PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. NOEL BITENIO Y YUMUL, ACCUSED-APPELLANT.

People versus Bitenio

The Case

This is the People of the Philippines against Noel Bitenio y Yumul, a criminal appeal from a conviction for homicide. The accused was found guilty by the trial court of killing his live-in partner, Rowena Santos y Intencion, on the strength of circumstantial evidence alone, there being no eyewitness to the killing. The case matters because it is a clean teaching vehicle on the standard for conviction upon circumstantial evidence: the circumstances must form an unbroken chain that points to the accused, to the exclusion of all others, and anything less than moral certainty cannot overcome the constitutional presumption of innocence.

Procedural History

The accused was charged with homicide before the Regional Trial Court, Branch 41 of Manila. When arraigned, he pleaded not guilty. Pre-trial was terminated because he failed to appear despite notice, and trial on the merits followed. The defense sought and was granted leave to file a demurrer to evidence, but the demurrer itself was denied for having been filed out of time. The accused then filed a memorandum arguing that the prosecution failed to identify the perpetrator. The trial court nonetheless convicted him of homicide, sentenced him to reclusion temporal in its medium period, and ordered him to indemnify the heirs of the victim in the amount of 75,000 pesos, with no award of civil and moral damages for want of basis. From that judgment the accused appealed to the Supreme Court, assigning as sole error that the trial court gravely erred in convicting him despite the failure of the prosecution to prove his guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

Facts

In the early morning of 05 January 2007, Barangay Kagawad Carlos Bitenio, a relative of the accused, was summoned by the accused to the latter's residence at Ilang-Ilang Street, Sta. Mesa, Manila. He found the accused seated and looking sad. At the accused's prodding, he went inside and saw a dead person lying face down in a pool of blood in the kitchen. Kagawad Bitenio immediately reported the matter to Barangay Chairman Alfredo Calonsag, Jr., who instructed his wife to call the police and then went to the scene. There he saw the accused seated outside his house with wounds on his hands and his t-shirt splattered with blood, the things inside the house in disarray, and the dead woman sprawled in the kitchen.

Police investigators and the Scene of the Crime Operatives arrived and found the corpse of a bloodied woman lying face down on the cemented floor. A small samurai and a butcher's knife were recovered at the scene. The victim was later identified as the live-in partner of the accused. The medico-legal officer testified that death was caused by massive blood loss due to multiple stab and hack wounds, twenty-two in all, ten of them serious hack wounds, and he opined that the injuries to the victim's hands were defensive wounds.

The defense argued that the prosecution failed to identify the perpetrator. The trial court nevertheless convicted on circumstantial evidence: that the accused summoned Kagawad Bitenio because of an incident; that he asked Kagawad Bitenio and Chairman Calonsag to look inside his house where they saw the bloodied body; that there were blood squirts on his hands and shirt; that two weapons were recovered in the premises; and that he went along with the police without hesitation.

Issues

• Whether or not the circumstantial evidence presented by the prosecution formed an unbroken chain sufficient to prove the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt.
• Whether or not the presence of bloodstains on the hands and clothing of the accused, without more, linked him to the killing.
• Whether or not the act of the accused in summoning his relative and going along with the police amounted to a voluntary surrender.

Applicable Provisions

Article 249 of the Revised Penal Code, under which the accused was convicted, provides:

Article 249. Homicide. Any person who, not falling within the provisions of Article 246, shall kill another without the attendance of any of the circumstances enumerated in the next preceding article, shall be deemed guilty of homicide and be punished by reclusion temporal.

This is the crime charged, and its elements define what the prosecution had to prove beyond reasonable doubt.

Article 248 of the Revised Penal Code, which distinguishes murder from homicide, provides:

Article 248. Murder. Any person who, not falling within the provisions of Article 246, shall kill another, shall be guilty of murder and shall be punished by reclusion perpetua, to death if committed with any of the following attendant circumstances: 1. With treachery, taking advantage of superior strength, with the aid of armed men, or employing means to weaken the defense, or of means or persons to insure or afford impunity; 2. In consideration of a price, reward, or promise; 3. By means of inundation, fire, poison, explosion, shipwreck, stranding of a vessel, derailment or assault upon a street car or locomotive, fall of an airship, by means of motor vehicles, or with the use of any other means involving great waste and ruin; 4. On occasion of any of the calamities enumerated in the preceding paragraph, or of an earthquake, eruption of a volcano, destructive cyclone, epidemic, or any other public calamity; 5. With evident premeditation; 6. With cruelty, by deliberately and inhumanly augmenting the suffering of the victim, or outraging or scoffing at his person or corpse.

The Court used this provision to frame the fourth element of homicide, namely, that the killing was not attended by any of the qualifying circumstances of murder, or by parricide or infanticide.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court ruled that the circumstantial evidence fell short. It laid down the governing standard in these words:

The circumstances proved must form an unbroken chain that results in a fair and reasonable conclusion pointing to the accused, to the exclusion of all others, as the perpetrator.

The Court stressed that where the evidence is purely circumstantial, the prosecution must rely not on the weakness of the defense but on the strength of its own evidence, and that conviction must rest on nothing less than a moral certainty of guilt. It then enumerated the elements of homicide: that a person was killed; that the accused killed that person without any justifying circumstance; that the accused had the intention to kill, which is presumed; and that the killing was not attended by any of the qualifying circumstances of murder, or by parricide or infanticide. The prosecution established only that the dead person found in the accused's residence was his live-in partner and that she died of multiple stab and hack wounds. There was no evidence at all as to the identity of the perpetrator, no testimony that the accused committed the crime, and no proof of motive.

On the second issue, the Court held that the mere presence of bloodstains on the accused's hands and clothes does not ipso facto link him to the crime, since no pathological examination was conducted to determine whether the blood belonged to him or to the victim. It also noted that the medico-legal officer testified that only one weapon could have caused the wounds, yet the prosecution neither presented the samurai and the butcher's knife in court nor produced the operative who recovered them, much less proved that these were used in the killing.

On the third issue, the Court held that the fact that the accused summoned his relative, who later reported to the barangay chairman, did not establish that he voluntarily surrendered within the contemplation of the law. The totality of the evidence, the Court concluded, did not constitute an unbroken chain approximating proof beyond reasonable doubt; it may have engendered a probability that the accused was the perpetrator, but probability is not proof beyond reasonable doubt, and the State's evidence had not overturned the constitutional presumption of innocence.

Doctrine

First, in criminal cases the burden of proving guilt rests on the prosecution, and the accused need not even offer evidence in his behalf. Second, when there is no eyewitness, courts may resort to circumstantial evidence, but where the evidence is purely circumstantial the circumstances proved must form an unbroken chain that results in a fair and reasonable conclusion pointing to the accused, to the exclusion of all others, as the perpetrator, and conviction must rest on nothing less than a moral certainty of guilt. Third, to convict for homicide under Article 249 of the Revised Penal Code, the prosecution must prove that a person was killed, that the accused killed that person without any justifying circumstance, that the accused had the intention to kill, which is presumed, and that the killing was not attended by any of the qualifying circumstances of murder under Article 248, or by parricide or infanticide. Fourth, bloodstains on the person or clothing of the accused do not ipso facto link him to the crime absent proof of whose blood it is. Fifth, the summoning of a relative after an incident is not voluntary surrender.

Disposition

The appeal was granted, the judgment of conviction was reversed and set aside, and Noel Bitenio y Yumul was acquitted on reasonable doubt.

Remember This

Memorize the line that circumstantial evidence must form an unbroken chain pointing to the accused, to the exclusion of all others, and that conviction must rest on nothing less than moral certainty. Examiners use this case to test the sufficiency of circumstantial evidence, the elements of homicide, and the rule that bloodstains and unexplained silence do not substitute for proof of identity.