THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. DIOSDADO COMENDADOR, ACCUSED-APPELLANT.

People versus Comendador

The Case

This is People versus Comendador, an automatic review of a conviction for robbery with homicide arising from the killing of a young hacienda owner's son in Toledo City in October 1973. The People prosecuted Diosdado Comendador, a farm helper in the victim's family's hacienda, who pleaded guilty before the Circuit Criminal Court and was sentenced to death. The case matters because it gathers in one decision the rules a reviewee must hold: the nature of a plea of guilty in capital offenses, the constitutional requirements for the admissibility of an extrajudicial confession, the sufficiency of circumstantial evidence, the proof of corpus delicti, and the treatment of aggravating circumstances alleged in the information but disproven by the evidence.

Procedural History

The accused was charged with robbery with homicide before the Circuit Criminal Court of the Fourteenth Judicial District in Cebu City. He entered a plea of guilty, and the trial court, after requiring the prosecution to present evidence, rendered judgment finding him guilty beyond reasonable doubt, sentencing him to death, ordering him to indemnify the heirs of the deceased in the amount of 625 pesos representing the value of the unrecovered property, plus 12,000 pesos, without subsidiary imprisonment in case of insolvency, and to pay the costs. Because the penalty imposed was death, the case came to the Supreme Court on automatic review. The accused assigned four errors: that the trial court erred in not treating his conditional plea as a plea of not guilty; in admitting his extrajudicial confession; in finding his guilt proved beyond reasonable doubt; and in appreciating the aggravating circumstances of craft, uninhabited place, and abuse of confidence or obvious ungratefulness.

Facts

Jungie Zaragosa, twenty two years old, was the son of Edilberto Zaragosa, a farmer of Cadiz City. The accused was a helper in the Zaragosa house. On October 22, 1973, the son, then on vacation from Zamboanga City, asked permission to leave for Cagayan de Oro by way of Cebu. The accused advised him that traveling to Cebu alone was dangerous and offered to accompany him, being familiar with Cebu. The father gave his son 200 pesos, and the son brought a bag of clothes and wore a Citizen Day Date wristwatch engraved with his name.

On October 25, 1973, at about noon, a farmer named Dolores Reponte saw the accused and the deceased in Cantabako, Toledo City, asking whether there was a road they could pass. She answered that there was none. Both proceeded toward the bushes. At about five o'clock that afternoon, she was told of a dead man nearby, and she recognized the body as the accused's companion. A police corporal, Dioscoro Panda-an, went to the scene, a forested place with no inhabitants, preserved it, and recovered the fatal weapon about thirteen feet from the body and a pair of shoes floating in the water.

At about two o'clock that afternoon, the accused arrived at the house of Angelo Obenque in Media Once, Toledo City, carrying a watch and a travelling bag. He took out wet clothes and a wallet, placing two fifty peso bills and one twenty peso bill on the window sill to dry. He spent the night there and left at dawn. On October 26, a police lieutenant received a tip that the accused was in Tuburan. In the early morning of the following day, the police found him, and he readily admitted the killing and turned over the watch, the bag of clothes, and a wallet containing 70 pesos. He said he took 122 pesos and 50 centavos from the deceased and killed him because he badly needed money for his wife and children. On October 27, he signed an extrajudicial confession before the Special Counsel of Toledo City after being informed of his rights. The defense presented no evidence, and the accused did not take the witness stand.

Issues

• Whether or not the accused's plea of guilty, accompanied by a request for a lesser penalty, was conditional and should be treated as a plea of not guilty.
• Whether or not the extrajudicial confession was admissible, having been taken after the effectivity of the New Constitution without the assistance of counsel.
• Whether or not the guilt of the accused was proved beyond reasonable doubt, including by circumstantial evidence and independent proof of the corpus delicti.
• Whether or not the aggravating circumstances of craft, uninhabited place, and abuse of confidence or obvious ungratefulness may be appreciated.

Applicable Provisions

Section 20, Article IV of the New Constitution provides:

No person shall be compelled to be a witness against himself. Any person under investigation for the commission of an offense shall have the right to remain silent and to counsel, and to be informed of such right. No force, violence, threat, intimidation, or any other means which vitiates the free will shall be used against him. Any confession obtained in violation of this section shall be inadmissible in evidence.

This is the yardstick for the confession taken on October 27, 1973, after the Constitution took effect on January 17, 1973.

Section 5, Rule 118 of the Rules of Court provides:

Where the defendant pleads guilty to a complaint or information, if the trial court accepts the plea and has discretion as to the punishment for the offense, it may hear witnesses to determine what punishment shall be imposed.

This authorizes the trial court to receive evidence after a plea of guilty, which the accused attacked as a sign of doubt.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that the plea remained unconditional. A plea of guilty is a judicial confession of all the material facts alleged in the information, including the aggravating circumstances alleged, and it must be made spontaneously in open court and unconditionally. A bare request for a lesser penalty, which does not specify the penalty desired and does not assail, restrict, or qualify the information, is merely an appeal to emotion. Unlike the earlier case where a plea for destierro qualified the charge, here nothing qualified the plea. The accused's failure to present evidence after the prosecution rested confirmed his resolve to own the crime.

On the second issue, the Court held the confession admissible. Under the New Constitution, a confession obtained without informing the accused of his rights is void, but only if obtained after January 17, 1973. Here the confession was taken after that date, yet it showed on its face that the accused was advised of his right to remain silent and to counsel, and that he waived both. He never contradicted or rebutted this, though assisted by two counsel, because he did not take the witness stand.

On the third issue, the Court held the guilt proved beyond reasonable doubt. Even without the confession, the plea of guilty coupled with the prosecution's evidence sufficed. The Court restated the requisites of circumstantial evidence: more than one circumstance, facts proven, and a combination producing conviction beyond reasonable doubt, forming an unbroken chain pointing to the accused to the exclusion of all others. On corpus delicti, the Court held that independent proof does not require every element to be shown apart from the confession; some evidence tending to show a crime was committed suffices, and the fact of death may be proved by testimonial evidence even without the death certificate and necropsy report.

On the fourth issue, the Court held that although a plea of guilty admits the aggravating circumstances alleged, those disproven by the evidence must be disallowed. The three aggravating circumstances were not supported by the evidence and could not be appreciated.

Doctrine

• A plea of guilty is a judicial confession of all material facts alleged, including aggravating circumstances, but it must be spontaneous, in open court, and unconditional; a bare plea for a lesser penalty does not make it conditional.
• A confession obtained after January 17, 1973 without informing the accused of his rights under Section 20, Article IV of the New Constitution is inadmissible; if the confession shows on its face that the rights were given and waived, it is admissible once its genuineness is proven.
• Circumstantial evidence convicts when there is more than one circumstance, the facts are proven, and their combination produces conviction beyond reasonable doubt, forming an unbroken chain to the exclusion of every hypothesis but guilt.
• Corpus delicti may be proved by testimonial evidence; the absence of a death certificate does not put in doubt the reality of the killing.
• Aggravating circumstances alleged in the information but disproven by the evidence must be disallowed in the judgment.

Disposition

The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of conviction but modified the penalty, sentencing the accused to reclusion perpetua instead of death, with the other awards sustained.

Remember This

Memorize this line: a plea of guilty admits the aggravating circumstances alleged, but those disproven by the evidence must be disallowed. Examiners use this case on the unconditional nature of a plea of guilty in capital offenses, the waiver of the rights to silence and counsel shown on the face of a confession, and the sufficiency of circumstantial evidence and corpus delicti.