THE UNITED STATES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. MANUEL FLORES ET AL., DEFENDANTS AND APPELLANTS.

This is an appeal from the judgment entered in the Court of First Instance of
Bataan, convicting the defendants and appellants Manuel Flores, Irineo de la
Cruz, Domingo de los Santos, Doroteo de los Santos, ancl Lorenzo Orozco of the
crime of assassination marked with various aggravating circumstances, and
sentencing each and all of them to the death penalty except Domingo de los
Santos, who was found guilty as an accessory and sentenced to cadena
temporal in its medium degree.

The principal witness for the prosecution was one Pedro Flores, a
self-confessed accomplice, who gave a detailed account of the commission of the
crime which, if true, fully sustains the findings of fact by the trial judge and
leaves no room for reasonable doubt as to the guilt of each and all of the
appellants of the crime of which they were convicted. He testified that the
murder was planned by the appellant Lorenzo Orozco, with whose wife the deceased
had been maintaining illicit relations, and that he himself as well as the other
appellants had joined the party which committed the crime at the urgent
invitation of Orozco, who gave the various members of the party small sums of
money as an expression of his appreciation of their assistance (gratificacion).
His account of the infliction of the wounds upon the deceased and of the burial
and concealment of the corpse, as given on the witness stand and as given by him
when he first confessed his guilty participation in the commission of the crime
while under arrest, was fully corroborated by the law and medical officers who
found the body of the deceased buried at the place and in the manner indicated
by him in his extrajudicial confession. His account of the guilty participation
in the crime of the appellants Lorenzo Orozco and Doroteo de los Santos was
substantially corroborated by one Lucio Espiritu, the patron of a launch, who
swore that he overheard these two discussing the crime on board his boat, and
that when he asked Orozco why he had killed the deceased, Orozco replied “that
he was his wife’s paramour.”

On this appeal counsel for the defense rely for the most part on their
contention that the evidence of Pedro Flores, the principal witness for the
prosecution, is not worthy of credence, he being a self-confessed accomplice in
the commission of the crime, and it appearing further that his testimony at the
trial was not in entire conformity with his written and signed extrajudicial
confession and his testimony at the preliminary investigation.

As to counsel’s contentions that the testimony of Pedro Flores should be
rejected solely on the ground that this witness was a self-confessed accomplice,
it is sufficient to say that we have frequently decided that the testimony of
accomplices, even when uncorroborated, is competent and admissible; and that
while it should always be received with caution and scrutinized with the utmost
care, coming as it does from a polluted source, nevertheless if under all the
circumstances of the case it is so clear, satisfactory, and convincing as to
leave no doubt in the mind of the court as to its truth, a conviction may
properly be based upon it. (U.S. vs. Ocampo, 4 Phil. Rep., 400; U. S.
vs. Grandoso, 16 Phil. Rep., 419; U. S. vs. Bernales, 18 Phil.
Rep., 525; U. S. vs. Soriano, 25 Phil. Rep., 624.)

After a careful review of all the evidence of record we find nothing which
would justify us in disturbing the findings of the trial judge as to the
credibility of this witness.

In the first place, as we have so frequently pointed out, the trial judge who
sees and hears the witnesses testify has exceptional opportunities to form a
correct conclusion as to the degree of credit which should be accorded them, and
where, as in this case, he has manifestly exercised due care and discretion in
making his findings and has not over looked anything which would justify us in
questioning the soundness of his conclusions, this court will rarely be
justified in disturbing his findings and conclusions in this regard;

In the second place, the alleged inconsistencies and contradictions in the
testimony of this witness at the trial and in the course of his preliminary
examination, are not such, in our opinion, as to put in doubt the truth of his
statements on the witness stand. It appears that in his extrajudicial confession
and during the preliminary investigation he did not mention the names of Manuel
and Meliton Flores as members of the party implicated in the murder, but that at
the trial in the court below he included their names together with those
mentioned by him in the course of the preliminary proceedings. His explanation
was that these men were his brothers and that he withheld the fact that they had
anything to do with the commission of the crime because he wanted if possible to
shield them from the consequences of their guilty association with the other
defendants. We do not think that his conduct in this regard was such as to raise
any real doubt as to the truth of his testimony upon the witness stand, where he
evidently felt obligated to speak the whole truth, without any attempt at
concealment and without any hope of being able to save his brothers from the
legal consequences of their complicity in the crime. As to the other alleged
inconsistency and contradictions in his statements made at and before the trial,
it is sufficient to say that we are satisfied that they are more apparent than
real, and that in any event they are wholly insufficient to raise any real doubt
that when testifying at the trial in the court below he was testifying to the
truth as he then recalled it.

In the third place, the very form and manner in which the testimony of the
informer is spread on the record are strongly persuasive of its truth, and a
reading of the whole story of the commission of the crime as told by this
witness leaves no room for doubt as to its substantial accuracy. Indeed, we are
convinced that this witness could not have successfully withstood the
examination to which he was subjected without betraying himself to the trial
judge, had he been consciously engaged in an attempt to tell anything but the
truth and the whole truth as he understood it.

And finally, his testimony was fully corroborated by the unquestioned and
unquestionable testimony of a number of competent witnesses as to the manner in
which the fatal wounds were inflicted, as to the place and manner of the burial
of the deceased after the commission of the crime, and as to the motive which
inspired its instigator; and as to the participation of Lorenzo Orozco and
Doroteo de los Santos.

We conclude that the judgment of conviction entered in the court below is
fully sustained by the competent evidence in the record and that there can be no
reasonable doubt as to the guilt of the appellants of the commission of the
crime of which they were convicted, marked with various aggravating
circumstances as set forth in the opinion of the trial judge.

We are of opinion however that in imposing the penalty upon the four
defendants and appellants convicted as principals in the commission of the crime
these aggravating circumstances should have been compensated by the extenuating
circumstances set forth in subsection 7 of article 9 of the Penal Code and in
article 11 as amended by Act No. 2142. A review of the whole record convinces us
that all these defendants are men of a low order of intelligence, with but
little “instruction or education.” It also affirmatively appears that the
instigator of the crime had been aroused to a high degree of passion and
“obfuscation” by the discovery of the fact that the( deceased was carrying on
illicit relations with his wife and had recently come into the community for the
express purpose of continuing those illicit relations; while his accomplices,
who appear to have been ignorant friends, neighbors and dependents, were also
aroused by him to a high pitch of anger against the betrayer of the family of
their friend.

We have hesitated considerably in giving these convicts the benefit of any
doubt there might be as to their right to have these extenuating circumstances
taken into consideration in fixing the penalty, in view of the fact that it
appears that they received some small sums of money from the instigator of the
crime immediately after it was committed. Upon a review of the whole record of
the case, however, we are inclined to think that this money was not offered or
paid as a recompense for their participation in the crime, and that it was not
the moving factor which induced them to aid the offended husband in obtaining
his revenge. It seems rather to have been given voluntarily by Orozco after the
crime had been committed as a sort of expression of his appreciation of their
sympathy and aid (gratificacion).

The sentence imposed by the trial judge, modified by substituting for so much
thereof as imposes the death penalty upon the defendants and appellants Lorenzo
Orozco, Irineo de la Cruz, Manuel Flores and Doroteo de los Santos, the penalty
of cadena perpetua, together with the subsidiary penalties prescribed
by law, should be and is affirmed, with the costs of this instances against the
appellants.

Arellano, C. J., Torres, Johnson, Moreland, and Araullo,
JJ., concur.