THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. TEODORO VILLAMOR, ROMULO POLEÑO AND ROMEO CAGARA, ACCUSED WHOSE DEATH SENTENCES ARE UNDER REVIEW.

People versus Villamor

The Case

This is the People of the Philippines against Teodoro Villamor, Romulo Poleño and Romeo Cagara, a murder case that reached the Supreme Court on mandatory review of the death sentences imposed on the three accused. The case matters for two reasons. First, it is a conspiracy case: it shows how the Court treats a common plan to take a man's firearm and to kill him if he refused, carried out by armed men who divided the roles among themselves. Second, and more important for the Bar, it is a confession case. The accused repudiated their extrajudicial confessions on the ground that they were not informed of their rights to remain silent and to counsel. The Court assumes, without deciding, that the confessions are inadmissible, and then affirms the conviction anyway on the strength of eyewitness testimony and the testimony of two discharged co-accused who turned State witnesses. The lesson is that an inadmissible confession does not sink a case that stands on independent evidence.

Procedural History

The three accused, together with Eutropio Argales, Dionisio Argales and Rogelio Genita, were charged with murder before the Court of First Instance of Leyte, Tacloban City, Branch Four. Genita was never arrested. The Argales cousins were discharged and became State witnesses. After trial, the trial court convicted Villamor, Poleño and Cagara of murder, sentenced each of them to death, and ordered them to pay solidarily to the heirs of Lolito Bernal an indemnity of twelve thousand pesos.

That murder case was tried jointly with a separate murder case for the killing of Jesus Canales, in which the trial court convicted Villamor and Cagara and sentenced each to reclusion perpetua. Villamor and Cagara did not appeal from that decision, so it became final and executory, and the Supreme Court expressly declined to review the reclusion perpetua sentence in that case.

The death sentences in the Bernal murder case came before the Supreme Court by mandatory review, because a death sentence cannot be executed without the Court's review. The only issue raised in that review was the admissibility of the extrajudicial confessions.

Facts

At about five o'clock in the afternoon of March 22, 1973, Teodoro Villamor, Felipe Tarpin, Romeo Cagara, Romulo Poleño, Dionisio Argales and Rogelio Genita met at the volleyball court of Barrio Rizal, La Paz, Leyte. They agreed to get hold of the firearm of Lolito Bernal, a resident of Barrio Calabnian, and to kill him if he refused to surrender it. All of them then proceeded, armed, to Bernal's house, about half a kilometer away. On the way they met Eutropio Argales and convinced him to join them. They reached the house at about seven o'clock in the evening.

As planned, Villamor, Tarpin and Poleño pushed the door and barged inside. Cagara stationed himself on the balcony. Genita and the Argales cousins posted themselves as lookouts in the yard. Angeles Bernal, the victim's wife, was in the sala when the three intruders entered and went straight to the kitchen, where her husband was slicing meat. Villamor ordered Lolito to put down his bolo and surrender his firearm. Lolito said he had no firearm. Enraged, Villamor, Tarpin and Poleño took turns hacking him with their bolos, and Cagara came in and also assaulted him. Lolito fell on the floor. When Angeles shouted for help, Poleño pressed her head against the floor and fired at her twice with his revolver, but missed; the bullets hit the nylon sack dividing the sala. Believing Lolito already dead, the four assailants fled to the mountain of Hinonocan.

Lolito Bernal sustained a fatal incised wound in the neck, two inches wide and six inches deep, which reached the cervical bone and cut the big blood vessels, and another fatal wound in the chest which lacerated the liver. He was also wounded on the face, shoulders, vertebral column and hands, and died in his house. Tarpin was killed in an encounter with Constabulary soldiers on March 30, 1973. The next day, Villamor, Poleño and Cagara were captured in their mountain hideout, and homemade pistols, a rifle, four shotguns and assorted ammunition were seized from them. The three executed extrajudicial confessions admitting the killing, but at trial they repudiated the confessions and claimed they had been maltreated. They put up an alibi, which the trial court disbelieved as fabricated.

Issues

• Whether or not the extrajudicial confessions of the three accused are admissible, given that they were taken during custodial interrogation without the assistance of counsel and the accused claim they were not informed of their rights to remain silent and to counsel.
• Whether or not the trial court erred in convicting the three accused of murder despite the inadmissibility of their confessions.
• Whether or not the killing was attended by the qualifying and aggravating circumstances that make the penalty death.

Applicable Provisions

Section 20, Article Four of the 1973 Constitution, which the accused invoked, provides:

No person shall be compelled to be a witness against himself. Any person under investigation for the commission of an offense shall have the right to remain silent and to counsel, and to be informed of such right. No force, violence, threat, intimidation, or any other means which vitiates the free will shall be used against him. Any confession obtained in violation of this section shall be inadmissible in evidence.

This is the constitutional anchor of the accused's sole assignment of error, and the Court measures the confessions against it.

The Court also adopts the procedural safeguards laid down in Miranda versus Arizona, which it quotes as follows:

He (the accused) must be warned prior to any questioning that he has the right to remain silent, that anything he says can be used against him in a court of law, that he has the right to the presence of an attorney, and that if he cannot afford an attorney one will be appointed for him prior to any questioning if he so desires.

Opportunity to exercise these rights must be afforded to him throughout the interrogation.

After such warnings have been given, and such opportunity afforded him, the individual may knowingly and intelligently waive these rights and agree to answer questions or make a statement.

But unless and until such warnings and waiver are demonstrated by the prosecution at trial, no evidence obtained as a result of interrogation can be used against him.

These safeguards define what custodial interrogation must look like before a confession taken in it may be used, and they frame the Court's assumption that the confessions here are inadmissible.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court does not resolve the admissibility of the confessions. It holds that even if the extrajudicial confessions, taken during custodial interrogation when the accused were not assisted by counsel, are inadmissible, the trial court did not err in convicting them. The Court notes the investigator's testimony that he advised the three accused of their rights to remain silent and to be assisted by counsel, that the interrogation was conducted in the Waray-Waray dialect known to the accused, and that the confessions were read to them in that dialect before they signed; the fiscal likewise testified that he read the confessions to the accused and required them to sign again in his presence. But the Court does not rest on that. It assumes inadmissibility and moves on.

On the second issue, the Court holds that the culpability of the accused was proven beyond reasonable doubt by the testimony of the eyewitness, Angeles Bernal, and of the two accused who became State witnesses. Conspiracy was proven through those same State witnesses. The alibi was correctly disbelieved as a fabricated defense. The conviction therefore stands on evidence independent of the confessions.

On the third issue, the Court holds that the murder was qualified by abuse of superiority, which absorbs band, and aggravated by evident premeditation and dwelling, and that no mitigating circumstance can be appreciated in favor of the accused. The Court describes the three as lawless malefactors who killed a man just to satisfy the vindictive whim of Tarpin and to divest him of his firearm, and concludes that for such a senseless assassination the death penalty is a just and appropriate punishment.

Doctrine

First, a confession obtained during custodial interrogation without the assistance of counsel, and without the warnings required by the Constitution and by Miranda versus Arizona, is inadmissible in evidence. Second, and this is the rule to carry into the exam room, the inadmissibility of a confession does not automatically acquit the accused. A conviction may rest on independent evidence, such as the testimony of an eyewitness and of discharged co-accused who turn State witnesses, so long as that evidence proves guilt beyond reasonable doubt. Third, conspiracy is proven not only by direct agreement but by the acts of the participants showing a common design, here a prior meeting, a plan to take the firearm and kill if it was refused, and a division of roles among intruders and lookouts. Fourth, abuse of superiority qualifies the killing to murder and absorbs band, and where evident premeditation and dwelling attend the killing and no mitigating circumstance is shown, the penalty is death.

Disposition

The Supreme Court affirmed the amended decision of the trial court, upholding the conviction of Villamor, Poleño and Cagara of murder and their death sentences, with costs de oficio.

Remember This

Memorize this line: even if the extrajudicial confessions are inadmissible for want of counsel and warnings, the conviction stands because guilt was proven beyond reasonable doubt by the eyewitness and the State witnesses. Examiners use this case to test whether you know that an inadmissible confession is excluded but not fatal, and that conspiracy and abuse of superiority may be established by independent testimony.