THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIIF AND APPELLEE, VS. LUIS M. TARUC, ET AL., DEFENDANTS. LUIS M. TARUC, DEFENDANT AND APPELLANT.

Appeal by Luis M. Taruc from a decision of the Court of First
Instance of Pampanga, Honorable Ladislao Pasicolan, Judge, finding the
defendant-appellant Luis M. Taruc, guilty as principal by induction of
the murder of Feliciano B. Gardiner, Felipe Yusi, Plaridel Carillo and
Pacifico Navarro, and sentencing him to life imprisonment, for the
murder of each of aforesaid victims, with the accessories of the law,
to indemnify their heirs in the sum of P6,000 for each victim and to
pay the costs. The original information was filed on September 4, 1946
and charged Luis Taruc, Mario Samson, Tomas Calma, Ceferino Cabral,
Delfin Balagtas, Ricarte Canlas, John Doe alms Montenegro, Richard Doe
alias Calvario, Peter Doe alias Fred, and David Doe alias Mar, with the
crime of illegal detention with murder committed on the person of
Feliciano B. Gardiner. No action was taken on the information until on
September 13, 1954, when an amended information for kidnapping with
robbery and multiple murder was filed against the same accused. The
amended information included three new victims of the crime, namely:
Felipe Yusi, Pacifico Navarro and Plaridel Carillo. On July 11, 1956 a
second amended information was filed, charging the same accused with
kidnapping with robbery and multiple murders for the kidnapping of the
four persons already named in the amended information. Robbery is
charged in the amended information as it is alleged that the accused
divested their victims of all their belongings such as clothes,
jewelries, shoes, and cash money and medicine with a total value of
P86,000. It is on this second amended information that a trial was held
starting on December 12, 1956 and ending in April, 1958. The decision
is dated July 11, 1958.

The evidence for the prosecution on record shows that on December 2,
1944 Feliciano B. Gardiner, Governor of Tarlac under the Japanese, went
to the City of Manila upon call of his superiors. He went to Manila in
a Chevrolet car driven by Pacifico Navarro and accompanied by Felipe
Yusi and Plaridel Carillo, Yusi was a government employee and Navarro
was sent to Manila to buy medicine.

On December 6 in the morning all of them left Manila in the
Chevrolet car, on their return trip to Tarlac. All of them disappeared
and their respective families did not, after their disappearance, know
what had happened to them.

The detention of Gardiner and his companions and their liquidation
is explained in part by Delfin Balagtas, one of the accused, who was
discharged to be used as a witness for the prosecution. According to
him, in the month of December, 1944, he was a member of the Hukbalahap
organization, assigned in the communications division under Mario
Samson alias Villasanta as immediate chief. In the morning of December
6, 1944 he and three other Huk companions known as Fred, Mar and
Hicarte Canlas were in barrio Gatbuka, Municipality of Calumpit. That
morning Ceferino Cabral arrived at their station bringing an order to
secure a battery. Cabral informed Fred, whose real name was Esteban
Macalino, the head of the group, of the order that he had to look for a
battery, so Macalino and his companions went to the barrio of San
Vicente, Apalit, Pampanga. There they stationed themselves at the
crossing, near the toll bridge, in barrio San Vicente, and waited for a
vehicle to pass. About ten o’clock that same morning a black Chevrolet
car arrived and Macalino and his companions stopped it. Four persons
were riding in the car one of whom was a fellow who looked like a
“Bombay” and who upon being asked to give up the battery of his car
refused. Balagtas had then a revolver tucked in his clothes and upon
drawing it the hammer got hooked on his jacket and so the pistol fired,
hitting the person seated near the driver. Upon refusal of Gardiner to
deliver the battery the Huks boarded the car and with the passengers
drove it to Apalit, where they looked for a physician to treat the
wounded passenger, but as they could not wait for the physician a woman
treated the wound and thereafter they motored north until they reached
a river. They crossed the river by means of a banca bringing along the
four passengers of the car with them. Upon reaching the other side of
the river they brought the four passengers of the car to a house. This
house was within the jurisdiction of the municipality of San Simon. The
four passengers were brought before defendant Tomas Calma, alias Sol,
who at that time held the position of chief of the intelligence
division of the Hukbalahap. Sol questioned the four passengers of the
car in the evening, while Balagtas was resting in the kitchen of the
house. Upon waking up the following morning Balagtas found out that the
four passengers, together with Calma and his companions, were no longer
there.

The above testimony of Delfin Balagtas is corroborated by that of
Numeriano Borja. Borja testified that in the morning of December 6,
1944 he was in the barrio of Gatbuka, Calumpit, Bulacan, in the company
of Delfin Balagtas, Macalino and Canlas, all members of the
communications division of the Hukbalahap. While in Gatbuka another Huk
arrived with orders to look for a battery, so they went to the crossing
of the road to Apalit. This was about nine thirty o’clock in the
morning. At about ten o’clock a black Chevrolet car arrived and was
stopped by Delfin Balagtas. There were four persons seated in the
Chevrolet car, one of whom appeared to be an Indian “mestizo”
(Mestizong Bombay). The demand was made for the battery of the car but
as the owner refused they boarded it and drove towards Apalit. There
they looked for a doctor to treat the person who had been hit by the
shot of the pistol of Balagtas. From that place they went north, then
crossed a river and then went to a house where the four passengers of
the car were given to the custody of Tomas Calma, who was then the
chief of the intelligence division of the Hukbalahap.

Another witness for the prosecution is Leoncio Santos, who declared
as follows: He knows the accused Luis Taruc and Tomas Calma, a native
of Sta. Rita, San Luis,Pampanga. He belonged to the Huk organization
and occupied the position of post, his work being to guide anybody who
wanted to see Luis Taruc. On December 7, 1944 he was in barrio Sta.
Monica performing his duty as post. On that day Tomas Calma, Calvario,
Montenegro and Villasanta came to him wjth four captives whose hands
were tied to one another, between eleven and twelve o’clock in the
morning. Tomas Calma asked him to guide them to Hog a Metung, where
Luis Taruc had his barracks. Santos guided Calma and his companions and
their captives to the barracks of Luis Taruc, to the place where he
held his office. These barracks were in the place known as Hog a
Metung, municipality of San Luis, Pampanga. When the captives were
brought to Tame the latter immediately addressed one of the captives,
Fiscal Gardiner, and immediately accused him of causing the sufferings
of the socialists and of having persecuted the Timbol brothers who had
been helping the poor. When Gardiner heard the accusation he asked for
his life and promised that he would repay to the best of his ability,
but Taruc answered that because of the sufferings that he (Gardiner) had
caused to the socialists, the corresponding penalty for him was death.
Taruc also ordered the companions of Gainer to be put to death. After
that Taruc and the Huks brought their captives to a school house where
for about fifteen minutes more or less afternoon and upon reaching that
place Tomas Calma ordered the clothes of Gardiner to be removed or taken off he was
undressed Tomas Calma hit Upon the back of the neck with a piece o
receiving the blow Gardiner fell on the ground and once in the position Calma continued clubbing him until died. Alias Calvario also undressed another captive and clubbed him to
death, and so did alias Montenegro, as well as Villasanta, each
clubbing a captive to death with pieces of bamboo.

Still another witness for the prosecution is Magno Maniago who
testified as follows: He was a vice-chief of the division of
intelligence, Regional Command No. 3 in the Huk organization. On
December 7, 1944 he was in barrio Hog a Metung, San Luis, Pampanga,
because he was studying at the intelligence school of the Hukbalahap at
that place. In the afternoon of December 7 while he was in the school,
and between four and five o’clock in the afternoon, Tomas Calma and
companions brought four captives one of whom was Fiscal Gardiner and
another a mestizo. When Calma brought the four captives Taruc
introduced Fiscal Gardiner to the students calling him capitalist and
imperialist and charging him with having indicted and prosecuted the
Timbol brothers. Fiscal Gardiner and his companions stayed in the
school for about twenty minutes. When he and his companions went to eat
their dinner, they met Sol with a watch, which he alleged to be from a
person who had been previously taken to the schoolhouse.

The above witnesses proved the stopping of the car of Governor
Gardiner, at the crossing of the road, and the fact that he was brought
to Apalit and later to a house where he was investigated by Tomas
Calma, from which house Calma and his companions brought the four
passengers of the car to Taruc and the latter gave orders for their
liquidation.

Taruc testified on his behalf and declared that while he had
information about the execution of Governor Feliciano Gardiner and his
companions, said execution was ordered by the corresponding regional
command having Sdiction over the territory wherein his captives were
arrested. The regional command in question was regional command No. 7,
headed by regional commander “Sol”. He further testified that he was
commander of the forces and was a member of the supreme military
committee to which appeals regarding executions ordered by the regional
commands could be made, but that no such appeal had reached the said
military committee.

Further asserting his lack of knowledge and participation in the
execution of Governor Gardiner and his three companions, he testified
that on December 7, he had gone to visit Pedro Abad Santos and he was
not, therefore, in barrio Ilog A Metung as claimed by the witnesses for
the prosecution. A witness, an old woman, was introduced by him to
support his alleged alibi. The old woman testified that she was sent by
Pedro Abad Santos to fetch Taruc on the day mentioned. The trial judge
refused to believe this claim of the defense. We have read both the
testimony of Taruc on the alibi and that of his witness and the facts
testified to are so general and devoid of concrete details as to
produce conviction of their truth. And we agree with the trial judge
that this defense (of alibi) is not sufficient to overcome the positive
testimonies of the witnesses for the prosecution on the arrest of the
victims, their being brought to the barracks where Taruc was holding
his classes and the fact they were finally liquidated upon direct
orders from Taruc. The witnesses who testified to the kidnapping and
execution are admitted to have belonged to the Hukbalahap organization
on the dates when the arrest of Gardiner and his companions was
effected and there has been no circumstance indicated which would tend
to destroy their credibility.

We, therefore, find that the court below correctly found Taruc
guilty of the execution of the four victims mentioned in the amended
information, and that Taruc had given orders to his subordinates for
their execution.

We will now consider the errors assigned by counsel for
defendant-appellant before us. The first error to the court below is in
allowing the prosecution to Delfin Balagtas as its state witness,
without first charging him from the information. We find no merit in
this claim of counsel for defendant-appellant. Witness Delfin Balagtas
was discharged from the original information. This discharge affected
not only the original information but also ah the subsequent amended
informations. The amended informations are not new informations;
hence, the discharge of a witness under said original information
continues as regards these subsequent informations, because the amended
informations are a continuation of the original proceeding. As Delfin
Balagtas was one of the accused in the original information, he also
should be included in these amended informations subsequently filed.
The filing of the subsequent informations did not affect his discharge
already granted upon the first information. As already stated, amended
informations are not new informations but a continuation of the
previous one, so that a discharge under the original information is
just as binding upon the subsequent amended informations.

In another assignment of error it is claimed that there is absence of proof of corpus delicti.
It is argued under this supposed error that there was failure on the
part of the prosecution to prove the corpus delicti, for the identities
of the victims and the fact of their death were not clearly
established. This is an incorrect assertion. Witness Leoncio Santos
described in detail how the victims were first stripped of their
clothes and thereafter attacked one by one with bamboo sticks, first
while standing and later, while already lying on the ground, until each
of them died. There could not be any better proof of corpus delicti.

In the third assignment of error it is argued that the trial court
erred in allowing the prosecution to propound additional direct
questions to witness Leoncio Santos. When Leoncio Santos was permitted
to answer additional questions the prosecution had not yet closed its
evidence and the case was not yet submitted to the court for final
judgment, and neither was there a final judgment rendered which would
make the recall of a witness a violation of the rule in jeopardy. This
supposed error is, therefore, without any legal foundation.

In his fourth assignment of error counsel for defendant-appellant
claims that the testimony of Leoncio Santos against Luis M. Taruc was
brought out as a consequence of a cross-examination made by counsel for
Esteban Macalino. The record does not support this claim because
Pantos testified on direct examination how Taruc, upon being presented
with Fiscal Gardiner and his companions, and despite the fact that
Gardiner asked that his life be spared, gave direct orders that he and
his companions should be put to death (t.s.n., pp. 110, 111, 112,
Lagdameo).

In the fifth assignment of error it is claimed that the trial court
committed error in giving weight and credit to the testimony of Leoncio
Santos, in spite of its inherent and manifest improbability. However,
we find his testimony to be simple, concrete and positive and a mere
reading thereof discloses its truthfulness. The supposed error is,
therefore, unfounded.

In the sixth assignment of error, counsel for defendant-appellant
argues that the latter’s crime was extinguished by Proclamation No. 8
of the late President Roxas. In the first place, there is absolutely no
evidence in the record to prove that Governor Gardiner and his
companions were guilty of unjustifiable collaboration with the
Japanese. Gardiner held the position of governor, but by such fact
alone he did not become a collaborator in the sense that his
suppression by the guerrillas would be justified. Besides, the
liquidation of Gardiner and his companions was evidently due to the
activities of Gardiner in relation to the prosecution and conviction of
the Timbol brothers, who were sympathizers or protectors of the poor.
It was not, therefore, because of any act of collaboration with the
Japanese that the liquidation of Gardiner and his companions was
ordered. The defense of amnesty may not, therefore, be claimed.

Having disposed of the errors assigned before us oil this appeal, we
will now proceed to determine the correctness of the penalty imposed by
the trial court.

In the commission of the crime the qualifying circumstance of
evident premeditation was clearly present. So was the aggravating
circumstance of abuse of superior strength, because the victims were
tied by the hands and their captors were provided with the necessary
arms, as well as clubs to carry out the execution, so that the victims
were entirely and absolutely defenseless when their liquidation took
place.

There must, however, be considered in favor of the appellant the
mitigating circumstance of his voluntary surrender which took place in
May, 1954. Under these circumstances, the penalty that should be meted
out to the accused-appellant is that of reclusion perpetua, the same
penalty imposed by the court below.

For all the foregoing, the decision appealed from is hereby affirmed, with costs against the appellant Luis M. Taruc.

Padilla, Bautista Angelo, Concepcion, Reyes, J.B.L., Barrera, Paredes, and Dizon, JJ., concur.