night there as the
following day they will go to Abaca to sell a carabao. At about 10:00 o'clock in the evening while they were sleeping,
he woke up because somebody was trying to open the door. With that, he went near the door but then he was
hacked. Upon being hit, and without waking up his wife and parents-inlaw, he jumped out of the window. While he
was running, somebody stoned him twice hitting his head and buttocks but he did not shout for help because he was
already injured. Because it was very dark, he went inside the sugarcane field and hid until about 6:00 o'clock in the
morning that he came out of the field. (sic) While walking, he met one of his uncles, who assisted him to go to
Cabcaban and from there he was brought to the hospital for treatment. At the hospital, his father visited him but he
was not informed of what befell his father-in-law until he was discharged and his father brought him to jail. In jail, he
was informed by the police officers that his father-in-law was killed and he was the suspect.
 The Ruling of the RTC

On 22 February 2013, the trial court rendered a decision  convicting the accused-appellant of the crime of murder.
5

The trial court gave weight to the testimony of Marife that it was her husband (accusedappellant) who killed her father
and that the same was qualified by treachery since the victim (Bartolome Amahit) was sleeping when he was hacked
by the accused-appellant. The Court noted that the accusedappellant' s jealousy and ire over his father-in-law might
have prompted him to commit the crime. More importantly, the [ c ]ourt underscored that Marife's testimony deserves
consideration since she has no motive to falsely testify against her husband whom she positively identified. On the
other hand, the trial court finds (sic) the accused-appellant's defense of denial as flimsy saying that if it was true that
he was hacked inside the house of his parents-in-law, he could have shouted for help and not just jumped out of the
window and ran inside the sugarcane field. It also finds (sic) the accused-appellant's account of the incident including
how he was injured as hazy. The trial court then reminded that denial, like alibi, if not substantiated by clear and
convincing evidence, is negative and selfserving evidence bearing no weight in law.

The Regional Trial Court (R TC) ruled:

WHEREFORE, premises considered, accused APOLONIO A.K.A. "JULITO" BABOR is hereby found GUILTY beyond
reasonable doubt of the crime of Murder and is hereby sentenced to Reclusion Perpetua and to indemnify the heirs of
the victim the amount of P50,000.00 for the loss of the life of Bartolome Amahit and P 100,000.00 as moral damages
without subsidiary imprisonment in case of insolvency.

SO ORDERED. 6

Accused-appellant appealed the RTC Decision. The CA affirmed the

RTC ruling that the testimony of accused-appellant's wife was sufficient to establish the crime murder. The CA
rejected the argument of accused-appellant that the medical findings indicate that the victim Bartolome Amahit
(Bartolome) was stabbed while he was standing, contrary to Marife Babor's (marife) narration that the victim was
hacked while sleeping. The CA pointed out that Dr. Brun-Salvatierra only alluded to the possibility of the victim being
hacked while standing. The CA likewise disregarded the contention of accused-appellant that his guilt was not proved
because his motive was not established. The CA held that motive is not an element of murder. Thefallo of the CA
Decision reads:

WHEREFORE, premises considered, the instant appeal is DENIED. The Decision dated 22 February 2013 of the
Regional Trial Court, Branch 45, Bais City, finding accused-appellant Apolonio Babor y Balasabas a.k.a. "Julito
Babor" guilty beyond reasonable doubt of Murder and sentencing him to suffer the penalty of reclusion perpetua, is
hereby AFFIRMED with MODIFICATION in that in addition to the civil liability of ₱50,000.00 and moral damages of
₱l00,000.00, the accused-appellant is hereby ordered to pay the heirs of the victim exemplary damages in the amount
of P30,000.00, all of which awards shall bear interest of 6% from the finality of this decision.

SO ORDERED. 7

Hence, this appeal.

The issue to be resolved is whether the guilt of accused-appellant was proven beyond reasonable doubt.

We rule in the affirmative.

The elements of murder are: (1) a person was killed; (2) the accused killed him; (3) the killing was with the attendance
of any of the qualifying circumstances mentioned in Article 248 of the Revised Penal Code, as amended; (4) the
killing constitutes neither parricide nor infanticide.
8
In this case, it was established by the testimony of Marife, accusedappellant 's wife, that Bartolome was killed by
accused-appellant, to wit:

[Pros. Ybanez]

Q: While at the house of your father [Bartolome] on January 25, 2005 in the evening, at 10:00 o'clock can you recall
where you were then at that time?

[Marife Babor]

A: I was still in the house.

Q: Can you recall if there was any unusual incident that happened at 10:00 o'clock in the evening?

A: Yes.

Q: And, what is that unusual incident that you are referring to?

A: I was hacked by Apolonio.

Q: You mean to say, Apolonio Babor the accused in this case hacked you?

A: Yes.

xxxx

Q: After that, what happened then if any?

A: Apolonio hacked my father.

xxxx

Q: When Apolonio hacked your father where was your father hit?

A: On the head.

Q: What part of the head can you please point where was that located?

I: Witness pointing to the top of the head.

Q: After your father was hit at the head what happened to your father then?

A: After he was hit he squatted.

Q: And, after that what happened then?

A: He was lying down.

Q: After he lie[d] down what did Apolonio do?

A: He continued delivering hacking blows towards my father.

Q: And, where was your father hit?

A: At his face.  (Emphasis supplied)

9

We are convinced that Marife was able to identify accused-appellant and see the incident that occurred on January
25, 2005 because the room where the killing took place was illuminated by a kerosene lamp.  The testimony of
10

Marife, indicating where accused-appellant hacked the victim, was consistent with the post-mortem examination
results  indicative of the location of the fatal wounds numbered 3, 4 and 5 at the head and face of the victim.  Also,
11 12

we point out that the RTC found that Marife had no motive to falsely testify against her husband.  Based on the
13

foregoing, we agree with the lower courts that the testimony of Marife was sufficient to establish that accused-
appellant killed Bartolome.

With respect to the presence of treachery in the killing of Bartolome, which is a qualifying circumstance necessary for
a murder conviction, paragraph 16 of Article 14 of the Revised Penal Code, as amended, defines treachery as the
direct employment of means, methods, or forms in the execution of the crime against persons which tend directly and
specially to insure its execution, without risk to the offender arising from the defense which the offended party might
make.  In order for treachery to be properly appreciated, two elements must be present: (1) at the time of the attack,
14

the victim was not in a position to defend himself; and (2) the accused consciously and deliberately adopted the
particular means, methods or forms of attack employed by him. 15

In this case, accused-appellant killed the victim with a bolo at night time and while he was sleeping. Clearly, he was
not in a position to defend himself. Also, it is evident that accused-appellant consciously and deliberately waited for
the victim to sleep, returned to the house late at night and armed himself with a bolo to ensure the success of his
atrocious act. Thus, we affirm the finding that treachery attended the killing of Bartolome.

The argument of accused-appellant that the wounds could only be inflicted while the victim was standing deserves
scant consideration as Dr. Brun-Salvatierra only testified that it was possible that such wounds were inflicted while the
victim was standing, to wit:

[Atty. Lajot]

Q: This wound (sic) Nos. 3, 4 and 5, would it be possible that the victim was standing at the time these injuries were
inflicted?

xxxx

[Dr. Brun-Salvatierra]

A: Yes.  (Emphasis supplied)

16

The Court has ruled that possibility is not synonymous with evidence.  The mere possibility stated and the lack of a
17

categorical statement that the wounds could not have possibly been inflicted while the victim was lying down as
positively narrated by Marife necessarily dismantle the contention of accused-appellant.

As to the denial of accused-appellant and his explanation of the incident on January 25, 2005, we find the denial and
explanation insufficient for an acquittal.
The Court has ruled that denial, like alibi, as an exonerating justification, is inherently weak and if uncorroborated
regresses to blatant impotence.  Like alibi, it also constitutes self-serving negative evidence which cannot be
1âwphi1

accorded greater evidentiary weight than the declaration of credible witnesses who testify on affirmative matters. 18

This Court notes the observation of the RTC that if it were true that appellant was hacked by an unknown assailant in
the house of his parents-inlaw, he could have shouted for help and not just jumped out of the window and run towards
the sugarcane field. Indeed, we find it hard to believe that he was hacked by an unknown assailant while lying next to
his wife19 and yet, he did not shout for help nor warn the other people in the room nor make any noise out of fear,
surprise, or his alleged efforts to escape that would have been heard by Marife or the others in the same room. We
further observe that accused-appellant could not even consistently narrate when he was hacked by the alleged
unknown assailant as he initially testified that he was hacked while lying down.  Later on, however, he stated that he
20

was only hacked when he went to the door because someone was trying to open it.  His denial unlikely explanation,
21

described by the RTC as very flimsy, cannot prevail over positive identification of accused-appellant by Marife, an
eyewitness to the crime.

As to the failure to prove that accused-appellant killed Bartolome because of jealousy, the CA correctly pointed out
that such failure to prove the motive of accused-appellant in killing the victim will not exonerate accused-appellant in
this case.

Motive is generally held to be immaterial because it is not an element of the crime.  Further, the Court has ruled that
22

motive is not essential to convict when there is no doubt as to the identity of the culprit. 23

The fact that motive is not an element of the crime charged and the positive identitfication of accused-appellant by his
wife as the author of the crime necessarily eliminate the need to establishe the latter's motive in this case.

In sum, we hold that the lower courts did not commit reversible error when they found the testimony of Marife
sufficient to establish that accused-appellant murdered Bartolome. Well-settled is the rule that findings of fact of the
trial court and the CA are not to be disturbed on appeal and are entitled to greta weight and respect.  We find no
24

cogent reason to disturb the findings and conclusion of the RTC and CA.

As to the award of damages, we affirm the award of ₱30,000 as exemplary damages being in conformity with
prevailing jurisprudence. We deem it proper, however, to adjust the award of civil indemnity and moral damages to
₱75,000 in line with recent jurisprudence involving convictions for murder. 25

WHEREFORE, in light of all the foregoing, the appeal is hereby DISMISSED. The Decision dated July 4, 2014 of the
Court of Appeals in CA-G.R. CEB CR HC No. 01618 convicting accused-appellant Apolonio "Julito" Babor of Murder
is AFFIRMED with MODIFICATION. Accused-appellant is sentenced to reclusion perpetua and ordered to pay the
heirs of Bartolome Amahit the amount of P75,000 as civil indemnity, ₱75,000 as moral damages and ₱30,000 as
exemplary damages with interest on all damages at the rate of 6% per annum from the finality of this Decision until
fully paid.

With costs against accused-appellant.

SO ORDERED.