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FIRST DIVISION

G.R. No. 97969 February 6, 1995

PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. GUILLERMO PANGANIBAN, ELPIDIO TERRIBLE, LAMBERTO REDONDO, DOMINGO HINGAN, MAGUIN SAPUES and NICOLAS PERIA, Accused.

DOMINGO HNGAN and NICOLAS PERIA, Accused-Appellants.chanrobles virtual law library

KAPUNAN, J.:

Guillermo Panganiban, Elpidio Terrible, Lamberto Redondo, Domingo Hingan (or Hinggan), Maguin Sapues and Nicolas Peria were charged with the crime of murder with the use of illegally possessed firearms in an information dated 16 February 1982 which reads as follows:

That on or about August 18, 1981 at Brgy. Makiling, Calamba, Laguna and within the jurisdiction of this Honorable Court, the above-named accused conspiring confederating and mutually helping with one another, armed with unlicensed caliber .45 pistols with intent to kill did then and there wilfully, unlawfully and feloniously with treachery and evident premeditation attack, assault and shot at 2Lt. Raymundo Medel PC (retired) thereby inflicting upon the latter gunshot wounds on the different parts of his body, which directly caused his death, to the damage and prejudice of the surviving heirs of the victim Raymundo Medel.chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanrobles virtual law library

That in the commission of the offense, the aggravating circumstances of treachery, evident premeditation, use of unlicensed firearm and superior strength attended the commission thereof.chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanrobles virtual law library

CONTRARY TO LAW.

Of the six accused, Redondo and Sapues have remained at large while Panganiban who had been arrested and had posted a bailbond, jumped bail before his arraignment. Trial of the case, which proceeded as accused Terrible, Peria and Hingan who all pleaded not guilty to the charge, established the following:chanrobles virtual law library

In the afternoon of August 18, 1981, the victim, retired constabulary 2Lt. Reymundo Medel, and his son, Armando, who were residents of Tanauan, Batangas, went to Barangay Makiling, Calamba, Laguna to attend a wake in the residence of Mariano Quilitis and a cockfight (tupada) beside Quilitis' house. ¹Upon their arrival, Armando noticed that Hingan and Peria were at the baklayan while Panganiban, Redondo, Terrible and Sapues were by the sitawan, around thirteen (13) meters from the baklayan. ²As Armando and his father watched the card game of baklay, Hingan placed a bet and put his .45 caliber gun on the table with its muzzle pointed towards 2Lt. Medel. ³Hingan said, "Matagal magsolo itong ating babarilin." ⁴One by one, the people gathered around the baklayan slowly moved away but when Armando told his father to leave because he felt something bad might happen, his father told him that Hingan and his companions were just drunk. When Armando left the baklayan to urinate,
he saw garand and carbine rifles stacked on the sitawan ("nakasandal sa sitawan"). ⁵He also saw long firearms behind a mango tree. ⁶

As Armando and his father proceeded to the ulutan, they were followed by Hingan and Peria who were signaling to the rest of their group ("hudyatan nang hudyatan") and pointing to his father. ⁷Even as they left the gaff fixer and proceeded to the cockfight arena after matching their cock with a protagonist, Hingan and Peria were still behind them. After his father's rooster lost in the cockfight, Armando noticed Redondo and Panganiban approaching the sitawan and Sapues and Terrible going towards the mango tree. Then Redondo, Panganiban, Sapues and Terrible assumed a prone position. Armando also noticed that Hingan and Peria were at a distance of around three (3) meters from the rear left side of his father. As his father bent to pick up his rooster, Armando heard a gunshot and saw that his father was hit on the left side of his head. Armando looked back and saw Hingan and Peria running away. As he turned to look at his father, Armando saw him fall down. Just then, successive shots rang out from the sitawan. Redondo and Panganiban rose from prone position while firing their guns. Sapues and Terrible who were to Armando's left, also fired their firearms. Armando then ran to his father's Volkswagen car, broke its glass window and took his father's gun under the seat. He returned to the scene and fired at Redondo, Panganiban, Terrible, Sapues and Peria as they retreated to the west. Armando consumed one magazine or seven (7) bullets of his father's .45 caliber pistol but did not appear to have hit any of the assailants. ⁸

2Lt. Raymundo Medel died of "cerebral, intra-thoracic, intra-abdominal hemorrhage, massive, due to gunshot wounds." ⁹Dr. Esmeraldo Plastina, municipal health officer of Calamba, conducted the autopsy and found that the victim sustained seventeen (17) gunshot wounds of varying sizes on various parts of his body.chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanrobles virtual law library

The defense interposed denial and alibi in their bid for exoneration. According to Peria, on August 18, 1981, he was in Ulango, Calamba, Laguna, weeding a corn plantation owned by a certain Carandang of Batangas. He was on the job from 7:00 o'clock in the morning until 4:00 o'clock in the afternoon. His alibi was corroborated by his wife, Adelina Peria.chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanrobles virtual law library

Hingan was tried partly in absentia ¹⁰ but his wife, Delia, testified that she and her husband were in the house of her mother in Ulango in the evening of August 17, 1981. Early the following day, her husband fetched water, chopped firewood and, after lunch, weeded their ricefield together with her. They went home at 5:00 o'clock in the afternoon. Her husband never left the ricefield between 1:00 and 5:00 o'clock in the afternoon. Teofila Peria, ¹¹ mother of accused Panganiban and mother-in-law of Hingan, corroborated Delia's testimony in its material points.chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanrobles virtual law library

After due hearing, the trial court ¹² rendered the judgment of conviction on January 14, 1991 disposing of the case as follows:

WHEREFORE, the Court finds accused Domingo Hingan and Nicolas Peria guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the crime of Murder with the use of illegally possessed firearm and hereby sentences said accused to suffer the penalty of reclusion perpetua and for the death of Lt. Raymundo Medel, to indemnify jointly and severally, the heirs of said deceased the sum of P30,000.00 and actual damages in the sum of P15,490.00 and to pay the costs.chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanrobles virtual law library

Accused Elpidio Terrible whose guilt has not been established by the prosecution is hereby acquitted of the crime charged.chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanrobles virtual law library

The Court cannot made (sic) any pronouncement against the other accused namely, Guillermo Panganiban, Lamberto Redondo, and Magin Sapues, as the Court has never acquired jurisdiction over them. Since warrants of arrest have been issued against them but they are nowhere to be found, and so that this case may not remain pending, let the case against them be archived until said accused are finally arrested.chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanrobles virtual law library

SO ORDERED.

Hingan and Peria have interposed the instant appeal where, in their separate briefs, they contend that the trial court erred in convicting them of the crime charged solely on the testimony of Armando Medel, a biased witness, whose declaration was not only full of contradictions and inconsistencies but some portions of which were discredited by the trial court. Appellants also aver that the trial court erred in totally disregarding the testimony of prosecution witness Romeo Maglinao while adopting a portion of the testimony of Armando Medel when both testimonies were of "equal value and significance." ¹³

Prosecution witness Maglinao corroborated Armando Medel's eyewitness account with respect to the identity of 2Lt. Medel's assailants. In discrediting Maglinao's testimony, the trial court emphasized Maglinao's admission that he came to know the assailants' names only after Armando Medel had revealed them to him. The trial court also opined that Maglinao's identification of the accused, specifically Hingan and Peria, was "open to serious doubts" because Maglinao himself swore that he was "not able to freely recognize the faces of the perpetrators of the shooting." ¹⁴

While some of the details of the shooting as recounted by prosecution witnesses Armando Medel and Maglinao were not accurate, nevertheless, as found by the lower court, eyewitnesses Armando Medel and Maglinao clearly and positively identified appellants as among those who fatally shot and killed his father. Armando could not have been mistaken as to the identity of appellants. Prior to the shooting incident, he had met appellants at various cockfights in Calamba. ¹⁵At the precise time of the shooting, he was just three (3) meters away from the victim while appellants were also of that distance from the left rear of the victim. ¹⁶

Even without the testimony of Maglinao, the prosecution still has evidence to prove beyond reasonable doubt the culpability of the accused - the eyewitness account of Armando Medel. Except when expressly mandated,
the law does not require that the testimony of a lone witness must
be corroborated. ¹⁷If credible and positive, such testimony is sufficient to convict. ¹⁸

The supposed inconsistencies and incredibilities in Armando Medel's testimony, such as that portion where he said he could distinguish the gunshots coming from different kinds of firearms which were fired successively, does not dent the prosecution's case.chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanrobles virtual law library

The supposed inconsistency between the direct testimony of Armando Medel that Hingan, Panganiban, Redondo, Peria, Terrible and Sapues, in this order, fired at the victim ¹⁹and the declaration in his affidavit ²⁰to the effect that four (4) persons shot his father first by Hingan, followed by Panganiban, Redondo and Peria, in that order, may be explained by the fact that the CIS investigator who reduced the declaration of Armando given in a question-and-answer form could have typed it carelessly or inaccurately due to haste or could have misapprehended the order in which the names were given by the declarant. In any case, the sequence in which the accused fired at the victim refers to a trivial matter and minor detail which does (not) affect the witness' credibility. The same can be said of the type of firearms used by the assailants and the exact number of assailants. What is crucial and material is that Armando Medel actually saw the assailants fire their weapons at the victim. In Lagunsad v. Court of Appeals, ²¹the Court held:

It is perfectly within the discretion of the trial court to accept portions of the testimony of a witness as it may deem credible and reject those which it believes to be false. The maxim falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus is not a positive rule of law and is in fact rarely applied in modern jurisprudence (People v. Pacis, 130 SCRA 540 [1984]); People v. Surban, 123 SCRA 218 [1983]). Before this maxim can be applied, the witness must be shown to have wilfully falsified the truth on one or more material points. Even then, where he is found to have done so, this does not make his entire testimony totally incredible. The court may still admit and credit those portions worthy of belief depending upon the corroborative evidence and the probabilities and improbabilities of the case (People v. Molina, 213 SCRA 52 [1992]; People v. Arbolante, 203 SCRA 85 [1991]; People v. Osias, 199 SCRA 574 [1991]).

There is no proof that Armando Medel deliberately falsified his testimony. His relationship with the victim could not have impelled him to perjure and implicate the appellants in the crime. On the contrary, his being the victim son's rendered his testimony even more credible as it would be unnatural for a relative who is interested in vindicating the crime to accuse somebody other than the real culprit. ²² As earlier mentioned, the alleged inconsistencies in Armando Medel's testimony do not affect his credibility. This Court has time and again held that such inconsistencies, if merely on minor details, do not impair the credibility of witnesses where there is consistency in relating the principal occurrence and positive identification of the assailant. ²³

Through the testimony of appellant Hingan's wife, the defense tried to prove that the authorities (not Armando Medel) implicated her husband's group because they were angry with the appellants. ²⁴Said testimony, however, being mere hearsay, was correctly disregarded by the trial court. Thus, failure of the defense to prove that Armando Medel was moved by any improper motive, the presumption is that he was not so moved and his testimony, specifically the portions found credible by the trial court, is entitled to full faith and credit. ²⁵

Armando Medel claimed that his father was killed because one of the accused, Guillermo Panganiban, suspected that 2Lt. Medel killed Panganiban's father. ²⁶True or not, this evidence of motive is not essential for conviction considering that Armando Medel positively identified the appellants as among the killers of his father. ²⁷

Positive identification of the appellants as two of the culprits also demolished their alibi. ²⁸Aside from its inherent weakness because of the facility with which it can be fabricated, alibi becomes more unworthy of merit where it is established mainly by the accused himself and his relatives and not by credible persons. ²⁹In this case, by admitting that Ulango was only a half hour away by walking from Makiling, ³⁰the defense even failed to prove that the appellants were so far away from the scene of the crime that it would have been impossible for them to have committed the crime. ³¹

The culpability of the appellants for the killing of 2Lt. Reymundo Medel has therefore been proven beyond reasonable doubt. However, the Court cannot agree with the trial court that they should be convicted of murder with the use of an illegally possessed firearm. A close scrutiny of the records reveals that there is no proof on the aspect of illegal possession of firearms. What is available in the records is the ballistician's testimony ³²and the Ballistics Report No. D-202-86 ³³showing that the fragments of fired bullets recovered from the scene of the crime had not been fired from the caliber .30 garand rifle with serial number 2357152 which was submitted for examination.chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanrobles virtual law library

The Solicitor General therefore correctly recommended that the appellants be held liable for murder only ³⁴the killing having been qualified by treachery. While it is true that the victim had been warned by his son on the possible danger to his person, ³⁵in treachery, what is decisive is that the attack was executed in such a manner as to make it impossible for the victim to retaliate. ³⁶The sudden and unexpected attack on 2Lt. Medel as he bent to pick up his rooster proved treachery.chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanrobles virtual law library

Evident premeditation was not sufficiently proven by the prosecution. However, abuse of superior strength which is alleged in the information, is absorbed by treachery. ³⁷

Undoubtedly, conspiracy may be inferred from the mode or manner in which the offense was carried out as well as the circumstances surrounding the commission of the offense. ³⁸Conspiracy having been established, the act of one is the act of all. ³⁹

The trial court correctly imposed the penalty of reclusion perpetua upon the appellants considering that no mitigating or aggravating circumstances attended the commission of the crime. ⁴⁰However, pursuant to recent jurisprudence, the indemnity imposed by the trial court shall be increased to P50,000.00.chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanrobles virtual law library

WHEREFORE, appellants Domingo Hingan and Nicolas Peria are hereby convicted of the crime of murder for the killing of 2Lt. Reymundo Medel and accordingly imposed the penalty of reclusion perpetua. They shall solidarily indemnify the heirs of the victim in the amount of P50,000.00.chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanrobles virtual law library

The Philippine National Police is directed to cause the immediate arrest of the other accused in this case in order that they may face trial. Cost against the appellants.chanroblesvirtualawlibrarychanrobles virtual law library

SO ORDERED.

Padilla, Davide, Jr., Bellosillo and Quiason, JJ., concur.

1 TSN, April 5, 1984, pp. 5-6.chanrobles virtual law library

2 Id., November 5, 1984, pp. 17-19 & January 3, 1985, p. 23.chanrobles virtual law library

3 Id., May 16, 1985, pp. 5-7.chanrobles virtual law library

4 Id., May 21, 1985, pp. 28-29.chanrobles virtual law library

5 Id., June 14, 1985, p. 17.chanrobles virtual law library

6 Ibid., at p. 22.chanrobles virtual law library

7 TSN, May 16, 1985, pp. 11-12.chanrobles virtual law library

8 Id., January 3, 1985, pp. 103-113.chanrobles virtual law library

9 Exh. E.chanrobles virtual law library

10 TSN, July 22, 1986, p. 2; March 10, 1987, p. 2; July 21, 1987, p. 3; August 18, 1987, p. 2 & October 27, 1987, p. 2. In its decision, the trial court concluded that Hingan "jumped bail" (Decision, p. 10; Rollo, p. 64).chanrobles virtual law library

11 According to appellant Peria, the mother of the accused Guillermo Panganiban is his sister and therefore Panganiban is his nephew. Panganiban's sister, Delia, is married to appellant Hingan (TSN, August 18, 1987, pp. 8 & 16).chanrobles virtual law library

12 Presided by Judge Eustaquio P. Sto. Domingo.chanrobles virtual law library

13 Brief for Appellant Hingan, p. 27.chanrobles virtual law library

14 Decision, p. 8-A; Rollo, p. 62. The trial court is referring to this portion of Maglinao's testimony: Q: So, the shooting of the deceased came so sudden(ly) and the incident happened so fast without you be(ing) able (to) properly recognize(d) fully the faces of (the) alleged perpetrators, is that correct? A. Yes, sir. (TSN, July 22, 1986, pp. 59-60).chanrobles virtual law library

15 TSN, April 5, 1984, p. 10.chanrobles virtual law library

16 Ibid., p. 4.chanrobles virtual law library

17 People v. Amaguin, G.R. Nos. 54344-45, January 10, 1994, 229 SCRA 186.chanrobles virtual law library

18 People vs. Abo, G.R. No. 107235, March 2, 1994, 230 SCRA 612.chanrobles virtual law library

19 TSN, April 5, 1984, pp. 14-15.chanrobles virtual law library

20 Exh. G.chanrobles virtual law library

21 G.R. No. 104939, February 2, 1994, 229 SCRA 596, 599.chanrobles virtual law library

22 People v. Viente, G.R. No. 103299, August 17, 1993, 225 SCRA 361.chanrobles virtual law library

23 People v. Briones, Jr., G.R. No. 101257, September 23, 1993, 226 SCRA 675.chanrobles virtual law library

24 TSN, August 17, 1988, pp. 11-12.chanrobles virtual law library

25 People v. Tidong, G.R. No. 101583, August 13, 1993, 225 SCRA 324.chanrobles virtual law library

26 TSN, April 5, 1984, p. 9.chanrobles virtual law library

27 People v. Salveron, G.R. No. 102079, November 22, 1993, 228 SCRA 92.chanrobles virtual law library

28 People v. Jaralba, G.R. No. 96766, September 20, 1993, 226 SCRA 602.chanrobles virtual law library

29 People v. Gundran, G.R. No. 105666, December 17, 1993, 228 SCRA 583.chanrobles virtual law library

30 TSN, October 12, 1988, p. 14.chanrobles virtual law library

31 People v. Remollo, G.R. No. 104498, October 22, 1993, 227 SCRA 375.chanrobles virtual law library

32 TSN, March 10, 1987, pp. 3-21.chanrobles virtual law library

33 Exh. 2.chanrobles virtual law library

34 Appellee's Brief, p. 22; Rollo, p. 189.chanrobles virtual law library

35 See People v. Rivera, G.R. No. 101798, may 10, 1993, 221 SCRA 647 where the Court held that there is no treachery where the victim is aware of the hostility of the assailants just before the attack.chanrobles virtual law library

36 People v. Buela, G.R. No. 92536, November 8, 1993, 227 SCRA 534 citing People v. Bustos, G.R. No. 35475, March 16, 1989, 171 SCRA 243.chanrobles virtual law library

37 People v. Amondina, G.R. No. 75295, March 17, 1993, 220 SCRA 6.chanrobles virtual law library

38 People v. Deuna, G.R. No. 87555, November 16, 1993, 227 SCRA 788.chanrobles virtual law library

39 People v. Liquiran, G.R. Nos. 105693-96, November 19, 1993, 228 SCRA 62.chanrobles virtual law library

40 Arts. 248 and 64 (L), Revised Penal Code.