ELIAS VALCORZA, PETITIONER, VS. PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, RESPONDENT.

Elias Valcorza was charged with
homicide in the Court of First Instance of Bukidnon
where, after trial, he was found guilty thereof, with the mitigating
circumstances of lack of intention to commit so grave a wrong as the one
committed and voluntary surrender, and sentenced to suffer an indeterminate
sentence of not less than two years, four months and one day of prision correccional, nor more
than eight years and one day of prision mayor, to
indemnify the heirs of Roberto Pimentel in the amount of P6,000, but without
subsidiary imprison­ment in case of insolvency, and to pay the costs.  He appealed to the Court of Appeals where, on
August 16, 1967, judgment
was rendered modifying the decision of the trial court, as follows:

“WHEREFORE, the judgment is modified as to the prison term and
appellant Elias Valcorza is declared guilty of
homicide with the mitigating circumstances of voluntary surrender and passion
and obfuscation and, accordingly, he is sentenced to serve an in­determinate
penalty of four (4) months and one (1) day of arresto
mayor, as minimum, to two (2) years, four (4) months and one (1) day of prision correccional, as maximum,
with the accessories of the law; to pay the heirs of the deceased, Roberto
Pimentel, in the sum of six thousand pesos (P6,000.00), together with the
costs.

“In all other respects, the appealed judgment is
affirmed.”

From the above decision
the present appeal by certiorari was
taken, it being petitioner’s claim that the Court of Appeals committed the
following errors:

“ASSIGNMENT OF ERRORS

I

THAT THE HONORABLE COURT OF APPEALS (MAJORITY DECISION) ERRED IN
HOLDING THAT PETITIONER ALTHOUGH IN THE PERFORMANCE OF HIS DUTY AS PEACE
OFFICER WAS NOT JUSTIFIED IN SHOOTING THE DECEASED BECAUSE THERE WAS NO DANGER
TO HIS LIFE OR LIMB, A RULING WHICH IS BEYOND THE CONTEXT OF ARTICLE 11,
PARAGRAPH 5 OF THE REVISED PENAL CODE AND CONTRARY TO THE RULING LAID BY THIS
HONORABLE SUPREME COURT IN PEOPLE VERSUS DELIMA, 46 PHIL. 738;

II

THAT THE HONORABLE COURT OF APPEALS (MAJORITY DECISION) ERRED IN
LIKING PETI­TIONER TO A TRIGGER-HAPPY POLICEMAN AND IN HOLDING THAT THE
DECEASED HAS NOT SHOWN TO BE A DANGEROUS PERSON, A RULING WHICH IS CONTRARY TO
ITS FINDING OF FACTS;

III

THAT THE
HONORABLE COURT OF APPEALS (MAJORITY DECISION) ERRED IN NOT ACQUITTING THE
PETITIONER BASED ON THE FACTS IN RELATION TO ARTICLE 11, PARAGRAPH 5 OF THE
REVISED PENAL CODE.”

The facts found by the
Court of Appeals – which must be deemed conclusive for the purpose of this
appeal – are as follows:

“The deceased, Roberto Pimentel, was confined on June 4, 1960 in the municipal jail of Maramag, Bukidnon, as a detention
prisoner to answer a charge of stealing a chicken.  At about 1:00
p.m. when appellant was the police guard on duty, Roberto Pi­mentel
escaped.  The following day a police
patrol team composed of Police Sgt. Federico Daiton
and Patrolman Melquiades Cañas,
Pablo Lubido and the appellant himself went to a
place called Poultry Area in barrio Cuya, Maramag, Bukidnon, where the
accused had been reported to be hiding, for the purpose of bringing him back to
jail.  Their efforts to locate and
apprehend Roberto Pimentel having been fruitless, they decided to pass the
night in the house of one Gavino Tirayosa,
intending to return to town the following morning.

“At about five o’clock
in the morning of the next day, June 6, 1960, Sgt. Daiton went down from the house of Gavino
Tirayosa to answer a call of nature.  He went to a nearby bridge and squatted
thereon to defecate.  While he was in
that position, he saw a person approaching slowly and he ordered him to
halt.  The latter, instead of doing so,
jumped down into the creek spanned by the bridge.  He yelled for his companions, saying that the
person who jumped into the creek could be their quarry.  Patrolman Cañas, Lubido and the appellant rushed out of the house of Gavino Tirayosa, Cañas and appellant going to the place at the creek where
the person had jumped down.

“Sgt. Daiton stationed himself near
the bridge and Patrolman Lubido went to the other
side of the creek.  Appellant and Cañas followed the course of the creek and after covering a
dis­tance of 100 meters they came across footprints which they examined
separate­ly.  While they were doing so,
Roberto Pimentel emerged suddenly from the bushes and lunged at the appellant,
hitting him with a stone at the right cheek and causing him to fall to the
ground.  When appellant Valcorza was on the ground, Roberto Pimentel again struck
him with a stone on the right arm. 
Fearing that Pimentel might grab his service revolver, appellant Valcorza summoned Patrolman Cañas
who dashed to­wards the place but Pimentel ran away.  Appellant Valcorza
regained his composure and immediately chased the deceased, fir­ing a shot into
the air and ordering him to stop.  As the
deceased did not heed his order, appellant fired four times into the air, at
the same time pursuing the prisoner for a distance of about 100 meters.  At that point, fearing that the patrol team
might fall in apprehending the deceased, appellant Valcorza
fired a fifth shot at Pimentel as the latter was in an act of again jumping
down into another part of the creek and when the distance between the two was
only three meters.  Patrolman Cañas could not be of much help in the chase because his
revolver got entangled with some vines and he dropped it.  After recovering his re­volver he joined Valcorza but Pimentel had already jumped down into the
water of the creek.

“The members of the patrol team went down into the water to
locate Pimentel and they saw him
floating, with a wound on his back.  As
Pimentel was still alive, he was placed in the police jeep and taken to the poblacion of Maramag for
treatment, but he died a few minutes after arrival in the municipal building.

“The physician who examined the cadaver of the victim gave the
opinion that the missile from the gun fired against the victim entered at the
right side of the back but the slug was lodged inside the body.  The gray discoloration at the edge or rim of
the wound of entry showed the presence of powder burns which, in the opinion of
the physician, indicates that the gun was fired at close range.

“Elias Valcorza surrendered himself
and his firearm to the Chief of Police upon arrival in the municipal building
of Mara­mag.

“Appellant seeks to justify his firing the shot against the
deceased by stating that he tried to hit him only at the leg, after he had
disregarded his several warning shots and orders to stop running away.  He claims that he did so at the spur of the
moment probably because he feared that his patrol team might not succeed in
apprehending the deceased and bringing him back to jail.  Furthermore, he also claims that he only
fired at the deceased when the latter was in the act of jumping down into the
creek which had water of 8 feet deep, and if the deceased succeeding in
crossing the creek the patrol team might not be able to apprehend him.  In brief the appel­lant conveys idea that he
had to fire at the deceased in order that he may not continue es­caping.

“The above version of the appellant was given in open court
when he testified on Octo­ber 4, 1962
(t.s.n. — pp. 9, 76).  However his claim that he aimed only at the
leg of the deceased is not consistent with what he said in his sworn statement,
Exhibit A. ‘Question and Answer No. 7′ (p.
1, Criminal Case Record), given to the Constabulary soldiers on the after­noon
of the day of the incident, or at 3:15 p.m. of June 6, 1960.  In narrating how the deceased was shot,
appellant Valcorza stated in part as follows:

‘But said Roberto Pimentel tried his very
best to make another escape then he ran away ’cause I was fell down on the
ground during the time I wrestled him, Roberto Pimentel.  Then I still follow him and fire my revolver
four (4) times up in the sky to stop him but still he continue running, so what I did I fired him one direct hit
shot on his back then he tried dive escape into the water, and because he could
not do anything ’cause he was already suffering from a gunshot wound we pick
him up and bring him to our headquarters in the Office of the Chief of Police
of Maramag, Bukidnon, for
the necessary treatment of the gunshot wound on his right side back….’

“What the appellant said on June 6, 1960 in his statement,
Exhibit A, which he subscribed and sworn to before the Justice of the Peace
of Maramag, Bukidnon,
on June 7, 1960, is an un­adulterated narration of what happened on the day of
the incident more than two years before he took the witness stand.  This first narration is more reliable because
it was made when there was yet no time for reflection so as to make his story
fit into the facts of the incident. 
After the lapse of two years during which he could de­liberate and analyse the occurrence and prepare his defense, his
testimony in court no longer jibed with what he said shortly after the
event.  This inconsistency affects his
credibility and wrecks his theory that he had no intention to kill the deceased
but only meant to disable him from further escaping.  It also seriously impairs his defense as it
shows that there was no reasonable necessity for appellant to shoot the
deceased at the time when he was running away with no weapon in his hands which
he could use for aggression against the appellant in case he desired to turn
back and face the latter.” (pp. 3-7, Annex “A”, Petitioners
brief.).

There is no question, therefore, that:  on June 4, 1960, the deceased Roberto Pimentel
was a detention pri­soner confined in the municipal jail of Maramag,
Bukidnon, from which he escaped at about one o‘clock p.m. that day when petitioner
was on guard duty; the following day four members of the police force of the
municipality, petitioner included, went after him to a place called Poultry
Area in barrio Cuya, their first efforts to locate
him there being unsuccessful; early the following morning, while Sgt. Daiton, who led the patrol, was squatting on a bridge to
answer a call of nature, he saw a man approaching slowly and he ordered him to
stop; the latter, who happened to be the escaped de­tainee, instead of doing
so, jumped into the creek spanned by the bridge, whereupon Sgt. Daiton summoned his three companions who all rushed out of
the house where they had spent the night, and went after the escaping prisoner;
petitioner and policeman Cañas, while following the
course of the creek and examining certain footprints they had found, saw their
quarry suddenly emerging from nearby bushes; the latter lunged at petitioner
hitting him with a stone on the right cheek, as a consequence of which he fell
down, and while in that position on the ground he was struck again with a stone
by the escaping detainee; thereafter the latter ran away pursued by petitioner
and his companion; in the course of the pursuit the former fired a warning shot
into the air, and as the escaping detainee paid no heed to this, petitioner
fired into the air four times more and kept on pursuing him; as the latter was
apparently widening the distance between them, and fearing that he might
finally be able to elude arrest, petitioner fired directly at him while he was
in the act of jumping again into another part of the creek, the shot having hit
him on the back; as a result of the wound thus inflicted upon him, Pimentel
died a few minutes after arrival at the municipal building to which he was
taken.

While We have not lost sight of the fact that the deceased
Pimentel was charged with a relatively minor offense, namely, stealing a
chicken; and while We do not in any way wish to encourage law enforcing
officers to be trigger-happy nor to employ force and violence upon persons
under their custody, We can not, in the consideration of this case, disregard
the following facts:  the said deceased,
in violation of the law, had escaped from detention; when ordered to stop by
Sgt. Daiton – whom he must have recognized as a peace
officer in his pursuit – he ran away and then threw himself into a creek to
elude his pursuer; after sometime he suddenly emerged from bushes near which
petitioner and a fellow policeman were and as­saulted the former twice with a
stone and then ran away again pursued by petitioner and his companion; that peti­tioner
does not appear to be a trigger-happy policeman as shown by the fact that he had fired five cautionary shots into the
air and decided to aim directly at the escaping detainee only when he
had already reasons to fear that the latter would be able to elude him and his
companions.  These facts and circumstances
constrain Us
to hold that the act thus performed by petitioner – and which unfortunately resulted in the death
of the escaping detainee – was committed in the performance of his
official duty and was more or less
necessary to prevent the escaping prisoner from successfully eluding the
officers of the law.  To hold him guilty
of homicide may have the effect of demoralizing
police officers discharging official functions identical or similar to those in the performance of which petitioner
was engaged at the time he fired at the deceased Pimentel, with the result that
thereafter We would have half-hearted and dispirited efforts on their part to comply with such
official duty.  This, of course,
would be to the great detriment of public interest.

CONSEQUENTLY, in the spirit of our decision in People vs. Delima, 46 Phil. 738, the decision appealed from is hereby
reversed and, as a consequence, petitioner
is acquitted, with costs de oficio.

Concepcion, C.J., Reyes, J.B.L., Makalintal, Zaldivar, Castro,
Fernando, and Teehankee,
JJ., concur.

Sanchez and Barredo, JJ., did not take part.