THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF, VS. DANILO LLANTO, BENJAMIN PAULINO AND COSME ERISPE, ACCUSED, COSME ERISPE, ACCUSED-APPELLANT.

The Circuit Criminal Court of Manila convicted Cosme Erispe, Benjamin Paulino and Danilo Llanto of murder, sentenced Erispe
and Paulino to reclusion perpetua and Llanto to an
indeterminate penalty of six years and one day of prision
mayor to twelve years and one day of reclusion temporal
and ordered them to pay solidarily to the heirs of
Felix Ortega P12,000 as indemnity plus P20,000 as
moral and exemplary damages (Criminal Case No. 1318).  Only Erispe
appealed from that judgment which was based on the following facts:

At around ten-thirty in the evening of September 22, 1972, Felix
Ortega, 38, married to Patricia Dilabaltan, a
security guard of the Lainez Security Guard Agency at
Pier 2, and a resident of Isla Puting
Bato, Tondo, was surrounded
and assaulted by Erispe, 19; Paulino,
alias Boy Gaya, 22; Llanto,
alias Boy Kalbo, 17; Boy Oxo
Tangkad and one named Nestor.

The assault was perpetrated near the outpost and Caltex gas station at Pier 4, North
Harbor, Tondo,
Manila.  That place was illuminated by electric lamps
on the street and in the outpost.  The five assailants were armed with bladed
weapons.  Ortega tried to evade their
blows by stooping.  He reminded his
attackers that he was their comrade.  The
record does not show the motive for the assault and how it started.

After the assault, Ortega, who was mortally wounded, was brought
to the Mary Johnston
Hospital where he died upon arrival
at about ten-fifty-five on that same night. 
The medico-legal officer of the Manila Metropolitan Police performed an autopsy
on his body at two-quarter in the morning of the following day.  The corpse was identified by the victim’s
sister, Fely Arabihan.

The autopsy disclosed that Ortega sustained four stab wounds
which penetrated his lung and liver.  The
location of the stab wounds implies that there was more than one
assailant.  One fatal stab was on the left
side of the chest; another was on the right side of the chest; a
third was on the front part of the chest, and the fourth on the back
of the chest (lateral posterior left chest).  The victim also had a lacerated wound on the
chin and an abrasion on the lower lip.

The stabbing was witnessed at close range by Vicky Agaton Derima, 30, married, and a
vendor of crabs at the Asuncion
market in Tondo. 
(She sold in that market the catch of the fishing boat owned by her and
her husband, Rudy Derima, a jeepney
driver.) She was allegedly at Pier 4 at past ten
o’clock on that night of September
22, 1972 because she was waiting for a jeepney
to take her to her residence at 156 Dulo Street, Isla Puting Bato.

She was acquainted with the victim and with three of his
assailants, namely, Erispe, Llanto
and Paulino. 
She was a member of the Manila Citizens’ Police which was under the
supervision of a certain Major Adolfo of Precinct 1 of the Manila Metropolitan
Police located at North Bay Boulevard,
Balut, Tondo.

It should be noted that Erispe was a
resident of 93 Dulo Street,
the same street where Vicky resided.  Llanto was a resident of Breakwater, Isla
Puting Bato, while Paulino was a resident of 630 Pitong Gatang Street,
Tondo.  Boy Oxo was killed later by a member of the Metropolitan Police
Command.  Nestor went into hiding and had
not been apprehended.  Erispe, Llanto and Paulino were members of the citizens’ police patrol which
was organized to maintain peace and order in Isla Puting Bato.  As noted above, Vicky was also a member of
that organization.

After witnessing the assault, Vicky rushed home.  She was confused and gripped with fear.  She did not notice what the assailants did
after the assault.  She told a friend
named Elsie about the incident.  Elsie
reported the matter to the police.  On
that same night, Vicky was questioned by the police but she did not sign any
statement.

Her statement was taken on October 8, 1972 by an investigator of the homicide
division of the Manila police force.  During the investigation, she identified Erispe, Llanto and Paulino as three of the five assailants whom she saw
stabbing Ortega.  The three were arrested
by operatives of Precinct 1 on the preceding day, October 7.

The other prosecution witness, Aniano Austria,
21, a resident of Breakwater, Isla Puting Bato, Tondo,
saw the assault upon Ortega because, like Vicky Agaton
Derima, he happened to be at Pier 4, the scene of the
crime, waiting to board a jeepney which would take
him to Isla Puting Bato.  While Vicky
was near the assailants, Austria
was on the other side of the street about eight meters away.  He saw Vicky witnessing the assault.

Austria
was acquainted with Vicky and with the assailants.  Erispe used to
frequent his place.  In fact, the next
day Erispe went to his place and said that, although
Ortega was wounded, he fought back.  Austria
was a member of the assailants’ gang. 
But he did not join them in staging holdups.

Austria,
who also knew the victim, Ortega, and his family, was investigated by the
police after the incident.  He told the
policemen that Erispe, Llanto
and Paulino wounded Ortega.  He was not able to give any statement because
he was under protective custody at Camp
Crame
since he was being molested by the assailants of Ortega.

On October 9, 1972, or one day after Vicky’s statement was taken
(Exh. 2), an information for
murder was filed against Erispe, Llanto
and Paulino. 
During the trial, Paulino and Erispe pleaded the same alibi, which was that at the time
the incident happened, they were in Mariveles, Bataan working as cargadores
in the branch office of the Rice and Corn Administration.  Their alibi was confirmed by their alleged
foreman, Francisco Duero, 29, who presented a
notebook allegedly containing the vales or petty loans obtained by Erispe, Paulino and other
laborers.

But, as correctly pointed out by the trial court, the said
notebook does not exculpate Erispe and Paulino because it was not properly kept and it contains
many missing pages.  Besides, the entries
were not made by Duero but by
an unnamed person who did not testify in court.

Llanto’s alibi was that when the
incident occurred, he was in his house at Breakwater, Isla
Puting Bato.  The trial court did not give credence to the
alibis of the three accused.  Llanto and Paulino did not appeal
from the judgment of conviction.

Erispe in this appeal contends that the
trial court erred in believing the testimonies of Austria
and Vicky Agaton Derima, in
not sustaining his alibi, and in not acquitting him on the ground of reasonable
doubt.

Erispe admitted that he was acquainted
with his co-accused, Paulino and Llanto.  Asked to explain why Vicky implicated him in
the killing of Ortega, Erispe declared that Vicky had
a grudge against him because he was a member of the Zoto
Organization and Vicky was a former member thereof.  She was allegedly expelled because she spent
its money.

In rebuttal, Vicky denied Erispe’s
imputation.  She explained that she
resigned from the Zoto organization because of its
bad practices such as selling the land of the government for P200.  She surmised that the accused smeared her
character because she did not cooperate with them in implementing their nefarious
enterprises.  She disclosed that Erispe’s brother-in-law offered to pay her any amount if
she would desist from testifying against him.

Appellant’s counsel, with much zeal and diligence, subjected the
testimonies of Austria
and Mrs. Derima to a painstaking scrutiny.  He noted some contradictions or
inconsistencies therein.  He vehemently
contends that those discrepancies impaired the credibility of the two
prosecution witnesses.  However, the Solicitor General in his brief competently refuted
appellant’s arguments and conclusions.

We hold that the alleged contradictions do not destroy the
probative value of the testimonies of Austria
and Mrs. Derima. 
They did not wilfully pervert the truth nor
perpetrate deliberate lies.  The decisive
fact is that they were present when the accused ganged up on Ortega and made a
concerted effort to injure and kill him. 
The inconsistencies pertained to minor details which would not justify
the exoneration of the accused.  Moreover,
the record does not show any reason or motive as to why Mrs. Derima and Austria
would frame up appellant Erispe and impute to him a
capital offense which he did not commit. 
His alibi is not credible.

The killing is murder qualified by abuse of superiority, a
circumstance alleged in the information. 
The penalty of reclusion perpetua
was correctly imposed.

WHEREFORE, the trial court’s judgment against appellant Erispe is affirmed.  Costs against the appellant.

SO ORDERED.

Fernando, (Chairman), Barredo,
Antonio, Concepcion, Jr., and Santos, JJ., concur.