G.R. No. L-38180. October 23, 1981
THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. SALVADOR CRISOSTOMO AND INOCENCIO RAGSAC, ACCUSED-APPELLANTS.
FERNANDEZ, J.:
In an information dated July
9, 1973 filed with the Circuit Criminal Court, Seventh Judicial
District, Pasig,
Rizal, Salvador Crisostomo
and Inocencio Ragsac were
charged with murder alleged to have been committed as follows:
“That on or about the 27th day of May, 1972, in the New Bilibid
Prison, Muntinlupa, Rizal,
Philippines, and within the jurisdiction of this Honorable Court, the above-named
accused while then confined at the said institution, conspiring, confederating
and helping one another, with treachery, evident premeditation and deliberate
intent to kill, each armed with improvised bladed weapons – did then and there wilfully, unlawfully and feloniously assault and wound
therewith one Antonio Waje, No. 21909-P, a sentenced
prisoner in the same institution, thereby inflicting upon him multiple stab
wounds in the different parts of his body
while then unarmed and unable to defend himself from the attack launched by the
accused, as a result of which the said Antonio Waje
died instantly.
“The commission of the foregoing offense is attended by the
aggravating circumstances of recidivism and quasi-recidivism based on the
previous convictions of the above-named accused as follows:
“Salvador Crisostomo having been
convicted of Theft by the JPC Tanauan,
Batangas on November 5, 1953; Robbery by the CFI Batangas, 18th Judicial District, Lipa
City on March 25, 1954; Illegal Possession of Firearm and ammunition by the
same court on June 16, 1955; Murder by the CFI Davao,
Branch II on June 12, 1958 and Evasion of Service of Sentence by the CFI Rizal, Branch XIII on March 4, 1970;
“Inocencio Ragsac
having been convicted of Homicide by the CFI-Ilocos Sur, Branch III on May 20, 1968 and Evasion of Service of
Sentence by the CFI Rizal, Branch X on July 20, 1971.
“CONTRARY TO LAW.”[1]
The two accused, duly assisted by their counsel de oficio, pleaded not guilty when arraigned.
After trial, Judge Onofre A. Villaluz, rendered judgment on December 28, 1973, the dispositive
portion of which reads:
“WHEREFORE, finding the accused Salvador Crisostomo
and Inocencio Ragsac,
GUILTY, beyond reasonable doubt, of the crime of Murder, as defined under
Article 248 of the Revised Penal Code, as charged in the information, the Court
hereby sentences them to suffer the penalty of DEATH; to indemnify the heirs
of the offended party the amount of P10,000.00; to pay moral damages in the
amount of P5,000.00 and another P5,000.00, as exemplary damages, jointly and
severally and to pay their proportionate share of the costs.”[2]
Hence, the present automatic review of
the trial court’s decision by this Court.
The trial court convicted the two accused Salvador Crisostomo and Inocencio Ragsac of murder as charged in the information on the
following findings of fact:
“Four days prior to May
27, 1972, the accused Crisostomo gave
sixty-two (P62.00) to the victim Waje to buy
cigarettes and sugar. When Crisostomo asked for the things he requested Waje to buy, the
latter replied that the money was lost. Crisostomo then asked Waje to
repeat what he (Waje) said and the latter said, ‘Maulit ka’ and dared
Crisostomo to fight it out with him.
Infuriated by the actuations and remarks of Waje and compounded by the
facts that Waje killed prison guards Anselmo Villablanca and Fortunato Villareal, of the Davao Penal Colony on November 13, 1958, who were the former supervisors of Crisostomo, the accused Salvador Crisostomo
and Inocencio Ragsac planned
to kill Waje.
At about 7:00 o’clock in the
morning of May 27, 1972,
the two accused went out of their dormitory to carry out their plan. Crisostomo followed
the group of prisoners who were assigned to collect garbage inside the prison
compound while Ragsac proceeded to the general
kitchen. Then Crisostomo
went to the general kitchen where he met Ragsac. There they waited for the opportune
time. When the accused saw the deceased
walking towards the Reception and Diagnostic
Center, they followed him. Upon hearing the victim, Crisostomo
immediately stabbed Waje. The first trust did not prove fatal, so Ragsac stabbed Waje and the two
accused took turns in stabbing the victim.
When Servideo Camarillo saw Crisostomo
and Ragsac stabbing the deceased, he fired shots in
the air. The two accused ran towards the
direction of the general kitchen and they lied face down. The PC and the security guards arrived.
Camarillo then went to the
place where the accused ran to and there he recovered the weapons used by the accused in the stabbing.”[3]
Waje was brought to the prison hospital
but he died on arrival. The cause of his
death was determined to be hemorrhage secondary to stab wounds. The post-mortem
examination disclosed that Waje was stabbed seven times.[4]
That same morning of May
27, 1972, Salvador Crisostomo and Inocencio Ragsac were treated for
their wounds at the prison’s hospital by its resident physician, Luz Alma
Romero Santos. The accused Crisostomo was found to have sustained the following injuries: abrasion-bridge of the nose; ecchymosis – right eye; abrasion with contusion chin right;
abrasion, right and left knee; lacerated wound, 1 1/2 inch above the right
ear; and contusion right index finger.
The accused Ragsac was found to have the following
injuries: abrasion with contusion left
wrist; abrasion with contusion dorsal surface of left arm, proximal third;
contusion left cheek-bone; contusion dorsal
surface of left hand; abrasion both knees; lacerated wound occipital region
right head.[5]
After having been treated in the prison’s hospital, the two
accused Crisostomo and Ragsac
were investigated by prison guard Tolentino Avelina, the one assigned as investigator for the death of Waje.[6]
The investigation was conducted in Tagalog. The accused Crisostomo
was interrogated between 11:00 a.m.
and 12:40 p.m. on May 27, 1972.
He executed a sworn statement (Exhibit “F”)[7]
wherein he related that he had been in prison since 1953 for the crimes of
theft, robbery in band, murder and illegal possession of firearms; that about
7:00 A.M. on that day he plotted with the accused Ragsac
to kill Waje; that his reasons for wanting to kill Waje were the following:
a) because Waje killed prison guards Anselmo Villablanca and Fortunato Villareal and wounded prison guard Predisvindo
Calugay who were his supervisors and friends at the Davao Penal Colony in 1958; and b) because Waje swindled him in 1962 of the amount of P62.00. When asked who were his companions in
stabbing the victim, he pointed at Inocencio Ragsac.[8]
Likewise, the accused Ragsac executed a
sworn statement (Exhibit “G”).[9]
He admitted therein that he stabbed Waje several times. His motive was that he killed Waje because he was asked by Crisostomo
and that he cannot refuse him because he is a friend. Moreover, the
victim was a member of the Commando Gang, an
enemy of the Genuine Ilocano Gang to which he
belonged.[10] He was interrogated from 1:00 p.m. to 2:40 p.m. on the same day.
Aside from the two accused, prison guard Servideo
Camarillo, who was an eyewitness to the commission of the crime, was also
investigated (Exhibit “H”).[11]
He was asked by the investigator
to identify from among four weapons the two that he had recovered from the two accused. He pointed at the weapons marked as Exhibits “C” and “D” as the ones used by the accused Ragsac and Crisostomo respectively.
These were the very same weapons identified by the two accused when they
were investigated by Avelina.
During the trial, the two
accused gave a version of the incident which was different from the one they
related in their respective sworn statements, Exhibits “F” and
“G”. According to their new
version, the accused Crisostomo was the only one who
stabbed Waje.
The accused Ragsac denied participation the
stabbing for he was with the brigade of prisoners collecting garbage in the
prison premises. Furthermore, the
accused Crisostomo allegedly acted in
self-defense. According to him four days
prior to the incident, he requested Waje to buy him
sugar and cigarettes at the prison Post Exchange. For that purpose, he gave Waje
P62.00. On May 27, 1972, he saw Waje and
asked him about his request. Waje said that he lost the money. When asked how the money was lost Waje became irritated and threatened to add him to the
persons he had killed. At the same time,
Waje struck him with a “chaco” (a weapon made of two
sharp-edge pieces of wood, connected together with a string). Crisostomo
allegedly saw Waje pulling something from his body,
so Crisostomo immediately brought out
his own weapon (Exhibit “D”) known in prison parlance as “matalas” and stabbed Waje
with it.[12]
In their brief, the two
accused assigned the following errors:[13]
“I
“THE TRIAL COURT ERRED WHEN IT HELD
THAT THE DEFENDANTS-APPELLANTS SALVADOR
CRISOSTOMO AND INOCENCIO RAGSAC CONSPIRED TO KILL ANTONIO WAJE
AND THAT THE LATTER WAS KILLED WITH EVIDENT PREMEDITATION AND TREACHERY.
“II
“THE TRIAL COURT ERRED WHEN IT HELD
THAT DEFENDANT–APPELLANT INOCENCIO RAGSAC PARTICIPATED IN THE KILLING OF ANTONIO WAJE.
“III
“THE TRIAL COURT ERRED WHEN IT HELD
THAT DEFENDANT-APPELLANT SALVADOR CRISOSTOMO DID NOT ACT IN SELF-DEFENSE WHEN HE KILLED
ANTONIO WAJE.”
It is apparent that the
trial court’s finding of the existence of conspiracy to kill Waje between the two accused and the alleged
treacherous manner in which the killing was executed is based on the sworn
statements executed by Salvador Crisostomo (Exhibit
“F”) and by Inocencio Ragsac
(Exhibit “G”).
It is, therefore, necessary to pass upon the admissibility
of the confessions and their sufficiency to sustain the conviction.
For a confession to be
admissible in evidence, it is a general rule that it must have been made
without hope of benefit, without fear or duress, and without the use of threat, torture, violence, artifice or deception.[14] Likewise, “written statements
which were made freely and voluntarily whereby they admitted Participation in the act complained of and sufficiently
corroborated by other and independent evidence introduce during the trial of
the case are sufficient basis for conviction.”[15]
The question before the
Court is whether the sworn statements made by the two accused were freely and voluntarily given.
There is merit in the
contention of the Solicitor General[16] that the injuries suffered by the two accused (Exhibits “1” and “2”) do not necessarily prove that they were maltreated. The injuries
of the two accused consisted of bruises and abrasions in the arms and
knees and ecohymosis
in the right eye. Indeed, these kinds of
injuries are very likely to be sustained by one who suddenly drops prone to the ground while in the act of running very fast
as the two accused did when they heard the shots fired by prison guard Camarillo. Likewise,
if the testimony of the accused Crisostomo
that he was hit in the head with
a “chaco” by Waje
is to be given credence, then
his head wound was not due to maltreatment.
Moreover, as pointed out
in the Appellee’s
Brief,[17] assuming arguendo that the two accused were tortured,
the torture was inflicted when the guards and soldiers were trying to apprehend
them following their assault on Waje,[18]
and not when their admissions were taken by
Tolentino Avelina. In fact, the two accused admitted during the trial that Avelina
was good to them and that the latter did not threaten or maltreat them.[19]
Notable also is the time which lapsed between the alleged
maltreatment which was around 9:00 .AM.
to 9:30 A.M. of May 27, 1972, as in fact they were
treated for the injuries sustained by reason thereof at around 9:35 A.M. of
the same day,[20]
and the taking of their admissions which were
from 11:00 A.M. to 12:40 P.M. for Salvador Crisostomo
and from 1:00 P.M. to 2:40 P.M. of the same days for Inocencio Ragsac.[21]
They had sufficient time to retract whatever admissions they made during the
alleged maltreatment when they were formally investigated more than two hours later by Tolentino
Avelina, who was admittedly good to them.
As regards the contention of counsel for the two accused that the
admission of their sworn statements is unconstitutional in the light of Sec.
20, Art. IV of the New Constitution because they were not assisted by counsel,
it is settled that proscription against the admissibility of confessions
obtained from the accused during the period of custodial interrogation in violation of the procedural safeguards,
applies to confessions after the effectivity of the
new charter on January 17, 1973.[22] The sworn statements of the two accused were
executed before the new constitution took effect.
The question of whether
or not the two accused committed the killing in conspiracy and with evident
premeditation and treachery will now be taken up.
The conspiracy between
the two accused is shown by the admitted fact that they agreed to kill Waje two hours
before he was actually killed. It is shown by the concerted acts of the two
accused of leaving their dormitory XI-B-3 at 7:00 A.M. on the day of the killing, of meeting at the prison kitchen, of waiting for Waje to appear, of approaching him and simultaneously stabbing him.
Because of the existence
of conspiracy between the two accused, the acts of one are legally considered the acts of the other.[23] Both are liable as principals.
Treachery is shown by the admission
of the accused Crisostomo that he approached Waje
from behind, turned him about, then stabbed him (Exhibit
“F”). The suddenness of the attack was consciously adopted to facilitate
the perpetration of the crime without risk to themselves.[24]
Evident premeditation can not be appreciated. The two accused allegedly planned to kill Waje at 7:00 o’clock
in the morning and the killing took place at 9:00
A.M. (Exhibits “F” and “G”). The two accused did not have sufficient time
to reflect during the two hours that preceded the killing.
The final question to be resolved is whether the accused Crisostomo
acted in self-defense or not. He
contends that he should not be liable for the death of Waje
because he acted in self-defense.
According to the accused Crisostomo, Waje attacked him with a “chaco”
when he asked him about the P62.00 which he gave him for the purchase of sugar
and cigarettes at the prison Post Exchange.
By invoking self-defense, the accused Crisostomo
admitted that he killed Antonio Waje. With his admission, the burden is upon him
to prove by sufficient and convincing evidence that he was defending himself
when he killed Waje.[25]
To avail of the justifying circumstance of self-defense, the
following elements must be present – unlawful aggression, reasonable necessity
of the means employed to prevent or repel it, and lack of sufficient
provocation on the part of the
person defending himself.
The trial court found the prosecution witnesses more credible
than the defense witnesses. This finding
is entitled to great weight and should be given full faith and credit in the
absence of a showing that the trial court failed to take into account circumstances
of weight and importance in arriving at the findings.
Unlawful aggression is equivalent to assault or at least
threatened assault of an immediate and imminent kind.[26]
There is unlawful aggression when the peril to one’s life, limb or right is
either actual or imminent. There must be
actual physical force or actual use of weapon.
The claim of the accused Crisostomo
that Waje was the one who attacked him cannot be
believed. It is contrary to common experience and to human nature to take
offense at the inquiry of the former on how the money was lost.
Although it is claimed by the accused Crisostomo
that after he was struck with the “chaco“,
he grabbed the same, the “chaco” was never
presented to the prison investigator.
Nor was the said “chaco” ever
mentioned in Exhibits “F” and “G”. It was brought up for the first time during
the trial before the lower court.
There is no sufficient showing that Waje
was armed at the time he was killed.
The victim not being armed, it was not reasonable for the two
accused, both armed with “matalas“, to
attack Waje and inflict upon him seven (7) stab
wounds.
The accused Inocencio Ragsac escaped during the
pendency of the review of this case. Being a death convict, his flight from prison while his case was pending review, as held by this Court in a
similar case,[27] is evidence of his consciousness of
guilt.
The two accused participated in the killing of the victim. The
crime they committed is murder qualified by treachery with the aggravating
circumstance of recidivism. Hence the trial court correctly imposed the death penalty. However, for lack of the necessary votes,
the penalty next lower in degree is imposed.
WHEREFORE, the decision of the trial court is hereby
affirmed, with the modification that the penalty imposed is reclusion
perpetua and
the indemnity to be paid to the heirs of the deceased Antonio Waje
is increased to the sum of
P12,000.00, with costs.
SO ORDERED.
Fernando, C.J., Barredo,
Makasiar, Aquino, Concepcion, Jr., Guerrero, Abad
Santos, De Castro, and Melencio-Herrera, JJ., concur.
Teehankee, J., concurs in the result.
[1]
Rollo, pp. 2-3.
[2]
Rollo, p. 39.
[3]
Rollo, pp. 33-34.
[4]
Exhibit “A”, p. 16, Records.
[5]
Exhibits “1” and “2”, pp. 40-41; Records, pp. 4-7, p. 15; TSN,
Nov. 12, 1973, pp. 9-11; TSN, Nov. 17, 1973.
[6]
TSN, pp. 14-15, Nov. 5, 1973.
[7]
Records, p. 23.
[8]
Exhibit “4”, Records, p. 23.
[9]
Records, p. 24.
[10]
Records, backpage of p. 25.
[11]
Records, p. 25.
[12]
TSN, pp. 7-10, Nov. 9, 1973.
[13]
Brief for Defendants-Appellants, p. 4; Rollo,
p. 79.
[14]
U.S. vs.
Agatea, 40 Phil. 596, 600.
[15]
People vs. Tolentino,
82 Phil. 808.
[16]
Brief for the Appellee, p. 13, Rollo,
p. 91.
[17]
Brief for the Appellee, p. 14, Rollo,
p. 91.
[18]
TSN, pp. 15-16, Nov. 9, 1973; TSN, pp. 3-4, Nov.
14, 1973.
[19]
TSN, pp. 65-66, Nov. 12, 1973; TSN, pp. 38-40, Nov.
13, 1973.
[20]
Exhibit “2”, p. 41, Records; TSN, p. 11, Nov. 17, 1973.
[21]
Exhibits “F” and “G”.
Records, pp. 23-24.
[22]
Magtoto vs. Manguera,
63 SCRA 4.
[23]
People vs. Sumayo,
70 SCRA 488.
[24]
People vs. Lim, 71 SCRA 249.
[25]
People vs. Padiernos, 69 SCRA
484.
[26]
People vs. Alconga, 78 Phil. 366.
[27]
People vs. Cornelio, 39 SCRA 435; Rollo, pp. 106-107.