Republic of the Philippines
SUPREME COURT
Manila
EN BANC
G.R. Nos. L-3386 and L-3387 May 18, 1951
THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, plaintiff-appellee,
vs.
ANTONIO IBALI, defendant-appellant.
Assistant Solicitor General Guillermo E. Torres and Solicitor Jaime de los Angeles, for plaintiff and appellee.
Antonio V. Raquiza for defendant and appellant.
TUASON, J.:
This was a joint prosecution for murder against Antonio Ibali, Cresencio Calija and Santiago Lagazo, and for illegal possession of firearms and ammunition against Ibali alone. Lagazo was excluded from the information for murder and used as a state witness. Ibali was found guilty in both case as charged and sentenced upon the first information to reclusion perpetua, to indemnify the heirs of the deceased in the amount of P2,000 and to pay one-third of the costs, and upon the second information to an indeterminate imprisonment of from five to seven years. Calija was pronounce guilty of murder but only as an accomplice, and was sentenced to an indeterminate penalty of from six years of prision correccional to fourteen years, eight months and one day of reclusion temporal, to indemnify the heirs of the deceased in the amount of P1,000, and to pay one-third of the costs. Ibali appealed both sentences but Calija did not.
Undisputed are these facts: Melchor Manzano was murdered on the night of June 29, 1949, on or near the seashore in Pasuquin, Ilocos Norte. The next day, after Manzano's body was recovered, Dr. Rosario G. Dumlao, charity clinic physician, issued a medical certificate describing the wounds and injuries he had found in his examination as follows:
(a) Gun shot wounds:
1. Left side of the abdomen thru and thru point entrance 0.8 cm. in diameter and point of exit 2 cm. in diameter.
2. Right iliac region thru and thru point of entrance 0.8 cm. in diameter and point of exit 2 cm. in diameter.
3. Left parietal region, penetrating point of entrance 0.8 cm. in diameter.
4. Left forearm thru and thru point of entrance 0.8 cm. in diameter and point of exit 2 cm. in diameter.
5. Left side of the thoracic cavity thru and thru point of entrance 0.8 cm. in diameter and point of exit 2 cm. in diameter.
(b) Clean cut wounds:
1. One clean cut wound 1 decimeter long from the right shoulder towards the spinal column.
2. One clean cut wound 1 ½ inches long over the mastoid bone.
3. Two-third of the entire face lacking, particularly on the left side and right upper side.
(c) Fracture:
1. Complete compound fracture of the right forearm above the right elbow joint.
It appears that soon after the killing, Cresencio Failano, Ludovico Cabinan and Lorenzo Lagazo were arrested and a complaint against them for murder was filed with the justice of the peace. But the justice of the peace ordered the prisoner's release, convinced that their confessions, the only basis of the accusation, had been wrung by third degree method by Lt. Sabellano of the Philippine Constabulary.
Thereafter Lt. Villamar of the same force was assigned to the case and his investigation resulted in the apprehension and prosecution of Santiago Lagazo, Antonio Ibali and Cresencio Calija, all of whom made and signed extrajudicial statements incriminating themselves as the authors of the slaying. .
Although on trial himself, Calija as well as Lagazo gave evidence against Ibali. Following is the sum total of Lagazo's and Calija's testimony:
Lagazo called at Antonio Ibali's house early on the night of June 29, 1948, to request Ibali or Ibali's daughter to write for him a letter which he wanted to send his cousins in Hawaii. After Ibali's daughter finished the letter, Ibali invited Lagazo "to take a walk." On the street, after they had gone some distance, Ibali separated from Lagazo and came back with a carbine. From that point Ibali proceeded with Lagazo to Melchor Manzano's place, which was near the public school building of Pasuquin, and told Manzano that he had come to "find something good to us." Replying that he had nothing to give them, Manzano joined his visitors and the trio walked north. By and by then met Cresencio Calija and this defendant came along.
All four now agreed to go to Nagbayugan river to fish. Before reaching the river, they sat down to rest, and Ibali told Manzano in jest to share Manzano's mistresses with him. Manzano retorted that Ibali did not have to make such a request because he already was "also enjoying with them. "After this brief exchange, Ibali grabbed a piece of wood about three inches thick and struck Manzano in the arm, knocking Manzano down. As Manzano was lying flat on the ground Ibali slashed him with a bolo in the face, and, allegedly under Ibali's threats, Calija and Lagazo hacked him too and helped carry or drag his body to a point near a stream. At this place, riddled Manzano's cadaver with bullets from his carbine, after which Calija on Ibali's order fetched some yarn and a fish net which were arranged near the corpse to have it look as if Manzano had been killed for stealing those articles.
To be sure, there are material discrepancies between Calija's and Lagazo's confession on the one hand and their testimony in court on the other. It is conceivable, even natural, that, being co-participants in the crime, Lagazo and Calija invented facts and twisted others to lighten their responsibility. But over and above the contradictions, the evidence leaves no room for speculation that Melchor Manzano was murdered at the place and by the persons named; and it is beyond question that Ibali was the instigator and directing spirit of the affair. Of the three accused, Ibali alone had a motive to eliminate the deceased. Manzano was sustaining illicit relation with his wife's sister with whom Ibali was also making love. This was testified to by the woman herself.
It would appear at first blush that the crime was unpremeditated and was only provoked by Manzano's remark that Ibali was partaking of Manzano's mistresses. But there are scattered bits of evidence in the record from which a plan to liquidate the now deceased conceived even before Ibali and Legazo left Ibali's house, is plainly discernable. And there are indications that Calija was in the conspiracy and was where he joined his co-accused waiting for them.
Ibali set up an alibi, and he undertook to prove that Lagazo and Calija were the killers without his intervention or presence. The defense of alibi is self-contradictory and is contradicted by Calija's witness.
The appellant swore that he went to bed at 8:00 p.m. and did not get up until 5:00 the next morning. He declared that he knew nothing of the crime that night beyond that his wife aroused him and told him that she had heard reports of a gun. Forgetting those statements, he later said that Lagazo and Calija came between twelve and one o'clock at night and told him that they had slain Manzano.
To rebut Ibali's assertion that he did not go out on the night in question, Calija's witness, Santos Licuan, testified that at about eight o'clock that night he saw the appellant, Lagazo, Calija and Manzano together in Malmalabi. It will be noted that Licuanan did not spare the party that called him to the stand. We feel certain that he was a truthful witness.
In other respects, the appellant's story is as guilt-revealing as Calija's and Lagazo's testimony against him. He said that when he went to his place of work north of his house the next day, a boy reported to him (he was the barrio lieutenant), that there was a dead man sprawled near the beach. He asked the boy, he said, to come with him and show him the place, and, true enough, he saw a dead man. Thereupon, he went on to say, he look for Sergeants Malapira and Failano of the constabulary, related to them what he had seen, and with these two went to see Melchor Manzano's wife to inquire if Manzano was at home. And when Manzano's wife said her husband had not yet returned, he took her along to identify the corpse.
By this narration Ibali gave to understand that he did not recognized the dead man. In reporting the finding of Manzano's body to the constabulary and going with the two sergeants to Manzano's house ostensibly to find out if Manzano's was home, after he had seen the corpse and been told by Lagazo and Calija whose it was — it was evident that he was just "playing possum," simulating complete ignorance of Manzano's fate.
What has been said so far does not take into access the appellant's confession. We are satisfied that this confession was voluntary and was properly admitted and considered. The fact that the three men first arrested had been tortured, and their confession had been rejected and the prisoners had been discharged on the account, gives added assurance rather than otherwise that new investigator, Lt. Villamar, took special care to see to it as Villamar said, that such result was not repeated.
The alleged non-compliance with the Rules of Court in the exclusion of Lagazo from the prosecution to testify for the Government, even if true, is not a reversible error. (People vs. Castañeda and Fernandez, 63 Phil. 484-485.)
On the charge of illegal possession of firearms, some of the testimony which has already been set forth above may be recalled. Additional evidence is that of Cresencio Failano, who said that he had been with the guerrillas during the war although he had seen no action; that the carbine Exhibit "A" he had seen in Antonio Ibali's possession about a year before Manzano was killed; that he could tell that this was the same carbine Ibali had because its butt and "the wooden portion of the middle part" were burned.
In connection with this firearm, Lagazo testified that he had seen it and its magazine, Exhibit "A-1", in Ibali's possession about two months before June 29, 1948, when he (witness) was bathing his carabao in a brook and Ibali passed by; that he had seen Ibali with this gun about three times; that it was this gun that Ibali fired a volley on Manzano after he was dead; that before he and his companions separated after killing Manzano, Ibali told him that he was going to leave the carbine near Juan Manzano's house.
That was the place, under bamboo grooves, where a municipal policeman discovered the carbine and the magazine. Reasonable supposition is that the gun was planted there in line with the plan to make it appear that some one living in the vicinity of the crime, or the owner of the net, had shot and killed the deceased. The idea was crude and clumsy to the point of being silly, but so was the other scheme of diverting suspicion from the real culprits, such as the appellant feigning innocence by the shallow device of taking along two constabulary officers and asking Manzano's widow where her husband was.
The appealed decision is in both case in accordance with law and the evidence, and the same affirmed, except that the indemnity for the killing shall be raised from P2,000 to P6,000, with costs.
Paras, C.J., Feria, Pablo, Bengzon, Padilla, Montemayor and Jugo, JJ., concur.
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