THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. DEMETRIO ROBLES, SANTIAGO BINGCO AND DIONESIO ALABE, DEFENDANTS, SANTIAGO BINGCO, DEFENDANT-APPELLANT.

People versus Bingco

The Case

This is a criminal case in which the People of the Philippines prosecuted Demetrio Robles, Santiago Bingco, and Dionesio Alabe for robbery in band with homicide — the robbing of the house of Exequiel Manigos and Remedios Gutang in Bansalan, Davao, on the night of August 29, 1966, in the course of which Exequiel Manigos was shot and killed. Only Santiago Bingco stood trial, and only Santiago Bingco appealed. The case matters because the Supreme Court acquitted him on two grounds every reviewee must know cold: the identity of the offender must be proved beyond reasonable doubt, and an extrajudicial confession must be voluntary and, for a capital offense, sufficiently corroborated.

Procedural History

The Chief of Police of Bansalan filed a complaint for robbery in band with homicide with the Municipal Court of Bansalan. After preliminary examination, all the accused waived the second stage of the preliminary investigation, and the case was remanded to the Court of First Instance of Davao, where an information was filed against all three accused. Before trial, the prosecution moved to dismiss the case against Demetrio Robles and Dionesio Alabe for insufficiency of evidence, and the trial court granted the dismissal. Trial therefore proceeded against Santiago Bingco alone. The trial court rejected his defenses, convicted him — but only of robbery with homicide, not robbery in band — and sentenced him to reclusion perpetua, with accessory penalties, to pay the costs, to indemnify the offended party in the sum of 520 pesos for the stolen property, and to indemnify the heirs of the deceased in the sum of 4,000 pesos, crediting him with one half of the period of preventive imprisonment. Santiago Bingco appealed directly to the Supreme Court.

Facts

About half past ten in the evening of August 29, 1966, Remedios Gutang, her husband Exequiel Manigos, and their children were sleeping in their house at Blocon, Bansalan, Davao. She heard three shots from the yard. A man at the window entered and shot her husband, then pointed his pistol at her face. The door was opened and two more men came in. One of them stood by the door, close to a lighted bottle lamp, and she later claimed she recognized him as Santiago Bingco. He ordered her husband to lie prone while his companions tied him, and then said to them, go ahead. The two ransacked the trunk, threatened her with a hunting knife, demanded the proceeds of a recent sale, scattered corn, and tied her feet and her daughter's feet. Then they left with a bundle. Exequiel Manigos died on the way to Matanao for treatment.

The incident was reported the next morning. Patrolman Benjamin Mañacap and two policemen went to the scene and found the trunk forcibly opened and blood on the floor. When investigated, Remedios Gutang told them that of the four robbers she could identify only the man standing by the door. On September 5, 1966, Sergeant Duhaylungsod brought her to the office of the Chief of Police for a police line-up of six persons. Before the line-up, the sergeant told her that the person involved had already been apprehended, that he was in jail, and that his name was Santiago Bingco. She pointed to the man in the middle, who turned out to be Santiago Bingco. He had been arrested on August 30, 1966 in connection with another case, trespass to dwelling committed in the house of Hilario Madrid.

On September 9, 1966, Sergeant Duhaylungsod investigated Santiago Bingco, who allegedly executed a sworn statement admitting participation and naming Demetrio Robles as mastermind and Dionesio Alabe as a companion. He later repudiated the confession, claiming maltreatment, that some answers were not his, and that he signed on the promise of the sergeant that he would be made a government witness. He also interposed alibi, saying he was at the house of Gregorio Madrid at New Ilocos, Bansalan, listening to the radio from eight o'clock to midnight, and had never gone to Blocon since moving to New Ilocos in 1965.

Issues

• Whether or not the appellant Santiago Bingco was positively identified by the prosecution's only eyewitness, Remedios Gutang, as one of the perpetrators of the crime.
• Whether or not the alleged extrajudicial confession of the appellant was voluntary and could serve as a basis for conviction.

Applicable Provisions

The trial court sentenced the accused pursuant to Article 294 of the Revised Penal Code, which provides:

Any person guilty of robbery with the use of violence against or intimidation of any person shall suffer: 1. The penalty of reclusion perpetua to death, when by reason or on occasion of the robbery, the crime of homicide shall have been committed.

This is the provision under which the trial court convicted the appellant of robbery with homicide and imposed reclusion perpetua, and it frames the capital nature of the charge that made corroboration of the confession essential.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court ruled that the identity of the offender was not proved beyond reasonable doubt. While the trial court's findings on credibility are ordinarily respected, that doctrine must bow to the superior rule that guilt must be proved beyond reasonable doubt, because the law presumes the defendant innocent. The Court found the eyewitness testimony uncertain. She never testified that it was the appellant whom she first saw at the window or who shot her husband; the only suggestion of that came from the fiscal's own question, which has no probative value. The Court doubted that a robber would stand like a statue beside a lighted bottle lamp and expose his face; if the light had been sufficient, she could have recognized the two companions who ransacked the trunk, yet she said she did not because it was nighttime and she did not see clearly. She was lying face down and her attention was on the two companions, and she was later taken inside another room. The line-up identification was unreliable because the sergeant had already told her the appellant's name and that he was in jail, and she had never given the police any physical description of him. The Court held that while no motive to frame up appeared, this was no guaranty against an honest mistake, and doubt must be resolved in favor of the accused, it being preferable to acquit a guilty person than to convict an innocent one.

On the second issue, the Court held that the extrajudicial confession was not voluntary. It contained statements admittedly untrue and uncorroborated: that five persons, including Demetrio Robles and Dionesio Alabe, committed the robbery, when the eyewitness and the trial court found only three; that the group attempted to rob the house of Hilario Madrid, when only the appellant was prosecuted for trespass to dwelling; and that three revolvers and two pistols were used and taken, when no weapon was recovered or presented. The Court concluded the statements were the words of the investigators put in the appellant's mouth according to their preconceived theory. It added that the appellant was an unschooled farmer who reached Grade Five only and could not read English, so his confession had to pass through repeated translation between Visayan and English, a process pregnant with inadequacies that render the confession unsafe as basis for conviction for a capital offense unless sufficiently corroborated. On alibi, the Court held that where the prosecution's evidence is weak, alibi assumes importance, and the weakness of the defense does not relieve the prosecution of its burden.

Doctrine

• The identity of the offender, like the crime itself, must be proved beyond reasonable doubt; the presumption of innocence prevails unless overturned by competent and credible proof.
• A police line-up identification is unreliable where the police first told the witness the suspect's name and that he was already in jail, and where the witness had never given a physical description of the suspect.
• An extrajudicial confession must be voluntary; one containing statements admittedly untrue and uncorroborated is the investigator's words, not the accused's.
• A confession by an unschooled accused who cannot read English, taken through repeated translation, is unsafe as basis for conviction for a capital offense unless sufficiently corroborated.
• Alibi, though the weakest defense, assumes importance where the prosecution's evidence is weak; the defense need not prove innocence, for it is presumed.

Disposition

The Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the trial court and acquitted Santiago Bingco, with costs de oficio.

Remember This

Memorize the twin rule: identity must be proved beyond reasonable doubt, and a translated, uncorroborated confession is unsafe for a capital offense. Examiners use this case on weak eyewitness identification, suggestive police line-ups, and the corroboration requirement for extrajudicial confessions.