THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. FRANCISCO SEPILLO, ANSELMO SEPILLO, CEFERINO SEPILLO AND ANTONIO SILANG, DEFENDANTS AND APPELLANTS.

On September 28, 1944, Sabino Ilagan was seized by four armed men from his
house in barrio Concepcion, Sariaya, Quezon, and taken to an uninhabited place
where he was beaten to death with blunt instruments. In April 1945, after
liberation, the grave in which his body is said to have been buried was reopened
and one skull was found.

The four defendants are the men charged with the crime. According to Romana
Manalo, Sabino Ilagan’s widow, the four accused, each armed with a pistol or
bolo, came at about 9 o’clock in the morning of September 28, 1944 looking for
her husband. When she told them that her husband was inside the house, Francisco
Sepillo called to him and Ilagan came down. After Ilagan came down, they bound
his hands behind his back with a rope which Francisco Sepillo and Severino
Sepillo picked up from a cart under the house. She as well as her husband
pleaded that Ilagan’s life be spared, telling them that they had many children.
When she asked the accused where they were taking her husband, they told her
that if she kept asking questions they would liquidate the whole family.

Segundo Dagos said that on September 28, 1944, as he was passing by the
coconut kiln plant of one Fructuoso Palino, outside the inhabited part of barrio
Concepcion, he heard screams and pleas for mercy. He peeped behind a stone or
wall and saw Francisco Sepillo beating Sabino Ilagan with a piece of wood.
Ilagan was on his feet and his hands were tied. In the meantime, Anselmo Sepillo
was beside the victim pointing a revolver at the latter; Ceferino Sepillo, with
a revolvor in his hand, was at the north of his companions walking to and fro
and switching his eyes in different directions, and Antonio Silang was holding a
bolo. When Sabino Ilagan fell forward and groaned, he hurried home out of fear.
He did not count the blows dealt on the offended party but they were successive.

Manuel Sasuya and Domingo Pagsuyuin declared that on the 28th of September
1944, at about 12 o’clock m., they were catching chickens to be killed at a
wedding party when Anselmo Sepillo and Antonio Silang appeared and ordered them
to get a shovel quickly. They asked the reason and were told that they were
going to “excavate.” Thereupon they fetched a shovel from Manuel Sasuya’s house
and were commanded to follow these two accused to a place south of a forest near
Maanta river. On the bank of the river they came upon Francisco Sepillo,
Ceferino Sepillo and the dead body of Sabino Ilagan, whose clothes were stained
with blood. They were ordered to dig a grave, which they did with the shovel
they had brought. The body of the deceased was lowered into the grave after
which the grave was filled with earth. The grave was knee deep and the place was
innundated in rainy seasons. It was Manuel Sasuya who pointed the place where
Ilagan’s remains were exhumed.

Tomas Jose declared that he was a relative of Romana Manalo and was a
neighborhood association leader. On September 24, 1944, Romana Manalo came to
tell him that her husband had been kidnapped by Francisco Sepillo. That was
about 3 o’clock in the afternoon. He told Romana to go home while he went to see
Francisco Sepillo. In Francisco’s house he found Francisco Sepillo, Anselmo
Sepillo, Ceferino Sepillo and Antonio Silang eating and armed, and the accused
asked him if he was a Japanese spy. He went to Romana Manalo’s house and told
her that her husband was not in Francisco Sepillo’s house, and she exclaimed,
“My God, where have they taken my husband!”

The accused put up an alibi. Francisco Sepillo testified that he was arrested
as a guerrilla suspect on the 14th of September and confined in the municipal
jail of Sariaya as a detention prisoner from that date continuously until the
28th of October of the same year.

To corroborate him, Victoriano Baldura, former chief of police of Sariaya
since July, 1944, testified that Francisco Sepillo was kept in the municipal
jail of Sariaya from September 13, 14 or 15 until after October 15th and that
during his confinement the prisoner was not allowed to go out except to answer
the call of nature. On cross-examination, he said that the name of this accused
was not entered in the police blotter for the reason that this case “did not
belong to the court”; that he consulted the court about the matter and was
instructed that this prisoner’s name was not to be put in the police blotter,
although the police blotter, he admitted, was intended to contain the names of
all persons arrested by the police; that the mayor gave him instruction that
only persons accused in court should be included in the police blotter; that the
mayor had the guerrilla suspects under his responsibility; that he had a
separate list for guerrillas kept by the special policemen of the mayor, in
which list the name of Francisco Sepillo appeared; that this list was taken
along by the special policemen when they left.

Another witness, Silvestre Andal, undertook to corroborate Francisco Sepillo.
According to Andal, on September 14, 1944, town feast of Sariaya, he attended
the celebration with Francisco Sepillo. They went to see the cockfight at about
3 o’clock in the afternoon. Later he saw people fleeing and Francisco Sepillo
was arrested and tied by three Filipino policemen. He followed to see where the
policemen were going to take Francisco Sepillo, because Sepillo was his
companion, going to the extent of asking Lauro Panaligan, one of the three
arresting officers, the reason for Francisco Sepillo’s arrest. Thereafter
Francisco Sepillo was detained in jail for about one and a half months.

Antonio Silang, one of the defendants, swore that on the 28th of September
1944, he was in Malvar, Batangas, where he remained for 10 days from the 25th of
that month to the 5th of October, having been taken to that municipality by
Japanese as a forced laborer to work on a landing field. During that period he
was not allowed to leave the place and was afraid to escape. He said there were
many other laborers, including one companion of his from his barrio.

Jorge Manalo took the stand and said he and Silang were neighbors in 1944;
that on the 25th of September of that year he, together with Silang and four
others, was taken by Japanese to Malvar in a truck to work in an airfield; that
they stayed continuously in that place for 10 days.

Ceferino Sepillo testified that on the 28th of September 1944, he was in
barrio Bara, Lucena, whither he and his uncle Ignacio Macaraeg had evacuated
because of existing confusion in their barrio. The Japanese and the guerrillas,
he said, were continually patrolling that barrio. He did not return to barrio
Concepcion until the month of April 1945.

Anselmo Sepillo testified that on the 28th of September, he was in the
poblacion of Sariaya, having gone there on the 17th and stayed until the latter
part of October. The reason, according to him, was that a policeman who had
intervention “in the case of my father (Francisco) suggested that I and my
mother stay in his (policeman’s) house.” He said that his father, Francisco
Sepillo, was being suspected as a guerrilla.

The defendants set up an affirmative defense, namely, that other men and not
they killed Sabino Ilagan. Nicetas Carrido testified that he saw Fidel Atienza,
one Crispin whose surname he did not know, and Mariano Rustia kidnap Sabino
Ilagan. He knew this because, he said, those men passed in front of his house.
He later said the kidnappers were headed by one Capitan Paco. He went on to say
that he knew what happened to Sabino Ilagan “porque cuando paso ese grupo
encabezado por Capitán Paco y, como sabía yo de que ese era hombre terrible en
nuestra localidad, tanto es así que cuando llegaba en nuestro sitio sacaba una
persona, yo les seguí.” He said he himself was a guerrillero, a second
lieutenant. He went to report to his leader, Captain Gagasa, that the group of
Capitan Paco had arrived. He and Gagasa hied to the woods and found Capitan Paco
and other people. Sabino Ilagan was being tied to a tree. When Captain Paco saw
Captain Gagasa, Paco said, “What are you doing here,” and Captain Gagasa
replied, “It is because of a neighbor of ours and we want to know why he has
been brought here”. He related that Crispin, one of the kidnappers, subjected
Sabino Ilagan to a questioning about his alleged connection with the Japanese
who frequented his house. In the midst of the investigation there came the news
that the Japanese were on the way and Capitan Paco told Crispin to hurry up.
Crispin drew his revolver but as he was about to fire at Ilagan, Captain Paco
stopped him because the noise might attract the Japanese. Thereupon Crispin
returned the revolver to its holster and stabbed Sabino Ilagan with a bolo in
the neck. Capitan Paco reprimanded Crispin for his haste in killing Sabino. In
reply Crispin said, “We can not do anything else, we are in a precarious
situation; if we left him alive, our situation would be delicate.” Whereupon
Capitan Paco, addressing Captain Gagasa said, “We are sorry at not having been
able to please you; but what can we do, you have already seen what happened.”
The witness and his companions departed and he did not know what happened
afterward.

Emeterio Linapin said that Romana Manaio, Sabino Ilagan’s widow, told him one
day that her husband had been kidnapped by three guerrillas whom she said she
did not know. He said she requested him to see where they were going to take her
husband, so he closed the door of his house and hastened in the direction taken
by the guerrillas. He caught up with the guerrillas but did not see Sabino
Ilagan. The guerrillas in the house of Melquiades Perez included Capitan Paco,
Lt. Mariano, Crispin and Fidel. He talked with Capitan Paco and the capitan told
him, “It is all over.”

Felino Acusar said that the last time he saw Sabino Ilagan was two years ago,
in September 1944. Ilagan’s hands were tied and he was being conducted by three
persons. Shortly before that he had met these three persons on the road and been
asked by them where Sabino Ilagan lived. He pointed the house and then stopped
to watch what they were going to do. The men were carrying pistols and he knew
only Crispin of the three. When the men came out from Sabino Ilagan’s house,
Ilagan was with them, his hands tied. He did not count how many persons there
were. He followed them, hid himself behind a shrub, and saw Sabino Ilagan being
tied to a tree. He was about 50 or 60 meters far from them. After Ilagan was
tied Crispin gave him a blow with some thing which looked like a weapon. None of
the accused were among the people he saw. He afterwards met Romana Manalo and
told her what he had seen.

The questions at issue are reduced to the identity of the culprits and the
credibility of the witnesses. A comparison of the two sets of evidence convinces
us beyond doubt that the appellants are the authors of the crime in question.
The prosecution witnesses’ testimony has all the characteristics of veracity,
which cannot be said of the evidence for the defense. And these witnesses have
not been shown to have had any plausible cause falsely to prosecute the
defendants for a capital offense and let unmolested the real perpetrators of the
felony. This is all the more unlikely because Ceferino Sepillo is the husband of
the complainant’s sister and all the defendants were her neighbors if not also
relatives. The fact that Francisco Sepillo was shot and wounded allegedly by
Sabino Ilagan’s brother and son shortly before the case at bar was instituted,
as a result of which the two Ilagans are now under prosecution for frustrated
murder, helps, if anything, to prove that Francisco Sepillo was one of those
responsible for Sabino Ilagan’s death.

Sufficient motive has been established for the commission of the crime by the
accused. It has been shown that Ilagan and his wife had imputed to the
defendants the theft of a cart and a sack of palay, as a consequence of which
the relation between Ilagan and Francisco Sepillo, at least, became bitter.
Ilagan and Francisco Sepillo at one time were only prevented from coming to
blows by the intervention of a mutual friend.

Romana Manalo testified that Francisco Sepillo had been threatening to kill
her husband for two months before he was kidnapped. The origin of the two men’s
enmity, she said, was that Antonio Silang and Anselmo Sepillo had stolen their
cart and a sack of palay in June. She said she knew from conversations of the
people in the barrio that these two defendants had stolen the cart and the palay
and, besides, she found the empty sack which had contained the palay in the
possession of Francisco Sepillo. On that occasion she told the family of
Francisco Sepillo plainly that they were the thieves.

Atanacio Zara, a neighborhood association leader during the Japanese
occupation, testified that in June 1944, Francisco Sepillo and Sabino Ilagan
were about to exchange blows on the railroad track when he separated them; that
in the afternoon of the same day he took them to the president of the
neighborhood association for the purpose of having their differences settled,
and they were apparently reconciled; that sometime afterward he heard that the
two men were again on bad terms and so once more he tried to have them come
along to the neighborhood president; that as they were starting to go, Francisco
Sepillo told him, “No insista ya en arreglar, deje Vd. de que se acaba alguien”,
to which he, disappointed, replied that in that case he would resign, and he did
that week.

Ceferino Sepillo is Francisco’s brother, Anselmo is his son, and Antonio
Silang is his nephew. It was natural that these men, by reason of their kinship
with Francisco if not from actual, personal resentment against Sabino Ilagan,
should have made a common cause with the former who, from all appearances, was
the moving spirit in the nefarious deed.

We are not impressed by the argument that the enmity said to have existed
between the now deceased and the defendants was not of such gravity as to prompt
them to slay Ilagan. Neither do we share the theory that the appellants were not
so foolish as to commit a horrible crime without taking any precaution to hide
their identity.

While the incidents related by Romana Manalo and Atanacio Zara, under normal
conditions, might not have driven men to take extreme measures, yet it is a
matter of general knowledge that irresponsible people were prone to take human
life for a more trifling affront or affense, real or imaginary, in those days.
Those were clays of disorder, chaos and confusion, when heinous crimes wrere
committed openly and with impunity, especially in places outside the centers of
population. The present case iffords a concrete example of such state of affairs
then; of the terrors which gripped the peaceful inhabitants and the helplessness
or apathy of the authorities in coping m.th rampant lawlessness. Nobody dared
arrest or complain against Ilagan’s assailants. Ilagan’s widow not mly was
afraid to bring the defendants to justice—she seemed even afraid to reveal their
names except to people of her confidence, and in a whisper—but she moved to live
in other places and did not return to her home in Sariaya until after the
accused were safely in jail, when peace had been restored. The accused, like
many other uninformed people, never in all probability imagined that conditions
might change or, if they did, that old crimes would be dug up and law and
justice vindicated.

This helps to explain why the defendants carried out their plan undisguised,
in broad daylight and in the presence of his victim’s wife, and why in interring
Ilagan’s body they summoned other men to aid them.

The court below did not err in refusing to give credit to the evidence for
the defense. This evidence bears all the earmarks of untruth. It is replete with
serious contradictions and improbabilities, as the court below has observed. And
the trial judge noted that one of the men to whom the defendants impute the
crime, Crispin, is dead and the whereabouts of the rest are unknown. As to the
alibi, the absence of Francisco Sepillo’s name from the police blotter is
conclusive refutation of Francisco Sepillo’s alleged incarceration. The
explanation for the absence is very unsatisfactory, to say the least. For the
rest, the sole basis pressed upon our attention for the acceptance of the
defense is the credibility of the defendants and their witnesses. There is not a
single unimpeachable bit of proof or circumstance which directly or
indirectly supports the purported alibi or the alleged slaying of the offended
party by Paco and his men.

The last error assigned is the refusal of the court a quo to grant a
new trial, which was sought on the ground of newly discovered evidence. The
supposed new evidence was to consist of the testimony of one Emilio Villostas,
who, like Nicetas Carrido and Feliciano Acusar, claimed to have witnessed 6abino
Ilagan’s killing by guerrillas under Capitan Paco. The court found that this
evidence could have been discovered through due diligence. It said Villostas was
a guard in the provincial jail when Francisco Sepillo was detained therein
awaiting trial. Incidentally this fact leads us to doubt the truth of what this
witness had to say. It is also evident that this witness’ testimony, if he were
allowed to testify, would be, at best, in conflict in one material respect with
the testimony given by the other alleged eye-witnesses to the killing, in that
according to Villostas he was captured with Ilagan by Ilagan’s murderers and was
to be executed with Sabino, whereas neither Nicetas Carrido nor Feliciano Acusar
even mentioned Villostas as being among the people they allegedly saw. The court
correctly said that, at any rate, Villostas’ proffered testimony was not
essential, being merely cumulative and corroborative offering no better
guarantee of its truth than his veracity.

All the defendants have been found guilty of murder and sentenced to an
indeterminate penalty of from 10 years 8 months and one day of prision
mayor to reclusion perpetua, with the accessories of law; to
indemnify the heirs of the deceased, jointly and severally, in the sum of
P2,000, and each to pay a proportionate part of the costs. It is beyond doubt
that the crime committed is murder and that the four appellants by common accord
and in a concerted action took direct part in the execution of the crime. All
are guilty as principals. As neither mitigating nor aggravating circumstances
attended the commission of the crime, as the Solicitor General says, the
appropriate penalty is reclusión perpetua. But the lower court was
mistaken in giving the defendants the benefit of the Indeterminate Sentence Law.
The provisions of this enactment do not apply to cases where life imprisonment
is imposed.

With the elimination of the principal penalty below reclusion
perpetua, the appealed decision will be affirmed with costs of this appeal.

Feria, Pablo, Perfecto, and Bengzon, JJ., concur.