THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. DOROTEO BOLLENA, ET AL., DEFENDANTS AND APPELLANTS.

People versus Bollena

The Case

This is a criminal appeal in which the People of the Philippines prosecuted Doroteo Bollena, Gregorio Valida, Cresencio Cabero and Tanso Urabe for a nighttime robbery of an old woman's home that ended in her death. The trial court convicted all four of robbery in band with homicide and imposed the supreme penalty. The case matters to a reviewee because the Supreme Court, in affirming the conviction, gives clean working rules on four things examiners love: positive identification defeating alibi, the weight of an extrajudicial confession against the claim of third degree, how conspiracy is proved from the acts of the accused themselves, and what happens when the required number of votes to impose death is not obtained.

Procedural History

The four accused were charged and tried before the Court of First Instance, which found them guilty of robbery in band with homicide, attended by aggravating circumstances, sentenced each to death, and ordered them to indemnify the heirs of the deceased, jointly and severally, in the amount of 6,000 pesos, with proportionate costs. From that judgment the accused appealed to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court reviewed the record, resolved the assigned errors on identification, credibility, conspiracy and sufficiency of evidence, and affirmed the conviction, but reduced the penalty from death to life imprisonment because the required statutory vote to impose death was not obtained.

Facts

At midnight on the second of March, 1957, Lucia Varona, eighty five years old, and her twelve year old granddaughter Maxima Bohol were in their house near the vecinal road in Union, Mayorga, Leyte. Hearing a noise from the kitchen, Lucia lighted a lamp and went with Maxima to investigate. There they met Gregorio Valida and Doroteo Bollena. Bollena grabbed the front of Lucia's kimono and Valida demanded her money. When Lucia denied having any, Bollena pushed and stabbed her with a small bolo, then lifted her and dropped her on the floor three times in succession. The two carried a trunk and handed it to Tanso Urabe in the kitchen, who passed it to Cresencio Cabero waiting on the ground. Before leaving, Valida warned Maxima not to tell what she saw, on pain of death, and Cabero fired shots and shouted that help might arrive soon. After the intruders fled, Maxima peeped through the broken door and saw all four running away, then called her father for help.

Hilario Bohol, Lucia's son, came and then fetched his brother Estanislao Calopas, who reported the matter to the Vice Mayor. The Chief of Police, Miguel Tancinco, reached the scene at about one o'clock in the morning and found Lucia with three wounds and fresh footprints behind the house. Calopas, armed with a bolo and a flashlight, searched the vecinal road and, about thirty brazas from the house, heard a noise from a bamboo grove. Focusing his flashlight, he saw four men, two of whom he recognized as Valida and Bollena, the other two being Cabero and Urabe. Three fled, but Bollena rushed him and they fought until Calopas wrested the bolo and stabbed him; the Chief of Police arrived in time to save Bollena. The search yielded the stolen trunk with its clothes scattered, a maong cap, and a bolo with its scabbard. The trunk had contained 235 pesos in various denominations, bottles of medicine, jewelry worth 35 pesos and clothes worth 50 pesos; only the clothes were recovered.

On the sixteenth of March, 1957, Lucia died of her wounds. Bollena, in detention since the second of March, bolted jail upon learning of her death but was recaptured by civilians. He then executed a confession sworn before Justice of the Peace Manuel C. Tutaan, stating that after a drinking spree he and his three companions agreed to rob Lucia's house, that Valida handed him a pistol and he went up out of fear, that he demanded money and stabbed her, and that Valida ordered him to get a red box which he delivered to Cabero and Urabe. All the accused raised alibi. Bollena claimed he was tortured into signing a prepared confession; Valida claimed Maxima testified out of a grudge over a whipping; Cabero claimed he was implicated because of a quarrel with the Chief of Police over bus fare; and Urabe did not testify at all, offering only a barrio lieutenant's word that he was sick at home.

Issues

• Whether or not the accused were sufficiently and positively identified as the perpetrators of the robbery and the killing.
• Whether or not the testimony of the prosecution witnesses, particularly the young Maxima Bohol, is credible.
• Whether or not conspiracy among the four accused was established.
• Whether or not the evidence was sufficient to warrant conviction beyond reasonable doubt, overcoming the defenses of alibi and the claim that Bollena's confession was extracted by force.

Applicable Provisions

Article 294, paragraph 1, of the Revised Penal Code, under which the Court held the offense defined and penalized, 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 that fixes the offense as robbery with homicide and sets the range of the penalty, which the Court then applied in light of the aggravating circumstances and the vote required for death.

Ruling

On identification, the Court held that Bollena and Valida were fully identified by Maxima by face and name, as men she often saw in the cockpit, and that she positively stated Bollena stabbed the old woman and Valida threatened her, and that both carried the trunk to Cabero and Urabe acting as guards. Calopas fully identified Bollena in the bamboo grove and even fought him, and recognized the three companions who fled. With this positive and clear identification, and Bollena's confession implicating the others, the defense of alibi was set at nought.

On credibility, the Court rejected the claim that the confession was obtained by third degree. The Justice of the Peace testified that he himself propounded the questions and that the answers were Bollena's, and the Court found the claim of public maltreatment in the municipal yard preposterous, reasoning that police officers would not be so stupid as to openly advertise their misdeeds. Valida's grudge theory failed because his uncle's coconut plantation was in Balinsasayo, not Union, and it was hardly credible that a child of Maxima's age would harbor a grudge deep enough to implicate him in so serious an offense. Her minor inconsistencies made her more believable, precluding coaching, and the trial court correctly observed that she stood her ground under lengthy cross examination. Cabero's bus fare grudge did not pass beyond conjecture, and Urabe's alibi stood uncorroborated while he did not even take the witness stand.

On conspiracy, the Court laid down the test in these words:

Conspiracy exists if at the time of the commission of the offense the accused have the same purpose and united in its execution. Conspiracy may be deduced from their individual acts.

Applying it, the Court found the community of purpose clear: they were together in going to the house where one of them killed the victim, together in carting away the trunk, and ransacking it together when Calopas surprised them, resulting in Bollena's capture. Bollena's plea of guilty to robbery, though not to homicide, before the Justice of the Peace Court capped the proof.

On sufficiency of evidence, the Court held the offense defined and penalized under Article 294, paragraph 1, of the Revised Penal Code, with no mitigating circumstance shown. The lower court found against the accused the aggravating circumstances of disregard of the sex and age of the victim, nighttime and dwelling, and against Cabero the additional circumstance of recidivism. The penalty imposable was therefore death, but in view of the lack of sufficient statutory vote to impose it, each appellant was to suffer life imprisonment.

Doctrine

Positive identification by witnesses who knew the accused, coupled with a confession implicating the co-accused, destroys the defense of alibi, which cannot prevail over clear and positive testimony. A confession is presumed regular, and the claim of third degree must be credible; a tale of torture staged openly in a public yard is inherently improbable. Conspiracy is proved not by direct agreement but by the acts of the accused showing a common purpose and united execution, and may be deduced from their individual acts. Where the crime is robbery with homicide under Article 294, paragraph 1, of the Revised Penal Code and aggravating circumstances are present, death is the imposable penalty, but it cannot be imposed without the required statutory vote, in which case the penalty is reduced to life imprisonment.

Disposition

The Supreme Court affirmed the conviction of all four accused in all other respects but modified the penalty, imposing life imprisonment on each instead of death, with costs against the appellants.

Remember This

Memorize the line that conspiracy exists when the accused have the same purpose and are united in its execution, and that it may be deduced from their individual acts. Examiners use this case to test alibi against positive identification, the regularity of confessions against claims of third degree, and the rule that a missing statutory vote reduces a death sentence to life imprisonment.