PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. JAIME SOLIS, ARSENIO MANCHOS AND BERNARDITO KINTANAR, ACCUSED-APPELLANTS.

Before this Court on automatic review is the de­cision of the Court of
First Instance (now the Regional Trial Court) of Sorsogon, imposing the
supreme penalty of death on appellants Jaime Solis, Arsenio Manchos and
Bernardito Kintanar, the dispositive portion of which reads as follows:

“WHEREFORE, the Court finds the accused Jaime Solis, Arsenio
Manchos and Bernardito Kintanar GUILTY beyond reasonable doubt of the
crime of Robbery with Homicide with the presence of the aggrava­ting
circumstances of nighttime, superior strength, disregard of the victim’s
age, ‘morada’ or the crime was committed in the victim’s own dwelling,
and that all the accused were armed at that time with bladed weapons;
and the Court hereby (1) imposes upon all these three accused the
supreme penalty of DEATH; (2) orders all of them to imdemnify jointly
and severally the legal heirs of Herminio Corsita in the amount of
TWELVE THOUSAND PESOS (P12,000.00) Philippine Currency; and (3) to pay pro rata the costs of this suit.”

At the trial, the prosecution failed to present an eye-witness to the
crime. Thus, the facts esta­blished by the prosecution relate to the
discovery of the crime; the investigation conducted by the police
officers of Bulan, Sorsogon; the circumstances that led to the arrest of
the accused; and the extra-judicial statements subsequently executed by
them. As synthe­sized by the trial court, these facts are the
follow­ing:

“In the early morning of July 28, 1968, one Matea Hona came upon
the body of Herminio Corsita sprawled on the yard of the latter’s house
in Sitio Costanera, Barrio Namo, Bulan, Sorsogon. Matea lost no time in
reporting her gory discovery to the barrio captain of Namo, a certain
Maceda. This barrio official, along with Antonia Manallo who is a
stepdaughter of the victim, and Beatriz de Joya who owns the land which
the deceased was tenanting, hied to the poblacion to inform the police
about the grisly incident.

“The unpleasant task of getting the body and bringing it to the
pobla­cion was assigned to Patrolman Ignacio Gozarin of the Bulan Police
force who left for Costanera at about 9 o’clock that same morning,
presumably with Maceda, and arrived at the scene of the incident two
hours later or at about 11:00 o’clock A.M. The policeman found the dead
body of Herminio Corsita lying on his back near the fence of the yard
some five meters from the house. An examination of the cadaver revealed
a gaping wound at the back of Corsita’s ear and some marks at the back
of his body. Gozarin’s roving eyes also caught sight of two pieces of
blood­stained wood, some scattered clothing, a wooden trunk, and pillows
at the scene of the crime, as well as a bolo at the back of the house.
He even found a dead chicken inside the house. The peace officer then
marked the pieces of wood for identification and after drawing circles
on the ground where these pieces of evidence were lying, he cordoned the
entire place. Then with the help of the barrio captain, he brought the
cadaver to the poblacion and left it with the proper authority for
autopsy.

“After Gozarin and Maceda had left for the town, Sergeant Romeo
Guban, the Chief of the investigation section of the Bulan police force,
arrived in Costanera with Patrolman Loreto Goboleo. Having been
informed that the body of the victim had already been brought to town by
their brother officer, Gubat and Goboleo conducted an inspection of the
scene of the crime, including the victim’s house and its premises.
They found that the door appeared to have been forcibly opened and a
window seemed to have been broken. They likewise came upon a locker in
said house which was forcibly opened and six plundered pillows which
were stained with blood. There was a dead chicken with a wrung neck in
the kitchen. In the front yard and about three meters from the house
those two policemen found a wooden trunk that was also forcibly opened
(Exhibit “B”). They came upon a bloodstained bolo (Exhibit “C”) some
four meters behind the house as well as a fifteen-inch-long bloodstained
piece of wood with a knot (Exhibit “D”) under the main stairway.
Ano­ther piece of wood some sixteen inches in length with bloodstains at
both ends (Exhibit “E”) was also found in the front yard about four
meters from the house. The two police investigators likewise found
signs of struggle both inside and outside the house of the victim.

“In the course of his testimony in Court, Patrolman Goboleo drew a
rought sketch of the house and its premises (Exhibit “I”, prosecution;
Exhibit “1”, defense) graphically indicating therein the bedroom where a
bloodstained bed was located (Exhi­bit “I-1”) and showing the position
and direction of the stairs (Exhibit “I-2”).

“The first suspects of the local police were Bartolome Readanga
and Marcos Lovending, both of Barrio Recto, Bulan, Sorsogon which is
about two kilometers away from the scene of the felony. Sgt. Guban’s
basis for suspecting them was the presence of chickens and bloodstains
in their house. Both suspects, however, denied the imputation and
apparently the authorities accepted their explanations.

“About two months after the commission of the crime, the local
police authorities received the first of three anonymous letters about
the robbery and the killing of Corsita. The first letter contained a
threat against Sgt. Guban and other members of the Bulan police force.
Some two weeks after receipt of the first letter, the second one arrived
and this gave a tip to the police that the perpetrators of the crime
were living in sitio Nasohi, barrio Inararan, Bulan, Sorsogon.
Patrolman Gozarin maintained that while he was in the office of the
Chief of Police on November 25, 1968 he learned that another anonymous
letter about the incident was received. Because of these three letters,
the investiga­tion of the case was revived. Acting on the tip
mentioned in the second letter, Sgt. Guban sent to Nasohi some police
informers who reported to him sometime thereafter that the three accused
were the authors of the dastardly crime. Guban was also informed that
Jaime Solis had related to one Dominador Gaton, alias Vaquero, that he
(Solis) was the one who killed Herminio Corsita. The police sergeant
then went to Gaton’s house in Nasohi where he found the latter’s wife.
This woman confirmed the information and told him the truth about the
matter.

“Having learned from reliable sources that of the three suspects
Kintanar is the least experienced in crime and concluding that as such
this particular suspect is the most likely to break down easily and
confess, Sgt. Guban decided to pick up Kintanar first. On February 6,
1969 Kintanar was taken into custody while he was in the house of his
brother in Nasohi. Brought to the municipal hall in the poblacion and
subjected to investigation, Kintanar confessed before long his
participation in the commission of the crime and revealed that his
companions at the time were Jaime Solis and Arsenio Manchos. The
investigators took down his affidavit in question and answer form and
Kintanar swore to the truth of his statements therein that same day
be­fore the Municipal Judge of Bulan (Exhibit “F”; English Translation,
Exhibit “F-1”). x x x.

“With this successful break in the case, Sgt. Guban ordered that
the two other accused be picked up for purposes of investigating them.
On February 8, 1969 Jaime Solis was arrested in sitio Nasohi, while
Arsenio Manchos was picked up by Patrolman Gozarin in Barrio
Soma­gonsong, Bulan, Sorsogon, on the same date. With the help of
Patrolman Goboleo, Sergeant Gubat conducted the investigation of Solis
and Manchos and it did not take long for the two suspects to break down
and confess their respective roles in the heinous crime. The
investigating team also wrote down in question and answer form the sworn
statements of these two persons. Solis’ affidavit was subscribed by
him before the Municipal Judge of Bulan on February 10, 1969 (Exhibit
“G”; English Translation, Exhibit “G-1”), while Manchos swore to the
truth of his own affidavit (Exhibit “H”; English Translation, Exhibit
“H-1”) before said Municipal Judge on the same date it was taken or on
February 8, 1969. x x x.

“Meanwhile, Corsita’s cadaver which Patrolman Gozarin left in the
municipal hall of Bulan was delivered to Dr. Runy P. Rebustillo who was
then the Municipal Health Officer of said municipality. The good doctor
stated in his autopsy report dated August 7, 1968 (Exhibit “A”) that he
performed the necropsy at about 3:15 PM on July 29, 1968. Accord­ing
to his findings, the victim sustained a “fracture dislocation of the 1st
cervical vertebrae of the spinal column connecting the base of the
skull with contusions and hemorrhages.” In the opinion of this
physician, this particular injury was caused by a blow with a blunt
instrument.

“The victim also suffered an incised wound about three inches in
length and one and one-half inches in depth located above the base of
the neck posteriorly, or at the nape. The good doctor considers this
injury fatal because it cut the arterius veins on the right side of the
neck. He opined that this wound was inflicted with a sharp instrument
like a bolo. Dr. Rebustillo also found a lacerated wound in the region
of the victim’s right eye, abrasions in his right foot, and contusions
as well as hematoma on the right shoulder, right occipitolateral region
base of the skull, and on the postero-lateral portion of the neck, base
of the neck. He said that Corsita died due to shock and hemorrhages,
both internal and external, secondary to the basal fructure of the skull
and the incised wound.

“According to the doctor, he learned from the relatives of the
victim that the cadaver he had autopsied was that of Herminio Corsita,
who in his opinion, died some forty-eight hours before the autopsy was
performed The doctor based his opinion on the fact that at the time he
was performing the autopsy there was already signs of decomposition.”

Thus, appellants were charged with the crime of robbery with homicide,
aggravated by the circums­tances of superior strength, nighttime and
disregard of the age of the victim, the latter being 70 years of age at
the time of the incident. The three accused, assisted by counsel de oficio,
Atty. Odelon Ginete, pleaded not guilty to the information. At the
initial hearing on June 19, 1969, Atty. Ginete moved for postponement of
the trial on the ground that the accused were considering the
possibility of changing their prior plea of “not guilty” to “guilty”.
The court granted the motion and the hear­ing was reset to July 24 and
25, 1969.

On July 24, 1969, Atty. Ginete failed to appear. However, accused Solis informed the court that Atty. Carranza, their counsel de parte,
would appear on the next day to represent all the accused. On July 25,
1969, Atty. Carranza did not appear in court. Upon assurance by the
accused that they had already contracted the services of Atty. Carranza,
the court granted the withdrawal of Atty. Ginete as counsel de oficio,
and transferred the trial to November 3, 1969. On said date, the
accused manifested that they had not yet secured the services of counsel
and that “their friends and families are trying to raise money to pay
for the services of a counsel of their choice.” Hence, the court again
transferred the hearing to December 4 and 5, 1969; but in order to avoid
further delay, the court appointed Attys. Ruben Paps, Antonio Dugan and
Tedosio Diño, Jr. as attorneys de oficio for each of the accused.

On February 5, 1970, Atty. Paps informed the court that he and his co-attorneys de oficio
had agreed among themselves that only Atty. Diño would handle the
defense for all the accused. After the accused had expressed their
conformity to such mani­festation, the court granted the withdrawal of
Attys. Paps and Dugan as counsel de oficio. Whereupon trial was commenced.

Upon termination of the evidence for the pro­secution, Atty. Diño
manifested that the accused were waiving their right to adduce evidence.
Then he asked for dismissal of the charge on ground of gross
inadequacy of the evidence to justify conviction. The court denied the
motion and reset the continuation of hearing on June 26, 1970 in order
to afford counsel sufficient time to study the record of the case and
examine the exhibits presented by the prosecution. On the last
mentioned date, Atty. Diño, manifested anew that the accused were
waiving their right to adduce evidence, and that the case be considered
submitted for decision. He likewise moved for dismissal of the
information on ground of insufficiency of the prosecution’s evidence.
Acting on said manifestation and motion, the court declared the case
submitted for judgment and ordered the parties to submit written
memoranda.

On November 13, 1970, the trial court promulgated its decision imposing
the death penalty on the three accused for the crime of robbery with
homicide.

We find no reason to disturb the judgment of conviction.

There is no question that in the evening of July 27, 1968, Herminio
Corsita was robbed of seven (7) chickens, one (1) bolo, two (2) pairs of
pants, and two (2) shirts belonging to the victim with the total value
of P19.20, and that on the occasion of said robbery, Herminio Corsita
was killed. While it is true that the prosecution failed to produce an
eye­witness to the crime, the three accused had executed their
individual affidavits admitting their respective roles and
participations therein.

The extrajudicial statements of the three accused (Exhibits F, F-1, G,
G-1, H, H-1) disclose that at about 10:00 in the evening of July 27,
1968, the three accused agreed to rob Herminio Corsita, a man of 70
years; that pursuant to said agreement, the accused, all armed with
bolos, proceeded to the house of Corsita in sitio Costa­nera, barrio
Namo, Bulan, Sorsogon; that Kintanar stationed himself near the fence of
the house, while Manchos and Solis, the latter holding a flashlight,
went under the house and grabbed a chicken; that because of the
cacklings of the chickens and the barkings of the dogs, Corsita went
downstairs with a lamp; that while he was still at the stairway, Solis
and Manchos suddenly pulled down and kicked the old man to the ground;
that Solis gave him several fist blows, then brought him upstairs; that
when the old man refused to reveal where he kept his money, Solis tied
him up with a piece of rattan and hacked him on the nape with his bolo,
while Manchos held him at the back; that having delivered the fatal
blow, Solis went down the house and caught seven (7) chickens, while
Manchos forcibly opened the victim’s trunk; that after Manchos had taken
the trunk to the yard, they got the shirts and trousers found therein
and stuffed them inside a sack held by Kintanar; and that after the
commission of the crime, they proceeded to the hut of Solis in sitio
Nasuje, Bo. Inararan, where they cooked and ate the chickens.

It bears emphasis that none of the accused took the witness stand to
repudiate their respetive extra­judicial statements. The declarations
must therefore be considered as having been given voluntarily and
without compulsion or inducement. What is more, their affidavits show
no sign of any suspicious circumstances which would cast doubt upon
their veracity. Their answers to the questions propounded therein are
fully in­formative and fraught with details that only the per­petrators
themselves could have known.

We hold that defendants’ confessions, corroborated as they are by
evidence of corpus delicti, suf­fice to support the judgment of
conviction. The fact of the robbery as well as the violent death of the
victim constitute the corpus delicti. This Court has consistently
ruled that the accused can be held liable under their own confessions
even if no eyewitness had testified on having seen them committing the
crime, or had seen them under the circumstances indicating their having
committed the crime. (People vs. Narciso, 24 SCRA 844; People vs. Dorado, 30 SCRA 53).

The conduct displayed by the three accused before, during and after the
commission of the crime re­veals coordination of efforts and community
of design to commit the crime charged. As correctly observed by the
trial court –

“x x x The presence of conspiracy by the three accused in the case
at bar is not open to doubt or quibbling because all of them admitted
in their respective affidavits that while they were on their way to
sitio Costanera, they agreed to rob Corsita. This they accomplished
without the least bit of resistance from their victim, but when they
were recognized by Corsita, Solis did not hesitate to kill him with the
futile hope in mind to seal their dastard­ly act in the silence of the
tomb. x x x.

“Our appellate court have repeatedly held that ‘it is a primary
rule that if two or more persons combine to perform a criminal act, each
is responsible for all the acts of the others done in furtherance of
the common design’; and ‘the result is the same if the act is divided
into parts and each person proceeds with his part unaided’ (People vs. Cabrera, 43 Phil. 64, 96; People vs. Tapalla, CA-G.R. No. 333-R, Jan. 26, 1948, 45 O.G. 3118).

“In the case of Kintanar, he agreed to the conspiracy and stayed
near the fence. Apparently, he acted as a guard or look out for his
co-conspirators. He contended in his confession that he ran away after
hear­ing a noise coming from the house of Corsita followed by sounds of
groaning. But this attempt to wash himself clean of the more serious
crime of homicide was contradicted by Solis who asserted in his
confession that Kintanar held the sack while he (Solis) was placing
therein the stolen chickens as well as some clothes that were taken from
the trunk of the old man which was forcibly opened by Manchos. And to
cap the joint liability of Kintanar for the killing of Corsita, he did
not even bother to deny the statements made by Solis and Manchos in
their affidavits that he (Kintanar) also benefited from the proceeds of
their abominable act by partaking of the stolen chickens which were
cooked by them in Solis’ small but in Nasohi.

“There were several reasons for finding and believing that
Kintanar really conspired with his co-accused at least to rob their
Victim of some things, if not altogether to kill him. These three
conspirators went to the house of the deceased with the common design to
commit the robbery and they cooperated with one another in perpetrating
it, to the extent of taking the life of the robbery victim. So, all of
them should be made jointly accountable for the cowardly murder of the
old man.

“The evidence holding Manchos responsible for the killing of
Corsita is even stronger for he active­ly participated in manhandling
the poor victim by first kicking Corsita as he fell from the stairs upon
being pulled by Solis and second, but worse, by holding Corsita’s back
when Solis hacked the old man at the nape with his bolo. Therefore,
Manchos was physically present when the hacking took place, and yet he
did not lift a finger to prevent the unnecessary slaying. He also
brought out to the yard Corsita’s trunk which he forcibly opened and
ransacked. Like Kintanar, Manchos likewise profited from the crime by
joining his conspirators in feasting on the chickens they had stolen
from the widower.”

The appellants contend that they were deprived of due process for
failure of the trial court to afford them the right to be defended by a
lawyer of their own choice. This contention is devoid of factual basis.
Appellants were arraigned on April 11, 1969, but actual trial did not
start until February 5, 1970, or ten (10) months later. This was due to
frequent postponements caused by their failure to secure the services
of a lawyer of their own choice. Their alleged counsel de parte,
Atty. Carranza, never appeared in court. If they were indeed sincere
in their desire to secure the services of a lawyer of their own choice,
that period of ten months was more than sufficient for them to do so.

Besides, during the proceedings a quo, appellants never
informed the trial court of their desire to be defended by a lawyer of
their own choice; neither did they protest the appointment or the
actuations of their counsel de oficio. It has been held that
where a counsel has been assigned to a person on trial and such counsel
has acted without objection from the accused, the latter’s conviction
cannot be set aside on the sole ground that said counsel was not of his
own choice.^[1]

As to the claim that the trial court erred in not requiring them to
testify in order to ascertain from them the veracity and voluntariness
of their confessions, suffice it to state that not one of the accused
had even in­timated that said confessions were extracted through
violence or coercion. In view of their express waiver to present
evidence in their defense, the trial court had no alternative but to
decide the case on the basis of the evidence adduced by the prosecution
(Abriol vs. Homeras, 84 Phil. 529). In People vs. Omar (L-7137, April 30, 1955) this Court held –

“The trouble with appellant’s case is that he chose not to present
evidence to account for his presence on the spot immediately after the
fusilade – even in the face of incriminatory evidence linking him to it.
Not that unfavorable deduction of guilt may be drawn from defendant’s
silence. The principle is that although the accused is not required to
testify in his own behalf, nor required to produce witnesses, yet he
runs the risk of an inference from non-production of evidence (U.S. vs.
Sarikala, 37 Phil. 486). What we mean is that, when the mass of
evidentiary details point to the general conclusion of guilt, the
accused who fails to produce exculpatory evidence cannot expect the
court to imagine or surmise possible circumstances which might justify
rejection of such factual conclusion.”

Upon these premises, all the accused are guilty of the crime charged.
The slaying of Herminio Corsita during or on the occasion of the
robbery, wherein they admittedly participated, makes all of them guilty
of the crime charged. Well entrenched is the rule that whenever a
homicide has been committed as a consequence, or on the occasion, of a
robbery, all those who took part therein are liable as principals of the
crime of robbery with homicide, although some did not actually take
part in the homicide, unless it clearly appears that they endeavored to
prevent the homicide.^[2]

IN VIEW OF ALL THE FOREGOING, the decision appealed from is hereby
AFFIRMED. However, for lack of necessary votes, the death sentence
imposed upon the accused-appellants Jaime Solis, Arsenio Manchos and
Bernardito Kintanar, who have been under custody for fifteen (15) years,
is hereby reduced to reclusion perpetua. Costs against the accused. The civil indemnity awarded to the heirs of the victim is hereby increased to P30,000.00.

SO ORDERED.

Aquino, Concepcion, Jr., Guerrero, Abad Santos, De Castro, Melencio-Herrera, Plana, Relova, Gutierrez, Jr. and De La Fuente, JJ., concur.

Fernando, C.J., Teehankee and Makasiar, JJ., on leave.

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^[1] U.S. vs. Laranja, 21 Phil. 500.

^[2] People vs. Bautista, 49 Phil. 389; 396; People vs. Carunungan, 109 Phil. 534; People vs. Veloso, 112 SCRA 173.