THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. INOCENCIO BERNARDO, DEFENDANT AND APPELLANT.

Inocencio Bernardo was prosecuted in the People’s Court, charged
with treason on eight counts. Counts I and VI are of general
application to all the charges, accusing the defendant of being a ganap and later a makapili
and of cooperating with the Empire of Japan and the Imperial Japanese
Forces. The rest of the charges refer to the arrests of Bibiano Azores
(Count II), Marcelino Reyes (Count III), Eustaquio Santos (Count IV),
Elpidio Cruz (Count V) and Sebastian Raymundo (Count VII), for being
guerrillas or guerrilla suspects. The case was one of the 30 which were
tried jointly in Pasig, Rizal. The People’s Court found “established,
without any doubt, the arrests of Bibiano Azores, Eustaquio Santos and
Elpidio Cruz Toy the accused and his companions and Charges 2, 4 and
5.” The court dismissed the other charges for want of proofs.

The Solicitor General correctly states that the arrests of Bibiano
Azores and Elpidio Cruz have not been proven under the two-witness rule
and that the evidence relative thereto should be taken only as proof of
adherence.

On Count IV, Pedro Santos, 74 years old, testified that Eustaquio
Santos was his son. On November 24, “1941 may be,” Santiago Damian who,
he said, was a very bad man, came up his house and arrested Eustaquio.
Damian had companions who remained downstairs. These, he attested, were
Daniel Santos, Benito Tuason, Cirilo Tuason, Alfredo Espiritu, Faustino
Santos, Inocencio Bernardo, Felipe San Pedro and Rufo Mejia.
After November 24, he did not see his son anymore. His son and others,
his neighbors, were apprehended because the defendants said they were
guerrillas. On cross-examination, this witness said that just before
his son was arrested he (witness) went to the other side of the fence
and hid. The distance of his hiding place from the house was about six
meters. The houses of his neighbors were near one another, and the
victims were apprehended one by one. His son was the first to be
arrested and Bibiano Santos next. He said his son was a guerrilla
because he went with guerrillas, and so did the other men apprehended.

Eleuteria Bautista declared that Eustaquio Santos was her son. Eustaquio was arrested by makapilis
on November 24, 1944, in their home in Ugong Norte, Pasig, Rizal.
Others arrested were Rafael Raymundo, Elpidio Cruz, Pedro Cruz, Bibiano
Azores, Valentin Cruz and Eustaquio Santos. She could not tell where
they took her son, and did not see him anymore after he was arrested,
she did nothing but weep. She knew who arrested her son but did not
know who did her neighbors. Requested to point to the men who
apprehended her son, she indicated Santiago Damian, Faustino Santos,
Benito Tuason, Inocencio Bernardo, Cirilo Tuason and Alfredo
Espiritu. These, she said, were armed with long guns though she did
not notice how they were dressed. She had been a resident of Ugong
Norte for 30 years and had known them. Four of them were from Ugong,
namely, Faustino, Benito, Alfredo and Inocencio. On
cross-examination she said all the persons she named came up the house;
all of them tied her son, and all took hold of him simultaneously while
he was being tied.

The accused took the stand as the sole witness in his behalf. He
said he was 34 years old. He branded as untrue the testimony against
him given by Pedro Santos and Eleuteria Bautista. He said he did not
remember the date when Eustaquio Santos was arrested. He said that,
according to the witnesses who testified against him, Eustaquio was
arrested in November. He heard only in court that Eustaquio Santos was
allegedly arrested by him. He was in Ugong but he did not see Eustaquio
apprehended. When asked if during the Japanese regime he came to learn
of Eustaquio Santos’ arrest, he said, “This is what happened: About
November, 1944, one time, Primo Reyes came to me to buy cigarettes. All
of a sudden, while we were transacting business, Felipe Reyes came and
he told Primo Reyes that he heard news that the Japanese were arresting
men in the part of our barrio. He told us to pack up and hide
ourselves. I and Primo Reyes ran towards the fields. We reached a hut
which was at a distance of more than one kilometer from the barrio. We
stayed there up to 4:00 o’clock in the afternoon. When we returned to
the barrio, we came to know from Felipe Reyes that the Japanese had
really arrested people and among those he saw arrested was Eustaquio
Santos. That is the only thing I knew about the arrest in Ugong which
came from Felipe Reyes.” He does not know of any reason why Pedro
Santos and Eleuteria Bautista pointed him out. May be they were
influenced. In Pasig, before he was arrested, they were on good terms.
As a matter of fact, he said, they used to borrow things from each
other.

The first ground of attack against the testimony of Pedro Santos and
his wife is that the former was not certain as to the date his son was
arrested. Although this is the case, there is no doubt that husband and
wife referred to one and the same arrest. One of them, the wife, was in
the house when her son was seized and the husband was only a few meters
away, having left the house when he saw the defendant and his
companions coming. Granting that Eustaquio Santos was arrested on
several occasions, an assumption which is.not warranted by the record,
it is a fact that Pedro Santos and Eleuteria Bautista in their
testimony referred to their son’s arrest after which Eustaquio was
never seen alive again.

That the accused was recognized by the witnesses, there can be no
doubt. Accused and witnesses lived in the same barrio for years, had
known each other very intimately, and the arrest took place when it was
already light.

Eleuteria Bautista’s testimony is assailed on the ground of the
alleged incredibility of her assertion that all the men entered the
house, grabbed him, took part in tying him, and pointed their guns at
him. Considering the witness’ excitement and her grief and emotions
upon seeing her son apprehended, little or no significance should be
attached to these little flaws in her testimony. They do not impair her
credibility on her identification of the appellant as a party to the
crime charged.

The contention that the accused had lost his Philippine citizenship
by swearing allegiance to a foreign government need no comment further
than a reference to the decision of this Court in People vs. Manayao, 78 Phil., 721, which dismissed a similar contention.

The Solicitor General recommends modification of the sentence
imposed by the lower court, which is 14 years, eight months and one day
of reclusion temporal, and P7,000 fine, to the medium of the imprisonment prescribed by law for Hie offense, namely, reclusion perpetua, and the fine. We agree.

With the modification of the sentence as thus recommended relative
to the imprisonment, the judgment appealed from is affirmed with costs
of this appeal.

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