THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. JUAN ENTRINA AND FEDERICO ANTIPOLO, ACCUSED-APPELLANTS.

Five persons, namely,
Juan Entrina, Federico Antipolo,
Ireneo Antipolo, Teodoro Antipolo and Dioscoro Antipolo, were indicted
for robbery in band with homicide before the Court of First Instance of Zamboanga del Sur and docketed
therein as Criminal Case No. 1830.  After
trial, the court acquitted the last three-named accused on the ground of
reasonable doubt, but convicted the first two-named for the said crime,
imposing the penalty of reclusion perpetua.  This appeal by the remaining two accused,
Juan Entrina and Federico Antipolo,
from the aforesaid judgment, was originally brought to the Court of Appeals,
but was forwarded to this Supreme Court in view of the penalty involved.

As to the facts of the
case, it is either admitted or not con­troverted that
in the afternoon of 16 April 1961, Fortunata Robles
left her husband, Blas Dago-oc,
in their house at San Vicente, Mahayag, Zamboanga del Sur
to go to Ozamis City to purchase a galvanized iron sheet for the
repair of their water tank.  Before she
left, she and her husband had counted their money, in the amount of P 3,000.00, which she kept in three notebooks and placed inside a
trunk.  She spent the night in the house
of her comadre in Da-o,
some eight kilometers from San Vicente. 
The following morning, Fortunata was informed
by Toribio Molijon,
a tuba-gatherer, that her husband had been killed.  She cut off her trip and returned home to
find her husband dead and their money gone.

Sanitary Inspector Jose
Laden examined the cadaver of Blas Dago-oc at about 10:00
o’clock in the morning of 17 April
1961 and found six
wounds in slightly varying dimensions in different parts of the body, four of
them fatal.  (T.s.n., p. 13-Salamia).  He could not tell how many, but expressed the
possibility that different sharp-bladed weapons were used in stabbing the
deceased and that he could have died more than twelve hours before.  (T. s
.n. , pp. 16-17, 21 – Salamia).

Police authorities, who
went along with the health official, recovered from the sala
of Dago-oc’s house a live cartridge,
and an empty .45 caliber shell and, by one of the windows, a shotgun. 
They saw some footprints in
the two windows of the sala and also in the
window of the bedroom.  The windows were
forced open.  Note­books were scattered and the trunks in the
bedroom were ransacked.  The body of the
deceased lay near some bloodstains in the room ad­joining the kitchen, his face
upon some gamecock waste.  (Exh. “D”,
T.s.n., pp. 36,
163-171 –Salamia; T.s.n.,
p. 42 – Pagunsan).

Now, as to who committed the crime, the evidence for the prosecution
and the accused part in opposite directions.

The case for the prosecution rests on the extrajudicial con­fession
of Juan Entrina (Exh. B)
and the testimony of six witnesses.  The
gist of their respective testimonies (apart from what had pre­viously been
narrated as admitted or not controverted) is as
follows:

Ricardo Diacosa:  That at about sunset on 16 April 1961, while
he was pasturing his horse near a river, he saw Juan Entrina,
Federico Antipolo, Ireneo Antipolo, Teodoro Antipolo and Dioscoro Antipolo squatting and conversing in the cornfield of Juan Entrina; when he passed by them, they stopped talking; that
on 17 April 1961, Juan Entrina, while passing by the
house of Diacosa, told him to keep quiet so that he
would not be involved.  (T.s .n. , pp. 94 ,102 –Salamia).

Candido Dacua:  That
at around eight o’clock in the moonless but starry evening of 16 April 1961 (T.s.n., p. 73-Salamia), when he passed by the unlighted
house of the late Blas Dago-oc,
he saw Teodoro Antipolo, Ireneo Antipolo, and Dioscoro Antipolo, with bolos
tucked around their waists, climbing the window, while Juan Entrina
and Federico Antipolo were at the balcony; that when
he saw them thus, he hurried away, and when he had gone about fifty meters , he
heard an explosion in the direction of the house of the deceased.  (T.s.n.
pp. 67-74 – Salamia).

Silvestre Bocter:  As desk sergeant of police, he witnessed the
execution by Juan Entrina of his confession to
participation in the commission of the crime, Exhibit “B”, which was
read and translated to him in Visayan and sworn to by
the Justice of the Peace of Mahayag in his office:
that the confession was prepared by Patrol­man Guillermo Joaquin in his
presence on 27 April 1961; and that he was the one who guided the hand of Juan Entrina, with his consent, so that the thumbmark
would be impressed on Exhibit “B”, (T.s.n.
pp. 110-113, 118-Salamia).

Jesus Lerasan:  That because in the confession of Juan
Entrina, the confessant had deposed that he was given
a share of ten pesos which he placed in the wall of his kitchen, field sergeant
of police Lerasan, on orders of his chief,
accompanied Entrina to his house on 28 April 1961;
that Juan Entrina did retrieve a ten-peso bill from
the kitchen wall; that when Lerasan confronted Entrina’s wife about the money, she admitted non-ownership
but asserted that the money was the proceeds of her father’s corn and further
remarked to her husband: “Anto, you are a
traitor to my parents.” (T.s.n., pp. 124-­137-Salamia);
that Juan Entrina escaped from the municipal jail at
dawn on 28 April 1961, but was recaptured by his guard in the morning in Parasan, Molave.  (T.s.n.,
pp. 126-127).

Emeterio Bogas:  A member of the local police force, he was
detailed as guard of the town jail on 3 May 1961; that between nine add ten o’clock in the evening, he overheard
detainee Federico Antipolo say to Juan Entrina, who was in another compartment of the cell:  “Anto, why did
you squeal or tell the authorities about the incident.  We have a certain agreement not to reveal the
same to any person or to the authorities. 
Had we known that you will squeal we should have killed you at that time
when the offense was committed”; that Entrina
replied: “You only gave money, only a small amount;” that he did not
see them talking because it was dark, but recognized their voices.  (T.s.n.,
pp. 140-153 – Salamia).

Guillermo Joaquin:  Prepared the sketch of the scene of the
crime, Exhibit “D”, and identified the items indicated therein.

The trial court, however, discredited the testimony of pro­secution
witnesses Ricardo Diacosa and Candido
Dacua and, in so doing, correctly made the following
pertinent remarks:

“Granting that it is true that Ricardo Diacusa
saw these accused gathered along the corn field of Juan Entrina,
the fact remains that said witness did not hear them planning and conspiring to
rob and kill Blas Dago-oc
that night of April 16, 1961.  Moreover, this fact of Ricardo Diacusa having seen the accused herein as testified to by
him in Court is not found in his affidavit, Exhibit 1.

“As to the testimony of Candido Dacua, the truth of his having seen and positively
identified the herein accused as the very persons seen by him at 8:00 o’clock in the night of April 16, 1961, in the vicinity of
the house of Blas Dago-oc
is open to serious doubts.  The night was
dark without moon, and as may bee seen from the sketch, Exhibit D, the house of
Bias Dago-oc is 15 meters from the nearest
trail.  Under the condition then
obtaining, and at a distance of 15 meters, the Court can not believe that Candido Dacua could have
positively identified the persons he allegedly saw that night beyond any
possibility of mistake, much more describe their weapons and the apparel they
wore as he would want to impress upon this Court.  Moreover, the testimony of Candido Dacua is unreliable,
considering that he is the son-in-law of one, Juan Dago-oc,
and he used to live in Mahayag in the bodega belong­ing
to Anselmo Aquino, who as
the evidence shows, is the son-in-law of the deceased Blas
Dago-oc. 
Furthermore, defense witness Galicano Saquin, a 50-year old farmer of Mahayag,
who lives near the land of Anselmo Aquino, testified that Candido Dacua was no
longer living in Mahayag in April, 1961, because he
had long transferred his residence to Dampalan in
1955; that the bodega of Anselmo Aquino
which was used by Candido Dacua as his residence in
Mahayag, was demolished in March, 1961 and therefore,
Candido Dacua could not
have lived in Mahayag in the follow­ing month of
April.  Galicano
Sequin further testified that in going to Dampalan
from the poblacion of Ma­hayag,
one has to pass the barrios of San Vicente and Panaga-an.  If it is
true as testified to by prosecution witness Candido
Dacua, that he was in Panaga-an
in the afternoon of April 16, 1961, and he went home late in the evening of
that day, and since he was already residing in Dampalan,
it results that from Panaga-an to his house in Dampalan, he could not have passed by the house of Blas Dago-oc in San Vicente, and
therefore, his testimony that he saw persons in the vicinity of the house of Blas Dago-oc is false.”

For lack of evidence, the
trial Court acquitted three of the five original accused, Ireneo,
Teodoro and Dioscoro Antipolo.  The result
is that the case against appellant Federico Antipolo rests solely on the assertions of witness Emeterio Bogas, who (as
previously related) claimed having overheard said appellant blaming Juan Entrina for revealing his participation in the latter’s
confession (Exh. B), as well as Entrina’s
reply that he did so because he was only given a small amount out of the loot.

Bogas, and no other witness, testified
on this point; but his testimony is uncorroborated.  On questioning by the court, he stated that
he was four (4) meters from where Entrina and
Federico Antipolo were conversing, through a small
hole in the wall of split lumber dividing the compartmented detention cell, but
could not see them talking because it was very dark; Entrina
was alone in one com­partment, while the four other accused were in the
other.  When asked what special quality
in the voice of Federico Antipolo that made him think
that the voice he heard was that of Federico, Bogas
evaded the question by an uncategorical and
non-responsive “Because of his voice.” Yet, there is no evidence that
Bogas had gained suf­ficient familiarity with the
voice of Federico.  And, it is unusual
that he should be able to testify that Entrina and
Federico talked through a small hole when he could not even see the persons
talk­ing through that hole.  (T.s.n., pp. 153-154 – Salamia). 
Uncertainty thus exists as to the veracity of the testimony of this
witness as well as to the owners of the voices that Bogas
allegedly heard, which could be that of the other
persons in the prison cell.  The strong pro­bability of a mistaken identification cautions that
the doubt be resolved in favor of the accused Federico Antipolo.

We are thus left with the appellant Juan Entrina
as sole culprit.  But even in his case,
the evidence leaves room for considerable doubt.

Entrina lived about 200 yards from the
house of the deceased Blas Dago-oc;
he was the favorite son-in-law of Blas and had access
to his house; Entrina also operated the decedent’s
corn mill.  According to said appellant,
in the morning of 17 April 1961,
somebody wanted to mill corn.  As one of
the cans was missing at the mill, he went to his father-in-law’s house and
called for him.  Nobody answered.  He peeped thru the wall.  He saw him lying, motionless; and, as his
face was upon some chicken waste, he concluded that he was dead.  He then went to inform the barrio lieutenant
and sent Toribio Molijon to
bring the news to one of the daughters of Blas Dago-oc in Mahayag.  While Molijon was
in Mahayag, he met the widow, Fortunata
Robles, and accordingly informed her of the tragedy.

On the 26th of     Entrina was fetched by a policeman to the municipal building where he
was investigated by PC Sgt. Vicente Maderazo in the
office of the mayor.  Entrina
claims that he was told to confess to the crime but, as he refused, he was
boxed by Maderazo and the chief of police; they held his hair
and inserted the barrel of a pistol into his mouth and inserted a chicken
feather into his penis, which pained and weakened him, until he fainted and
spat blood; that he did not know the contents of Exhibit “B” nor was
it read to him; that his thumb was held and guided to make a print on a piece
of paper, after which, he was brought before the judge.  When he was brought to the provincial jail at
Pagadian, he went to the Justice of the Peace of that
municipality and there he subscribed to an affidavit, Exhibit “3”,disowning the
facts stated in Exhibit “B” and relating the maltreatment received by
him in Mahayag. 
He testified that the ten-peso bill which Sgt. Lerasan
described was not taken from the kitchen, but from his own pocket and was the payment for tuba. 
He also disclaimed any conversation with his co-accused while they were
confined in the Mahayag jail, contrary to what
prosecution witness Emeterio Bogas
had testified.

It is well to note at this point, that all the
original accused claimed to have likewise been maltreated, although Entrina alone confessed to participating in the crime.  We are not impressed by his failure to
disavow the confession to the Justice of the Peace of Mahayag when he acknowledged the
document.  Being then under custody, it
was natural that he should fear retaliatory violence were he to denounce the
maltreatment to which he had been subjected.

Yet, assuming that Entrina’s confession
was voluntary, still it fails to establish satisfactorily this appellant’s
guilt.  For not only does the confession
(Exh. B) reveal that Entrina himself re­mained downstairs of Blas
Dago-oc’s house, without taking a hand in the actual
killing, but
there is on record no evidence to the contrary.  Besides, the acquittal of his alleged
co-conspirators leaves the truthfulness of this confession in an extremely
sorry state.  And yet, unless the
confession is believed, no evidence remains to link appellant Entrina to the heinous deed.  As already shown, the testimony of Emeterio Bogas about overhearing
Federico Antipolo upbraiding Entrina
about the crime is not believable.

The theory of the prosecution is not measurably helped by the
finding by police
sergeant Lerasan of a ten-peso bill (claimed to have
been Entrina’s only share in the loot of P3,000.00, a circums­tance
in itself difficult to accept) in the wall of the appellant’s kitchen, as
stated in the confession.  That fact was
denied both by Entrina and his wife, who claimed that
the P10.00 had been taken from appellant’s pocket and not from the wall.

Be that as it may, we are
not satisfied that appellants’ guilt has been established beyond reasonable
doubt as required by law.  Hence, our
duty is to order the release of herein appellants.

WHEREFORE, the decision appealed from is reversed, and the
appellants Juan Entrina and Federico Antipolo are acquitted of the crime charged.  Costs de oficio.

Dizon, Makalintal,
Bengzon, J.P., Zaldivar,
Sanchez, Ruiz Castro, Angeles, and
Fernando, JJ., concur.