THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. ANTONIO VENTURA Y TOLENTINO, DEFENDANT-APPELLANT.

Antonio Ventura appealed from the decision of the Court of First
Instance of Manila, finding him guilty of murder, sen­tencing him to reclusion
perpetua and ordering him to indemnify the
heirs of Conrado Carlos in the sum of P12,000
(Criminal Case No. 182).

The judgment of conviction was based on the following evidence
for the prosecution:

Nicolas Alcantara, a thirty-one year
old druggist, residing at 1727 Remigio (Requesens) Street, Sta. Cruz, Manila
and the proprietor of East Asia Pharmaceuticals, was implicated by Conrado Carlos in a robbery at Marsman
& Company.  Alcantara
was investigated and allegedly maltreated by the police of Makati, Rizal and divested of P3,000 cash, a magnum
revolver, a diamond ring, a Rolex watch and a necklace.

Antonio Ventura, alias Tony Commando, forty-three years old,
jobless, a high school graduate, a native of Iloilo City, married but separated
from his wife, a resident of 27-E 15th Avenue, Cubao,
Quezon City and a compadre
of Alcantara, tried to help the latter.  Ventura
supposedly used to be an undercover agent of the Criminal Investigation Service
(CIS) at Camp Crame.

Ventura brought Alcantara to Nini Zulueta of the National Press Club.  Zulueta allegedly
prepared a press release in connection with the incident.  That publication probably frightened the Makati police.  They returned to Alcantara
through another Makati
policeman the things that they had taken from him.

Later, Alcantara filed with the City Fiscal’s office of Manila
a complaint for grave coercion, kidnapping and robbery against Conrado Carlos and seven members of the Makati police force, namely,
Captain Gabriel Bayle, Sergeant Pedro Espejo, Corporals Hipolito Jagar and Romeo Peña and
Patrolmen Reynaldo Alano, Manuel Casay
and one Schlobolm.

That complaint was scheduled for preliminary investiga­tion in
the afternoon of January 28, 1969.  Nick Alcantara,
with his wife Marcela, his brother Alfredo, his friend Amado
Busta­mante and his two security guards, went to the
third floor of the City Hall on that date to attend the investigation.

Ventura also went to
the City Hall at around two-thirty in that afternoon.  Alfredo Alcantara
informed him that the investigation was postponed.  From the third floor, Ventura
and Alfredo went down to the quadrangle or interior driveway of the City Hall and emerged at Arroceros Street, opposite the YMCA compound, where the jeep
of Bustamante was parked.  Nick Alcantara,
with his lawyers and security guards, went out of the front or southern exit of
the City Hall and proceeded to the Bungalow Restaurant on San Marcelino
Street.

Inside the jeep were Mercy Alcantara,
the comadre of Ventura,
and her companions.  Ventura
conversed with her.  She pointed to him Conrado Carlos, who was then reading a newspaper while
standing on the pavement on the eastern end of the driveway near Arroceros Street about twelve meters away from the jeep.

Ventura harbored the
notion that Carlos (also a compadre of
Nick Alcantara) had falsely implicated Alcantara in the robbery at Marsman
& Company and, therefore, in colloquial parlance, Carlos had some atraso or debt to pay to Alcantara.

Allegedly animated by sympathy for his compadre, Nick Alcantara, Ventura imposed
upon himself the task of liquidating Carlos.  Ventura
approached Carlos and at a distance of about two to three meters and without
any preliminaries shot him point blank five times with a .38 caliber
revolver.  One shot hit Carlos in the
chest and another shot hit him in the abdomen when he was already prostrate on
the pavement.  Both shots were fatal.

After the shooting, Ventura
walked hurriedly on Arroceros
Street, crossed Concepcion Street near the
city court building, entered the city court compound and headed for Hospital
Street where he took a bus bound for Quiapo.  He was able
to escape.

He changed clothes at his residence in Quezon City.  He phoned Alcantara
at his office in the Don Santiago
Building on Taft
Avenue and informed him of the killing of
Carlos.  Later, Ventura
went to the residence of Alcantara.  Nick gave him forty pesos and advised him to
go in hiding.

Meanwhile, at the scene of the crime, Patrolman Jose Yumul placed Carlos in a taxicab.  He died before reaching the hospital.  The necropsy report of the chief medico-legal
officer of the Manila Police Department indicates that the thirty-three year
old victim (a native of Paombong, Bulacan
and a resident of Pateros, Rizal)
sustained a mortal gunshot wound in the chest and a similar wound in the abdomen. 
Profuse hemorrhage caused his
death.

For about a year, the police made no headway in the investigation
of the case.  Then, Alcantara
wrote a letter dated January 13, 1970
to the Manila chief of police, revealing that Ventura
had confessed to him that he (Ventura)
had shot Carlos.

Alcantara made the revelation because
he was apprehensive that he might be liquidated by Ventura
who had been blackmailing him and threatening to link him to the killing.  Ventura
had been asking Alcantara to give “protection
money”.  Alcantara
gave money to Ventura because the
latter was a “dan­gerous character”.

The Manila policemen were able to get a
photograph of Ventura.  They asked Alcantara
to identify the photograph.  Alcantara confirmed that it was Ventura’s
picture.  The police started looking for Ventura.

On January 15, 1970
the police received reliable information that at about quarter to ten in the morning of that day Ventura
would get a bottle of whiskey from Alcantara’s
drugstore located at the Don Santiago
Building.  As expected, at that hour a man alighted from
a taxicab, went to the drugstore, got a bottle of liquor wrapped in yellow
paper, and returned to the waiting taxi­cab. 
He was not Ventura.  The police trailed the taxicab which
proceeded to a barbershop at Mabini
Street, Ermita, Manila.

The police operatives found Ventura
in that barbershop.  He tried to draw a
.38 caliber revolver when the policemen sought to arrest him.  They overpowered him and confiscated his revolver, ammunition pouch, and a
cartridge belt.

In the course of the investigation at the police headquarters, Ventura
confessed to Detective Alejandro Yanquiling that he
was the killer of Carlos.  Ventura’s
confession was reduced to writing in question-and-answer form.  It consists of four pages, typed single-space.  He signed it and initialled
the corrections contained therein.  He
signed the confession before Assistant Fiscal Rodolfo A. Nocon
of Manila when he swore to it on that same day, January 5,
1970, the day he was
arrested.

In the afternoon of that day, Ventura
voluntarily re­enacted the commission of the crime or the shooting of
Carlos.  Pictures of Ventura
were taken during the reenactment of the crime.

Detective Yanquiling inquired from the
CIS whether Ventura, as he claimed,
“belongs to the Police Intelligence Branch of the CIS”.  Yanquiling was
informed that Ventura was not a CIS
agent and that the CIS had not issued any firearm to him.

Amado Bustamante,
an eyewitness to the shooting of Carlos, saw Ventura,
with his drawn revolver, approaching Carlos, who was then standing on the
cemented pavement, facing the YMCA building. 
He testified that Ventura
fired suc­cessive shots at Carlos at close range.  Bustamante saw
Carlos sprawled on the pavement.  He saw Ventura
“leaving hurriedly going towards Arroceros Street”.

After the shooting, Bustamante went to
the Bungalow Restaurant together with his four lady companions and narrated to
Nicolas Alcantara the shooting incident which he just
witnessed.  Although Bustamante
feared for his life, he said that he had no choice but to tell to the court
what he had seen.  He kept silent for
almost one year but when lately Alcantara informed
him that Ventura was linking him (Alcantara) to the shooting, Bustamante
insisted that that falsehood must be exposed.

Ventura disclosed in
his confession that he had killed Totoy, his bilas or the husband of his wife’s sister, and one Severino de Villa on April 1, 1968.  He
had not been prosecuted for said killings.

On January 17, 1970, or two days after he was arrested, Ventura
was charged with the murder of Carlos. 
As already stated, he was convicted after trial.  He was represented by a counsel de oficio.  He
had pleaded not guilty notwithstanding his confession.

Ventura took the
witness stand.  He tried to repudiate his
confession and create the impression that Alfredo Alcantara
(the brother of Nicolas) was the killer. 
He identified himself as an undercover agent of the Metrocom
Police Intelligence Service.

He testified that his confession and the reenactment were not
voluntary because he was afraid that he might be killed if he did not cooperate
with the police.  He claimed that he was
con­nected with the Metropolitan Command (Metrocom)
and that he was allowed to possess a .38 caliber revolver.  He supposedly conducted missions as an infiltrator of the underworld.

He explained that
on January 15, 1970 he was
in an Ermita barbershop because he was going to
confer with a Metrocom lieutenant.  He was surprised by Manila
policemen in the barbershop.  He told
them that he was framed up.  On the way
to the police headquarters, Patrolman P. Doplito
allegedly warned him to cooperate or else he would be.  He said that he was interro­gated by the
police at the Springfield Hotel in front of the Hilton Hotel.

Thereafter, he was brought to the tourist police headquarters at
the Luneta Park,
where he was investigated by Corporal Yanquiling and
six husky detectives.  He said that he admitted
the killing of Carlos because he feared for his life.  He swore to his confession before Fiscal Nocon because he was accompanied by armed
policemen.  The reenactment of the crime
was made at the behest of Lieutenant
Ildefonso Labao.

Ventura testified that he had known Alcantara
for only five years and not ten years as claimed by the latter and that Alcantara’s business consists of “robberies, hijacking
and explosions and selling fake drugs to the residents of Tondo
and suburban towns” (8 tsn April 29, 1970).

He declared that on January
27, 1969 or on the eve of the preliminary investigation, he was at the residence of Nick Alcantara and he heard Nick giving instructions to
his brother Fred and his friend Bustamante to liquidate Carlos by hook or by
crook.  He was requested by Nick to be
present at the preliminary investigation.

He admitted that he was at the City Hall in the afternoon of January 28, 1969 and that he talked
with Mercy Alcantara. 
He said that he saw Alfredo Alcantara going
towards the place where Carlos was standing and that
ten minutes later he heard gunshots. 
Then, Alfredo boarded a taxicab.  The jeep wherein Mercy Alcantara and Bustamante were
riding left.  Ventura walked along Arroceros Street and boarded a bus for Quiapo.

Ventura pointed to
Nicolas Alcantara as the mastermind behind the
killing and as the person who framed him up. 
A ballistics expert from the Manila Police Department, testifying for
the defense, declared that the three bullets (Exh.
1-E to 1-G) allegedly fired from Ventura’s
revolver had not been fired from it as shown by a comparison between those
exhibits and the test bullets.  However,
the expert admitted that the barrel of the revolver could have been changed
after the shooting to mislead the ballistician.

Ventura in this
appeal contends that the trial court erred in convicting him of murder.  He argues that the confession and reenactment
were vitiated by duress; that he had no motive for killing Carlos; that he was
not positively identified as the gunwielder, and that
certain circumstances engender doubt as to his guilt.

Appellant’s contentions are devoid of merit and do not deserve
serious consideration.  His detailed
confession bears the earmarks of voluntariness.  There is a photograph of Ven­tura
signing his confession before Fiscal Nocon.  There are twenty-one pictures of Ventura replaying his role as the assassin of
Carlos.

His averment that the police threatened to kill him if he did not
cooperate is a very transparent concoction. 
His testimony intimating that Alfredo Alcantara
shot Carlos, as directed by his brother Nicolas Alcantara,
is an eleventh hour fabrication.

His confession and the eyewitness-testimony of Busta­mante leave no room for doubt that he was the gunwielder who callously shot Carlos in broad daylight in a
public place in the presence of many persons.

The record reveals that he is a hardened killer, who having
previously killed two persons and not having been prose­cuted for those acts,
had become trigger-happy and had no compunction in using his gun to kill the
enemy of his compadre just to earn a few pesos and perhaps
display his hubris or machismo.

The killing should be characterized as murder because it was
attended with treachery.  Ventura
made an unexpected assault on the victim which insured the killing without any
risk to himself since the victim had no chance to retaliate (Art. 14[16],
Revised Penal Code).

Evident premeditation was not proven.  There being no modifying circumstances, the
penalty of reclusion perpatua
was properly imposed by the trial court (Arts. 64[1] and 248, Revised Penal
Code).

Finding no error in the lower court’s judgment of conviction, the
same is affirmed with costs against the defendant-appellant.

SO ORDERED.

Fernando, (Chairman), Barredo,
Antonio, Concepcion, Jr., and Santos, JJ., concur.