PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. DARREL BASINAL @ “DAR”, ACCUSED-APPELLANT.

People versus Basinal

The Case

This is a criminal appeal in which the People of the Philippines prosecute Darrel Basinal, known as Dar, for the killing of Jay-Ar Garcia Hierro. The accused was charged with murder after the victim, who had been shot in the neck and left bedridden, eventually died. The case matters to a reviewee for two reasons: it is a clean illustration of how the Supreme Court treats the credibility of an eyewitness who stood at arm's length from the shooting, and, more importantly, it is a working lesson on proximate cause in homicide, where the accused argued that an efficient intervening cause broke the chain between his bullet and the victim's death.

Procedural History

The accused was originally charged with frustrated murder before the Regional Trial Court of Las Piñas City. After the victim died, the information was amended to murder. At arraignment the accused pleaded not guilty, and trial proceeded. The trial court, in a judgment dated May 10, 2013, found the accused guilty beyond reasonable doubt of murder and sentenced him to an indeterminate penalty of reclusion perpetua, with an award of civil indemnity, moral damages, exemplary damages, actual damages, and interest. The accused appealed directly to the Supreme Court, raising the sufficiency of the evidence and the correctness of the conviction. The Supreme Court denied the appeal but modified the penalty, correcting the trial court's use of an indeterminate penalty.

Facts

In the early morning of September 2, 2008, Benjie Beato, his best friend Jay-Ar Hierro, and a certain Macmac were walking through an alley toward the market in Las Piñas City after attending a birthday party. They chanced upon the accused, who was with two companions. The accused suddenly approached Jay-Ar, poked a caliber .38 gun at his neck, and fired once. Jay-Ar fell. The accused and his companions ran away, bringing the gun. Beato, who was only about an arm's length away, asked neighbors for help and sent Macmac to inform the victim's family.

Jay-Ar was brought to the Las Piñas District Hospital, which refused to admit him for lack of facilities, and he was referred to the Philippine General Hospital. There his mother, Gemma Hierro, found him bloodied, and he told her that Darryl Basinal had shot him. He was operated on and stayed in the hospital for about two months, but because the family could not afford the follow-up check-up, he remained bedridden at home until he died on November 18, 2009, at the age of eighteen.

The prosecution's expert, Dr. Ruperto Sombilon, conducted the autopsy and found the cause of death to be septicemia secondary to infected bed sores, explaining that the long-term bedridden condition produced the bedsores, whose infection entered the blood and caused multiple organ failure. The defense, for its part, presented the accused's denial, claiming he was chatting with friends near his home and went home to sleep, corroborated by a barangay official who had asked the group to disperse and who heard a gunshot but saw neither the shooter nor the victim.

Issues

• Whether or not the prosecution proved the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt, notwithstanding the alleged inconsistencies in the testimonies of its witnesses.
• Whether or not the accused may be convicted of murder, considering his claim that an efficient intervening cause between the wounding and the death exculpates him from liability.

Applicable Provisions

Article 248 of the Revised Penal Code, as amended, defines and penalizes murder, and provides:

Article 248. Murder. — Any person who, not falling within the provisions of Article 246 shall kill another, shall be guilty of murder and shall be punished by reclusion temporal in its maximum period to death, if committed with any of the following attendant circumstances: 1. With treachery, taking advantage of superior strength, with the aid of armed men, or employing means to weaken the defense or of means or persons to insure or afford impunity.

This is the provision under which the accused was convicted, treachery being the qualifying circumstance, and it fixes the penalty of reclusion perpetua to death.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that the appeal fails. The question turned on the credibility of the prosecution witnesses, and the Court reaffirmed that the task of assigning value to testimony and weighing credibility is best left to the trial court, which forms first-hand impressions of the witnesses' demeanor. The Court found no serious or material inconsistency in the testimony of Benjie Beato, the eyewitness, who positively identified the accused as the perpetrator, was categorical and frank, and could not have been mistaken because he stood only an arm's length from the victim when the shot was fired. The accused's identity was further bolstered by the victim's own sworn statement identifying him as the shooter.

On the second issue, the Court rejected the argument of an efficient intervening cause. The rule is that the death of the victim must be the direct, natural, and logical consequence of the wounds inflicted by the accused, and that proof of causation must convince a rational mind beyond reasonable doubt. Quoting its earlier ruling, the Court explained the doctrine of proximate cause:

Proximate cause is that cause which in natural and continuous sequence, unbroken by an efficient intervening cause, produces the injury, and without which the result would not have occurred.

The Court added that the cause and effect relationship is not altered by the pre-existing condition or physical constitution of the victim, nor by conditions supervening the felonious act. Applying this, the Court held that although the victim did not die immediately, the gunshot wound rendered him bedridden, and it was this bedridden condition that produced the infected bedsores and the septicemia that killed him. Were it not for the gunshot wound, the victim might not have been afflicted with the infection. The Court stressed that only moral, not absolute, certainty is required, and it entertained no doubt as to the accused's guilt.

On the penalty, the Court noted that murder qualified by treachery is penalized with reclusion perpetua to death, and that with no ordinary aggravating or mitigating circumstance, the lower of the two indivisible penalties, reclusion perpetua, should be imposed. The Indeterminate Sentence Law could not apply because the penalty is indivisible, so the trial court's indeterminate penalty was corrected.

Doctrine

A person committing a felony is criminally liable for all the natural and logical consequences of his act, even if the wrongful act done be different from that which he intended. The felony must be the proximate cause of the resulting injury, meaning the cause which, in natural and continuous sequence, unbroken by an efficient intervening cause, produces the injury, and without which the result would not have occurred. The chain of causation is not broken by the pre-existing pathological condition or physical constitution of the victim, nor by conditions supervening the felonious act such as infection. The offender is criminally liable for the death of the victim if his delictual act caused, accelerated, or contributed to that death. Finally, findings of the trial court on the credibility of witnesses are accorded a badge of respect, absent grave abuse of discretion or overlooked material facts.

Disposition

The appeal was denied, and the judgment of the trial court was affirmed with modification, imposing the penalty of reclusion perpetua and the same awards of damages with interest.

Remember This

Memorize the line that the offender is criminally liable for the death of the victim if his delictual act caused, accelerated, or contributed to that death. Examiners use this case to test proximate cause in homicide, where the defense invokes an efficient intervening cause such as infection or medical complication, and to test the rule that the Indeterminate Sentence Law does not apply to indivisible penalties.