THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLE, VS. MARCELO GOROSPE, DEFENDANT AND APPELLANT.

Charged with treason on four counts, the
appellant was found guilty on Counts 2 and 3 by the Second Division of
the People’s Court and sentenced to 12 years and one day of reclusion temporal and
to pay a fine of P1,000,00 and the costs. There is no finding or
judgment on Counts 1 and 4 and these will be left out in this decision.

Following is a digest of the evidence for the prosecutions

Count 2. On the evening of December 10, 1944, the
appellant, an Aringay, La Union, municipal policeman, summoned Cipriano
Apolinar, Bruno Ronquillo, Severo Roldan and three other inhabitants to
the town cemetery and commanded them to dig three graves, which they
did in his presence. After the graves had been made, Liling Mapalo and
Valeriano Parentela, also policemen, arrived with four prisoners whose
hands were tied behind their backs. Apolinar, Ronquillo and Roldan were
unable to recognize the prisoners except one, Dominador Dulay. The
accused made each of two prisoners stand on the edge of each of two of
the graves and the other two prisoners; on the edge of the third grave;
and, telling them they were guerrillas, he stabbed them one by one in
the back with a bolo, thereby shoving them into the pits. Thereafter
the graves were refilled with earth on defendant’s orders.

Count 3. On December 15, the same witnesses were again
ordered by the defendant to dig a grave at the cemetery, while
Parentela and Mapalo brought Federico Abellera, hands bound at the
back, when the work had been finished. Like the first mentioned
victims, Abellera was placed on his feet close to the grave, face
forward, by the accused, and once in that position, he was pierced in
the back with a sharp bolo and Abellera tumbled into the hole. Seeing
that Abellera was still alive, the appellant Jumped after him and gave
a finishing blow. Abellera, like those slain five days before, was
suspected of being a guerrilla.

These killings, testified to by three eye-witnesses, constituted
overt acts. In addition to the grave diggers’ testimony that Gorospe
told the victims they were to be executed because they were guerrillas,
proof of adherence to the enemy, which is not comprehended by the two
witness principle, was supplied by Federico Galano.

Galano swore that he was seized on December 6 by three policemen in
barrio Sto. Rosario, Aringay, and taken to the municipal building,
thence to the Japanese garrison located at the approach of the bridge.
When the witness arrived with his captors in the garrison, Mariano
Carreon and Guillermo Mabanta were already there as prisoners. The next
day Dominador Dulay was brought in by a policeman and two civilians
whom Galano did not know, and on the third day, Querubin Bautista and
Gerson Amigo were added to the number of persons under arrest. These
prisoners’were maltreated by policemen from Agoo and also by Marcelo
Gorospe. The accused beat them up because they would not admit that
they were guerrillas, Gorospe, according to Gaiano, told the prisoners:
“You confess, I know that you are guerrillas and you are the ones who
killed Sevilla.” Galano himself, he declared, was maltreated by Gorospe
and several other policemen and by Japanese soldiers, charged with
being in the underground movement.

The defendants testimony, which is very brief, is practically
limited to a general denial that he liquidated the guerrilla suspects
above mentioned. This denial squarely put in issue the prosecution
witnesses• credibility.

Simple and uncomplicated, the evidence needs no detailed
discussion. It is enough to say that the People’s Court found beyond
doubt that the defendant committed the acts narrated by the witnesses,
and that the record discloses no circumstance of any weight which
warrants reversal or modification of the lower court’s finding. Defense
counsel himself does not seem to dispute the truth of the accusation
that the defendant slew Abellera, Dulay and three others. The so-called
discrepancies and inconsistencies on which appellant’s brief dwells,
relate to what the Government witnesses said were Gorospe’s remarks to
the deceased, namely, that they were guerrillas; and it would seem that
the point the defense wants to make is, not that the defendant did not
do the slaying but that the elements of treason have not been shown.

If this is the underlying aim of the argument, the appellant does
not stand to profit by the effort. Rather the contrary. Stripped of
treasonable intention, the killings would be five plain murders for
each of which there should be a separate penalty.

However, we are satisfied that, as on the fact of killing, Galano
told substantially the truth when he stated that the appellant
frequented the Japanese garrison and had a part in rounding up the
suspects; and that Gorospe maltreated them in the Japanese
headquarters. We are also satisfied from the other witnesses’ testimony
that the defendant informed the prisoners that they were to be executed
because of alleged subversive activities in which they had been
engaged. That there is not sufficient evidence those unfortunate men
were in fact guerrillas, as counsel stresses, is immaterial.

The court below found the mitigating circumstance of lack of instruction.

The defendant had finished third grade, and the fact that he was a
regularly appointed member of the police force and the fact that of all
the policemen who intervened in the arrest and execution of the five
deceased he played the leading and most conspicuous role, are eloquent
refutation of the court’s finding on the degree of the appellant’s
education and intelligence. The defendant’s stoicism to our mind was
not a manifestation of mental weakness or infirmity but rather of the
strong will and cool head that he had demonstrated by his conduct. Did
he not chide one of his fellow-policemen for his refusal or reluctance
to act the part of executioner? and was it not he who recruited grave
diggers and supervised their work besides performing the horrible
business personally?

The punishment assessed in the appealed decision is therefore too light. It should be reclusion perpetua and this is the penalty, besides P1,000.00 fine, that is hereby imposed, with costs.

Paras, C.J., Feria, Pablo, Bengzon, Padilla, Reyes, and Jugo, JJ., concur.