THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLANT, VS. VICTORIANO CANOY, ET AL., DEFENDANTS. SERGIO GABUCAN, DEFENDANT AND APPELLANT.

People versus Gabucan

The Case

This is a criminal appeal in which the People of the Philippines prosecuted Sergio Gabucan and three companions for two offenses tried together: illegal possession of firearms, and attempted robbery in band with homicide. The case matters to a reviewee because it shows how the Supreme Court treats a conspiracy once established — that the identity of the one who actually fired the fatal shot becomes immaterial — and because it corrects a trial court's penalty by insisting on the exact statutory language of the law, holding that the Indeterminate Sentence Act does not apply to offenses punished with reclusion perpetua.

Procedural History

Sergio Gabucan, Julian Kho, Victoriano Canoy and Pedro Flores were charged before the Court of First Instance of Cebu in two cases, one for illegal possession of firearms and one for attempted robbery in band with homicide. While awaiting trial, three of the accused escaped from jail; Julian Kho was rearrested. A joint trial proceeded against Sergio Gabucan and Julian Kho. After trial, the trial court found both guilty of both crimes, imposed penalties for each, ordered indemnity to the heirs of the deceased, and ordered them to pay the costs. Only Sergio Gabucan appealed, and the case reached the Supreme Court on that appeal.

Facts

On the night of 12 March 1948, the four accused, who had recently been released from the provincial jail, took firearms and ammunition from the office of the deputy clerk of court, where the weapons were kept as exhibits in criminal cases. In the early morning of 13 March 1948, between two-thirty and three o'clock, two prowlers opened the door of a ground-floor room in the house of Gregorio Sevilla on Mango Avenue in Cebu, where Abundio Carungay was sleeping. One carried a pistol, the other a flashlight and a knife. By the beam of the flashlight Carungay recognized Julian Kho and Pedro Flores. Carungay shouted for help, waking Gregorio Sevilla and his wife Ruth upstairs, and the intruders fled.

Ruth Sevilla ran to the kitchen and opened the door. She saw a man standing in the yard behind the house. When her husband joined her and was about to raise his gun, she heard five or six gunshots from a corner of the yard and saw her husband fall. Gregorio Sevilla died instantly from a gunshot wound through the heart, fired from a .30 caliber gun. A revolver was found in the yard the next morning, and a piece of blue denim cloth matching Sergio Gabucan's trousers was found hooked to the wire fence.

Acting on a tip from a store owner, the police arrested three of the accused, who confessed and pointed to a foxhole near Sergio Gabucan's house where the arms were hidden. The firearms were recovered there. Sergio Gabucan had left for Cagayan, Oriental Misamis, in the afternoon of 13 March; he was arrested there and brought back to Cebu on 29 October 1948. All the defendants made sworn statements before the municipal judge admitting their participation. At trial, Sergio Gabucan claimed ill-treatment forced him to sign his affidavit and set up alibi, while Julian Kho testified substantially in line with the prosecution evidence, differing only as to who fired the fatal shots.

Issues

• Whether or not the guilt of Sergio Gabucan for the crimes charged was established beyond reasonable doubt, given his claim that his extrajudicial admission was involuntary.
• Whether or not it matters which of the conspirators actually fired the shot that killed Gregorio Sevilla.
• Whether or not the penalty imposed for illegal possession of firearms was correctly stated in the judgment.
• Whether or not the Indeterminate Sentence Act applies to the penalty for attempted robbery with homicide.

Applicable Provisions

Article 297 of the Revised Penal Code, on attempted robbery with homicide, provides:

When the robbery is attempted and a homicide is committed by reason or on the occasion thereof, the penalty of reclusion temporal in its maximum period to reclusion perpetua shall be imposed.

This fixes the range from which the Court must choose the penalty, and it is the provision under which the appellant was sentenced to reclusion perpetua.

Section 2 of Act No. 4103, the Indeterminate Sentence Act, as amended by Act No. 4225, provides:

This Act shall not apply to persons convicted of offenses punished with death penalty or life imprisonment.

This is the provision the Court invokes to hold that the indeterminate sentence law cannot be applied to a penalty of reclusion perpetua.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that Sergio Gabucan's guilt was established. His extrajudicial admission, voluntarily made before the municipal judge, was corroborated by the disappearance of the arms, their recovery in the foxhole he himself pointed out after his arrest, his admissions to a detective, and his flight from Cebu on the very afternoon of the crime, which revealed a guilty conscience. The Court found a conspiracy among the four accused.

On the second issue, the Court held that, conspiracy having been established, it is immaterial whether it was Victoriano Canoy or Sergio Gabucan who fired the fatal shot. All the defendants are guilty of the crimes charged.

On the third issue, the Court held that the penalty for illegal possession of firearms, though within the range of the governing law, was wrongly expressed: it should be stated as imprisonment, not as prision correccional and prision mayor. The Court struck out those words and wrote imprisonment in their place.

On the fourth issue, the Court held that the penalty for attempted robbery with homicide is reclusion temporal in its maximum period to reclusion perpetua, and that two aggravating circumstances concurred — more than three armed malefactors took part, and nocturnity — with no attenuating circumstance to offset them, since lack of intent to commit so grave a wrong does not apply to robbery. The penalty must therefore be imposed in its maximum period, which is reclusion perpetua. The Court then applied the Indeterminate Sentence Act's own exclusion:

This Act shall not apply to persons convicted of offenses punished with death penalty or life imprisonment.

Hence the indeterminate sentence law does not apply.

Doctrine

Once a conspiracy is established, the act of one conspirator is the act of all, and it is immaterial which conspirator actually fired the fatal shot; all are equally guilty of the crime charged. The penalty for attempted robbery with homicide is reclusion temporal in its maximum period to reclusion perpetua, and where aggravating circumstances concur without any offsetting attenuating circumstance, the penalty is imposed in its maximum period, which is reclusion perpetua. The Indeterminate Sentence Act does not apply to persons convicted of offenses punished with life imprisonment or reclusion perpetua, so no indeterminate penalty may be fixed for such offenses. A judgment must state the penalty in the exact terms of the law.

Disposition

The Court modified the judgment appealed from by striking out prision correccional and prision mayor from the penalty for illegal possession of firearms and writing imprisonment in their place, sentenced the appellant to reclusion perpetua for attempted robbery with homicide with the accessories of the law, and affirmed the rest of the judgment, with costs against the appellant.

Remember This

The line worth memorizing is that once conspiracy is established, it is immaterial who fired the fatal shot, and the Indeterminate Sentence Act does not apply to offenses punished with reclusion perpetua. Examiners use this case to test conspiracy and the correct penalty for attempted robbery with homicide, and to test whether a candidate knows the statutory exclusion of the indeterminate sentence law.