THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. MARIANO ESTEBAN Y MOLINA AND LUIS CAMAYA Y ROCHA, ACCUSED-APPELLANTS.

This is a review of the decision of the Court of First Instance
of Rizal, Pasay City Branch VII, dated October 11, 1966, convicting Mariano
Esteban and Luis Camaya of murder,
sentencing them to death and ordering them to pay soli­darily to the heirs of
Maria Pascua an indemnity of six thou­sand pesos (Criminal Case No. 6058-P).

In the same decision, Esteban and Camaya were con­victed of
frustrated murder with respect to the assault upon Antonio Maravilla. They were each sentenced to a straight
penalty of seventeen years and four months of reclusion temporal. No indemnity was imposed
(Criminal Case No. 6059-P).

In 1963, there resided in the vicinity of Protacio Street
Extension and Gamban Street (Bukid), Pasay City Antonio Maravilla (Landicho),
34; his querida, Loreta Alega
(Lulu); Mariano Esteban (Totoy), 42; Tomas Ablola (Arbiola or Mati) (Exh.
3-Esteban, p. 290, Record; 16 tsn March 19, 1964) and the spouses Maria Pascua
and Apolonio Lozano. They were
neighbors.

Luis Camaya, 27, used to reside in that vicinity. Later, he transferred to 2641 Zamora Street
Camaya, Esteban and Ablola called each other compadre.

Sometime in 1961, the husband of Lulu Alega was killed. Four persons, among whom were Esteban,
Ablola and Camaya, were implicated in the killing. Camaya was the alleged killer. The case was compromised. It was
agreed that the four accused would pay Lulu P1, 500 as settlement of the case
(Exh. 3-Esteban, pp. 290-1, Record).

About three o’clock in the afternoon of May 1, 1963, Maravilla
and Lulu went to the house of Camaya to collect the sum of P47 as the balance
still due on the compromise settle­ment. They had an altercation. Camaya
said that Esteban would advance (“magaabono”) the payment of the sum
of P47 (pp. 334 and 337, Record; Exh. E-2, p. 227, Record).

At about six-thirty in the evening of that same day, May 1,
Maravilla repaired to the house of Esteban to collect the balance of P47. Esteban promised to pay twenty pesos the
next day. Maravilla reminded Esteban
that the criminal case was only
provisionally dismissed and that nonpayment of the balance might prejudice
him. Esteban said that he would pay
that balance and then seek reimbursement from Camaya (Exh, 3-Esteban, pp.
290-291, Record).

Thereafter, Maravilla returned to the yard of the house of Maria
Pascua where he and other persons had been having a drinking spree. The yard was inclosed by a mat and woven
coconut leaves (See Exh. F, p. 229, Record).

At about seven o’clock in the evening, Maravilla saw Esteban and
Ablola or Mati passing by Maria Pascua’ s house but they did not come in and
did riot take part in the drinking bout.

Then, at eleven o’clock, when Maravilla and his six companions
had finished drinking and were singing in the yard, successive gunshots were
fired at the group. Maravilla Stood up and looked over the partition in the
direction where the shots originated.

Maravilla saw three men about to leave the place, two of whom
were Esteban and Mati. The latter was
holding an automatic rifle which looked like a Thompson submachinegun and which
he was handing to his companion (“nagaabutan sila”).

At that juncture, Maravilla realized that he had been wounded in
the shoulder and below the nape at the top of his Spinal column. Blood was oozing from his wounds. He felt weak and dizzy. He told Ben Junior to call a policeman.

The gunshots penetrated the house. Maria Pascua, who was sleeping inside the house, .was mortally
wounded in the head by means of a metal jacketed bullet (Exh. I).

The policemen found three empty shells on the spot near the
partition, where Maravilla saw three intruders, and a slug inside the house near the corpse of Maria Pascua.

Maravilla managed to get out of the house and emerged on the
street where he collapsed. He was found
by the police­men sprawled at the corner of M. de la Cruz and Protacio
Streets. When he was asked as to who
had shot him, he identi­fied his assailants as “sina Totoy Kangkong, sina
Mate” referring to Esteban and
Ablola) (117 tsn December 3, 1965).

Maravilla had an entrance gunshot wound on the left
shoulder. The bullet caused paralysis
from the waist down, blocked his cervical canal and injured his spinal cord and
lungs and fractured his ribs. There was
no exit wound. The bullet remained
inside his chest. (He was hospitalized
for more than fifteen months.) Without medical intervention, Maravilla would
have died because of those injuries.

Maravilla was brought to the Manila Sanitarium on that same
evening of May 1, 1963. He had
difficulty in breathing. Patrolman
Cayetano Cedilla, who interviewed Maravilla at twelve-quarter in the morning,
or about an hour after the shooting, observed that the latter was on the
threshold of death. Cedilla took down
Maravilla’s dying declaration in the
presence of two patrolmen. It was thumbmarked
by Maravilla (Exh. C, p. 223, Record).

In that statement (a res gestae declaration),
Maravilla pointed to Esteban and Mati as the gunwielders near the coco­nut palm
who shot him at around eleven-thirty in the evening. Maravilla said that earlier in the day he had an altercation with
Esteban (Exh. C).

After taking down Maravilla’s statement, Patrolman Cedilla picked
up Esteban and brought him to the hospital where Maravilla, in the presence of
his mother, a patrolman and some nurses, fingered Esteban as his assailant
nicknamed Totoy. “Iyan nga, ho, si Totoy”, Maravilla assured Cedilla.
“Sila ho ang magkasama nina Mate kanina” (12 tsn February 26, 1964;
115-117, 125 tsn December 3, 1965).

A paraffin test was made on Esteban’ s hands on the following day
at the forensic chemistry division of the National Bureu of Investigation. They were found to be “positive with
nitrate specks” (Exh. H; p. 230, Record).

On May 3, 1963, or less than forty-eight hours after the
shooting, Special Counsel Carlos Rustia of the Pasay city fiscal’s office filed
in the Court of First Instance two informa­tions against Esteban and two
unidentified persons, charging them with murder for the killing of Maria Pascua
and frustrated murder for the assault on Maravilla.

About six and a
half months after the incident, while Maravilla was confined at the Saint Luke’s Hospital, Patrol­man Cedilla
showed him the photographs of Camaya and Ablola. Maravilla identified them as the companions of Esteban on the
night when (Maravilla) was shot. The
assailants fired the shots when they were four to five meters away from
Maravilla (Exh. E, pp. 225-28, Record).

In December, 1963, or
after Maravilla had executed his statement of November 15, 1963, implicating
Camaya as one of the three assailants (Exh. E), the informations were
amended so as to include him as one of the accused (p. 8, Record of Criminal
Case No. 6059-P for frustrated murder. No copy of the amended information for murder is found in the record of
Criminal Case No. 6058- P for murder.)

Camaya was arrested on December 22 or 23, 1963 (Exh. 2, p. 19,
Record of Criminal Case No. 6059-P). At
his arraignment on January 10, 1964, he pleaded not guilty.

The two cases were tried jointly by Judge Angel H. Mojica. As already stated, the judgment of
conviction was rendered by Judge Francisco de la Rosa in 1966.

Case of Camaya. – His alibi was that at the time the
shooting occurred he was working in the city slaughterhouse located at
Pinagbarilan Street, Pasay City. The
distance between that place and the house of Maria Pascua could be traversed by
walking in seven or eight minutes (64-65 tsn September 22, 1965).

The next day Camaya learned from a pork vendor that his compadre,
Esteban, was implicated in the killing of Maria Pascua. That information allegedly did not make
Camaya apprehensive that the police would be looking for’ him.

Certain circumstances may indicate that Camaya would most likely
be involved in the assault on Maravilla. Camaya was a friend or
comrade of Esteban and Mati (Mate) and he had some connection with the motive
for the liquidation of Maravilla. Camaya was accused of having taken part in the killing of Lulu’ s
husband in 1961.

A few hours before the shooting, he had a sort of altercation
with Maravilla and his common-law wife, Lulu, who made threatening remarks
against Camaya because of the latter’s failure to complete the payment of the
indemnity or compromise settlement for the killing of Lulu’ s husband. Camaya’ s alibi does not exclude the possibility of, his having
taken part in the shooting of Maravilla.

Notwithstanding these circumstances, it cannot be said that
Camaya’s complicity in the shooting
was established beyond reasonable doubt.

It should be borne in mind that the only eyewitness to the
shooting was Maravilla and he did not implicate at all Camaya in his
(Maravilla’s) statement (Exh. C). That
is the fatal weakness in the prosecution’ s evidence against Camaya which engenders doubts as to his guilt.

If Maravilla recognized
Camaya as one of the three assailants or as the companion of Esteban and
Mati, then, why did not Maravilla name him as one of the culprits in
Maravilla’s res gestae declarations made immediately after the
shooting?

The prosecution was not able to explain that gap in its
evidence. It was only more than six months
later or on November 15, 1963 when Maravilla implicated Camaya. That belated denunciation, which lacks
spontaneity, is not credible. It has the earmarks of an afterthought or a
frameup induced by a grudge or other
ulterior motivation.

Consequently, due to the inconclusive
evidence against Camaya, he has to be
acquitted. His guilt was not established to a moral
certainty. As enunciated by Alfonso X (El Sabio), king of Castille and
Leon, the compiler of Las Siete Partidas, “mas vale que queden sin castigar diez reds
presuntos, que se castigue uno inocente” (Cited in People vs. Cunanan,65 O.G. 9012, L-17599,
April 24, 1967, 19 SCRA 769; 784).

Case of Esteban. – The factual complexion of his case is
different from that of his compadre, Camaya. Esteban’ s alibi was that he was in his house at the time of the
shooting. On that evening, he was supposed to work in the slaughterhouse
with Camaya from eleven o’clock to six o’clock in the morning (Exh. 3-Esteban). Esteban’s house was six lots away from the
scene of the shooting (3 tsn October 5, 1965).

But, according to his version, he did not work and he preferred
to sleep because Camaya did not pay him the five pesos which he owed to Esteban
and which the latter would use to pay his electric bill. That flimsy pretext is not cre­dible.

Esteban was sufficiently identified by Maravilla in the latter’s res
gestae declarations as one of the three assail­ants who fired the shots
that killed Maria Pascua and seriously wounded Maravilla. The paraffin test proved that he fired a gun
shortly before his arrest.

At the confrontation in the hospital, when Maravilla and the
policemen fingered him as the gunwielder, Esteban did not say anything. Because of his silence the policemen
confined him in jail instead of releasing him.

Esteban was infuriated by Maravilla’ s threat five hours before
the shooting that the dismissal of the homicide case against Esteban for his
complicity in the killing of Lulu’s husband was only provisional.

Knowing Maravilla to be a criminal character (he was charged with
murder in 1962 in the Court of First Instance at Pasay City for having killed
Zosimo Priego, Exh. 3-Depo­sition, p. 289, Record), Esteban feared that
Maravilla was capable of asking for the revival of that homicide case. So, Esteban liquidated Maravilla to prevent
the resurrection of the homicide case.

Manuel S. Tonogbanua,
counsel de oficio, who made an able presentation of the
case for the appellants, meticulously and conscientiously scrutinized
Maravilla’s testimony and ve­hemently assailed his credibility.

Counsel contended that Maravilla could not have iden­tified
Esteban as one of the assailants because the partition, which enclosed the yard
where Maravilla and his companions were drinking, had a height exceeding
Maravilla’s height.

That contention is not correct. Maravilla testified      that his height was more than the
height of the partition. He is six feet
and one inch tall while the height of the partition was only five feet and ten
inches (7-8 tsn April 8, 1964; 87 tsn April 3, 1965; 6 tsn March 19, 1964).

Counsel stressed that Maravilla was already very inebriated when
he was shot and, therefore, he did not have sufficient consciousness to
recognize his nocturnal assailants who were about five meters away from him.

It is true that Maravilla had imbibed much beer and gin but the
fact is that he was able to come out of the yard and he collapsed on the street
where a policeman extracted from him
the statement that he was shot by Totoy and Mati (referring to Esteban and
Ablola). There is no reason to doubt
the veracity of the policeman’s testimony on this point.

And that testimony signifies that Maravilla, in spite of his
wounds and his intoxication, still retained sufficient consciousness or
awareness of what had happened to him and had the capacity to articulate
intelligently what was, in his mind.

We have painstakingly reviewed the evidence. We agree with the trial court that Esteban
was sufficiently iden­tified by Maravilla as one of the three assailants and
that his guilt was established beyond reasonable doubt.

As to Maria Pascua, who was killed while asleep, the killing is
murder qualified by treachery which absorbs nocturnity. Dwelling should be appreciated as an
aggravating circumstance. As no
extenuating circumstances were present, the penalty imposable upon Esteban is
death (Arts. 64 and 248, Revised Penal Code).

The fact that Esteban intended to kill Maravilla and in tie course of the assault
incidentally killed Maria Pascua makes him liable for murder just the same
because a person committing a felony is criminally liable although the wrongful
act done be different from that which he intended (Art. 4, Revised Penal
Code). This rule covers aberratio ictus or mistake as to victim.

As to Maravilla, Esteban is guilty of frustrated murder. The trial court erred in imposing upon him
straight penalty of seventeen years and four months. Esteban is entitled to an indeterminate sentence the maximum of
which should be taken from reclusion temporal minimum and the
minimum from the range of prision correccional maximum to prision
mayor medium since no
generic mitigating and aggravating circum­stances can be appreciated in
connection with that offense.

WHEREFORE, (1) the judgment of conviction as to Luis
Camaya is set aside. He is acquitted on
the ground of reasonable doubt.

(2) The trial court’s judgment convicting Mariano Esteban of
murder is affirmed with the modification that the indemnity which he should pay
to the heirs of the victim, Maria
Pascua, is increased to twelve thousand pesos. For lack of necessary votes, the death penalty imposable upon him is
commuted to reclusion perpetua.

For the frustrated murder, Esteban is sentenced to an
indeterminate penalty of ten (10) years of prision mayor
as minimum to fourteen (14) years of reclusion temporal as
maximum, in lieu of the straight penalty of seventeen years and four months of reclusion
temporal, imposed by the trial court. Esteban is further ordered to pay Antonio Maravilla an indemnity of ten
thousand pesos. Costs de oficio
in the two cases.

SO ORDERED.

Fernando, C.J., Teehankee, Barredo, Makasiar, Concepcion, Jr.,
Fernandez, Guerrero, De Castro, and
Melencio-Herrera, JJ., concur.

Abad Santos, J., on abroad.