THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. DOMINGO RAFALLO AND VENANCIO MILLARE, DEFENDANTS AND APPELLANTS.

For the death of Faustino Rañada, Domingo Rafallo and Venancio
Millare were charged with the crime of murder, were found guilty by the
Court of First Instance of Albay and sentenced each to reclusion perpetua
with the accessories of the law, to indemnify the heirs of the deceased
Faustino Rañada in the sum of P2,000, and to pay costs. To reverse
that judgment, Rafallo and Millare have brought the case here on appeal.

The theory of the prosecution may be briefly stated as follows.
About 9 o’clock at night on April 28, 1943, Faustino Rañada, Adriano
Salomon and Faustino Estrada were in the market place of the town of
Oas, province of Albay. Estrada left the market place for his home in a
barrio but before leaving, he invited Faustino Rañada to come with him
but the latter was still drinking some liquor and so could not come.
Shortly after Estrada’s departure, Adriano Salomon and Faustino Rañada
left the market place for their homes in the barrio. According to
Salomon, as they reached the end of the dike near the provincial road,
he and his companion Rañada were overtaken by five men, two of whom he
recognized as the two appellants herein Rafallo and Millare. These two
men immediately took hold of Rañada while two of their companions also
held Salomon and conducted him ahead about eight meters away where they
stopped. From that place Salomon saw Millare and one of his companions
strike Rañada with their wooden clubs until their victim fell to the
ground. In the meantime, Rafallo stood by, watching. After the beating
the two men who accompanied and guarded Salomon told him that he could
go on his way which he did. After walking a distance of about 20 meters
and before reaching Cagmara bridge he overtook Faustino Estrada sitting
on his haunches. He immediately told Estrada that his companion Rañada
has been apprehended and beaten up by Rafallo and Millare, and the two
men in order to satisfy their curiosity and also to find out the fate
of Rañada, stealthily retraced their steps below the provincial road.
Upon approaching the scene of the beating they saw three men carrying
the body of Rañada across the provincial road to a rice field. Soon
thereafter another man arrived on a carabao. Millare in a loud voice
ordered: “tie him by the neck.” One of the men immediately placed a rope
around the neck of Rañada who at that time was motionless, either
unconscious or dead; and in this way he was dragged by the carabao
across the field to the municipal cemetery of Oas where the next
morning his body was dug up and identified by his son Geminiano Rañada.
According to Geminiano, early in the morning following the killing of
his father, he looked for him and was able to trace his body by means
of the smears of blood and parts of clothing he found in the fields
where the body was dragged up to the cemetery where he with the aid of
companions dug up the body and found it to be that of his father. He
said the body bore wounds under the left eye, on the left temple, on
the right occipital region and scratches on the back. According to him,
his father still had a rope tied around his neck and his two hands were
tied behind his back. What he did was to extend the hole or grave so
that his father’s legs could be stretched out and then he again buried
his father in said hole.

According to the defense however, the two appellants had no
participation whatsoever in the alleged killing of Faustlno Rañada, not
even knowledge of it until after the story thereof had spread in the
community. Rafallo claims that all that evening he was in his store
never having left it until he retired and went to bed at about 10
o’clock. In this he was corroborated by several witnesses who were near
or in his store while on guard as required by the Japanese institution
of neighborhood association night guarding. Appellant Millare claims
that since April 17 until May 18, 1943, he together with about a
hundred men who were in the guerrilla forces, had been disarmed and
detained by one Capt. Hernandez in Lubigan, Bato, Camarines Sur, very
far from the scene of the killing. In this, he was corroborated by two
of his fellow prisoners.

The alleged killing took place in April, 1943. The complaint for
murder before the Justice of the Peace Court against the tvo appellants
and against three others named, Juan Paraiso, Irineo Ronan and John Doe
was not filed until December 23, 1946. In the Court of First Instance
the Provincial Fiscal renewed the complaint for murder against the same
five accused. On July 18, 1947, however, the Provincial Fiscal and a
private prosecutor filed a motion to dismiss the case with regard to
Juan Paraiso because after a thorough investigation it was found that
he had no participation in the commission of the crime. Acting upon
this motion, the court released Juan Paraiso after he had been detained
for about six months. At that time, only Rafallo and Millare had been
arrested. The Court of First Instance of Albay in an order dated July
26, 1947, denied the petition of the private prosecutor for the arrest
of accused Irineo Ronan on the ground of lack of prima facie case against him. So, only Rafallo and Millare were tried.

Counsel for the two appellants, assigning six errors forcefully assails the decision of conviction.

The determination of this case depends in great measure upon the
credibility of witnesses, particularly those for the prosecution. We
have carefully read and scrutinized the testimonies of the witnesses,
specially those of the two principal witnesses for the Government,
Adriano Salomon who claims to have witnessed the assault upon and
beating of the deceased Ranada, and Faustino Estrada who says that he
saw and recognized the appellants as among those who carried the body
across the road and later had it dragged by a carabao across the
fields. We are convinced that the testimonies of Salomon and Estrada
identifying those who allegedly killed Faustino Rañada, deserve no
credit whatsoever. They have not only incurred/material contradictions
but they had openly and brazenly lied to the court. Faustino Estrada at
the beginning of his testimony said that he recognized Rafallo and
Millare by their silhouettes at a distance of several meters. Later,
when pressed for a more convincing identification and presumably to
render his opportunity for observation and Identification more certain,
he said that he was as near to the five men as two meters while one of
them was tying a rope around the neck of the deceased. How Estrada
could be at this short distance from the five men without being seen by
them is quite improbable if not impossible. Later, he said that he
recognized Rafallo and Millare even before the beating, as he passed
them on the road. But in another part of his testimony he said that
when Salomon overtook him near the bridge of Cagmara he had to ask who
he was because he could not recognize him, evidently because it was
dark. If it was really dark, It is hard to see how he could so readily
identify Rafallo and Millare as he claims to have been able to do when
he passed them on the highway. Lastly, when asked by defense counsel if
it was not true that he had been previously convicted of theft of large
cattle, he emphatically denied it. However, Exhibit 4 of the
prosecution, the record of the insular penitentiary, shows that Estrada
had served a sentence for theft of large cattle. He was convicted of
theft of large cattle on July 27, 1936, was received in Bilibid Prison
on September 22, 1936 and then released therefrom on July 27, 1938.

Now, we come to the star witness for the Government Adriano
Salomon. In his affidavit (Exh. 1) ratified before the Justice of the
Peace on March 17, 1946, he mentioned Juan Paralso as one of the five
men who grabbed and later assaulted Faustino Rafiada. On the strength
of said affidavit Paraiso was arrested and included in tb.e information
and was under detention for about 6 months until, as already stated, on
motion of the Fiscal and the private prosecutor the case against him
was dismissed for absolute lack of evidence. During the trial Salomon
said that he only recognized Rafallo and Millare, and when asked why he
included Paraiso in his affidavit he answered that he did so because
Paraiso and Rafallo were “concuños” that is to say, that the two men
were married to two sisters, and because Rafallo and Paraiso were dark
skinned. This was the only reason why he falsely implicated an innocent
man in a crime for murder and had him imprisoned for about 6 months.
Evidently, Salomon was not very particular or had no scrupples about
Implicating a man in the commission of a serious crime just because
that man happened to be a “concuños” of one of the accused and because
of that relationship, must have helped commit the crime. Then, Salomon
told the court that he recognized Rafallo and Millare that evening
because it was a moonlight night although it was getting dark. We must
bear In mind that this took place between 9 and 10 o’clock in the
evening of April 28, 1943. Counsel for the appellants in his brief
states that according to the official calendar published by the
Government for the year 1943, on April 28th of that year the moon rose
at 3 o’clock a.m. We tried to verify and check op on this point but no
Government calendar for the year 1943 is available either in this Court
or at Malacañan because of the destruction of the records during the
war. However, the Government Observatory after making the necessary
calculation, informs us that on that date the moon rose at 11:43 p.m.
On the basis of this fact, there could not have been any moon between 9
and 10 o’clock that evening by whose light Adrlano Salomon claims to
have Identified the two appellants, and he evidently did not tell the
truth when he said that there was a moon at the time that he witnessed
the alleged assault. Again, when asked by counsel for the defense if it
was not true that he was related to Geminiano Rañada, son of the
deceased Faustino, who was naturally very much interested in the
prosecution of the two appellants, Salomon said that he was not related
to him in any way. When asked point blank whether it was not true that
Geminiano’s wife was his (Salomon’s) sister, he said it was not true.
However, after he had been admonished by the court of the serious
consequences of telling lies in court because he might be charged with
perjury, he finally admitted that Geminiano’s wife was his own sister
but only by his father, meaning to say half-sister. Finally, when asked
if he had not been previously eonvleted of theft of large cattle, like
witness Faustino Estrada he equally denied that he had ever been
convicted of such crime but Exhibit 4, the record of the Insular
Penitentiary tells us that he was convicted of theft of large cattle on
January 30, 1931, sentenced to 4 years, 2 months and 1 day
imprisonment, was received in Bilibid on February 6, 1931 and released
from prison on May 21, 1934. A man who under oath claims that he could
recognize the accused on the night of the supposed killing by the light
of the moon when in fact there was no moon/that hour of the night, who
can easily and blithely accuse an innocent man of a serious crime on
mere suspicion, and who has the nerve and temerity of assuring the
court that the wife of the son of the deceased who had Initiated the
prosecution was not his sister when in fact she was such a sister
according to his own admission, and who later falsely denies a previous
conviction for a crime involving moral turpitude, perhaps believing
that said conviction may have already been forgotten or that the record
thereof may have been destroyed during the war, when as a matter of
fact he had been so convicted and had served sentence, that man cannot
be relied upon and his testimony made the basis for the conviction of
persons of the serious crime of murder. If these two witnesses for the
prosecution, Estrada and Salomon, upon whose testimonies conviction
will have to be based solely, can under oath, play so loosely with the
truth and depart so far from It upon points so important in their lives
that they could not possibly ignore or forget them, said witnesses may
also tell or may have told falsehoods in court regarding the alleged
participation of persons accused in the commission of a crime. Their
testimonies cannot in conscience be accepted. Furthermore, there being
no moon that hour of the night, it is unlikely that, even assuming that
the two witnesses Salomon and Estrada had been present at the scene of
the alleged killing, they could have identified the perpetrators.

Ordinarily, the defense of alibi is weak and unreliable
because of its easy fabrication, without much opportunity at checking
or rebutting it. This is true in cases of positive identification of
the culprits by reliable witnesses. But as the evidence regarding the
presence of the accused at the scene of the crime and their
identification as the perpetrators is weakened and rendered unreliable
not only because of the lack of opportunity to Identify either because
of the distance between the observer and the observed or because of
darkness, then the defense of alibi is measurably and proportionately
strengthened. The defense of alibi becomes still stronger when it is proven that the prosecution witnesses have openly and brazenly lied in court.

Here, the two appellants corroborated by several witnesses assured
the court that they were not at the scene of the crime. We have no
reason for rejecting said claim. On the other hand, there is evidence
consisting of the testimony of Francisco Floranza, the barrio
lieutenant of Palapas that on the night of April 28th, 1943, Salomon
the star witness for the prosecution was in the barrio of Palapas
serving as one of the night guards for the Japanese sponsored barrio
neighborhood association, of which guards Floranza was the Chief. If
this is true, and there is no reason for doubting it, then at that time
Salomon could not have been present at the scene of the alleged killing
which was several kilometers away.

Discarding the testimonies of these two witnesses for the
prosecution Salomon and Estrada, there is nothing left to connect the
appellants with the crime, much less, implicate them in it. The guilt
of the appellants has not been established. The decision, appealed from
is reversed and the appellants are hereby acquitted.

Moran, C. J., Ozaeta, Pablo, Bengzon, Padilla, Tuason, and Reyes, JJ., concur.

Paras, Feria and Torres, JJ., no part.