PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. BENJAMIN ANIÑON, ACCUSED APPELLANT.

People versus Aniñon

The Case

This is People versus Aniñon, a criminal appeal decided by the Supreme Court in March 1988. The People of the Philippines prosecuted Benjamin Aniñon, together with Policarpio Saycon, for the killing of Cesar Agustin. The case matters for two reasons. First, it is a leading statement on the discharge of one of several accused so that he may turn state witness, and on what happens when that discharge is irregular. Second, it is a clean illustration of the difference between murder and homicide, turning entirely on whether treachery was proved. A reviewee should know it for both the procedural rule and the substantive rule.

Procedural History

Aniñon and Saycon were charged with murder before the Court of First Instance. Both pleaded not guilty at arraignment. In the course of trial, Saycon was discharged and utilized as a state witness. The trial court convicted Aniñon of murder, sentenced him to reclusion perpetua, ordered him to indemnify the heirs of the deceased in the sum of twelve thousand pesos, and to pay the costs. Aniñon appealed directly to the Supreme Court, assigning as errors the discharge of his co-accused and the sufficiency of the evidence against him. The Supreme Court modified the decision, convicting him of homicide instead of murder.

Facts

On the twelfth of September 1963, on the occasion of a fiesta in Barrio Balayong, Pamplona, Negros Oriental, Benjamin Aniñon accompanied his father, Mayor Sergio Aniñon, to a political rally. A fistfight broke out in the crowd before the Mayor could speak, but order was restored and the rally proceeded. After the rally, Benjamin Aniñon, his brother Solomon, Policarpio Saycon, and several others began to walk home. Some twenty meters from the house of Melecio Gabas, a gunshot was heard from the direction of that house, and the group sought cover behind coconut trees. Two more shots followed.

When the firing ceased, Benjamin Aniñon, Solomon Aniñon, and Policarpio Saycon resumed walking toward the house of Gabas. It was then about eight thirty in the evening. As they approached, a man appeared from the side of the house carrying two bottles. As the man was about to enter the door, Benjamin Aniñon stabbed him at the left upper part of the back with the hunting knife he was carrying. The man fell to the ground, and the accused and his companions fled. The victim was later identified as Cesar Agustin.

The physician who examined the victim described a stab wound at the left supra-scapular area, a depression at the glabella caused by a blunt instrument, and abrasions on the face. He described the depression as the most fatal wound and concluded that death was caused by internal hemorrhage either from the brain or from the stab wound. Two eyewitnesses, Lauro Ibalig and Policarpio Saycon, positively identified Aniñon as the person who stabbed the victim. The defense relied on alibi, but its own witnesses placed the accused only six kilometers away, in a place accessible by motor vehicle.

Issues

• Whether or not the trial court erred in discharging Policarpio Saycon and allowing him to testify against his co-accused after the prosecution had presented its evidence.
• Whether or not the trial court erred in giving full credence to the testimonies of Lauro Ibalig and Policarpio Saycon and in finding Aniñon guilty beyond reasonable doubt.
• Whether or not the trial court erred in finding that it was Aniñon who inflicted the fatal injuries on the victim.
• Whether or not the crime committed was murder, qualified by treachery, rather than homicide.

Applicable Provisions

Section 9 of Rule 119 of the Revised Rules of Court, before its amendment in 1985, provides:

Section 9. Discharge of one of several defendants to be witness for the prosecution. When two or more persons are charged with the commission of a certain offense, the competent court, at any time before they have entered upon their defense, may direct one or more of them to be discharged with the latter's consent that he or they may be witnesses for the government when in the judgment of the court: (a) There is absolute necessity for the testimony of the defendant whose discharge is requested; (b) There is no other direct evidence available for the proper prosecution of the offense committed, except the testimony of said defendant; (c) The testimony of said defendant can be substantially corroborated in its material points; (d) Said defendant does not appear to be the most guilty; (e) Said defendant has not at any time been convicted of any offense involving moral turpitude.

This is the provision against which the discharge of Saycon is measured, and it supplies the requisites the Court checks one by one.

Section 10 of the same Rule provides:

Section 10. Discharge of defendants operate as acquittal. The order indicated in the two preceding sections shall amount to an acquittal of the defendant discharged and shall be a bar to future prosecution for the same offense, unless the defendant, in the case provided in section 9 fails or refuses to testify against his co-defendant.

This explains why the irregular discharge did not undo Saycon's acquittal, since he did testify.

Article 14, paragraph 16 of the Revised Penal Code provides:

There is treachery when the offender commits any of the crimes against the person, employing means, methods or forms in the execution thereof, which tend directly and specially to insure its execution, without risk to himself arising from the defense which the offended party might make.

This is the qualifying circumstance the trial court found, and which the Supreme Court found wanting.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court found no error in the timing of the discharge. The rule allows discharge at any time before the defense has entered upon its defense, meaning before the defense offers its evidence. The motion was filed in August 1965 and granted in September 1965, while the defense called its first witness only in May 1967. The defense had not yet begun to offer evidence.

But the Court held that the discharge could have been challenged on other grounds. There was no absolute necessity for Saycon's testimony, because the prosecution had already presented the physician, the eyewitness Lauro Ibalig, and Rodolfo Tagaboin, who corroborated Ibalig's presence at the scene. Saycon's testimony merely corroborated and strengthened the earlier evidence. Still, the Court held that the irregular discharge did not invalidate Saycon's acquittal, since he did testify, and did not render his testimony inadmissible or detract from his competency as a witness.

On the remaining issues, which the Court resolved as one, it upheld the finding that Aniñon stabbed the victim. The two eyewitnesses positively identified him. The seeming inconsistency between Ibalig, who placed the stabbing at the store of Severino Galicano, and Saycon, who placed it at the door of the house of Melecio Gabas, was reconciled: the store and the residence were in the same structure, Galicano being a tenant of Gabas. Minor inconsistencies do not affect credibility. Alibi was rejected as an inherently weak defense that cannot prevail against positive identification, and it did not prosper because it was not physically impossible for the accused to be at the scene.

On the nature of the crime, however, the Court disagreed with the trial court. Mere suddenness of the attack does not suffice to constitute treachery. The Court quoted its own doctrine:

The suddenness of the attack does not, of itself, suffice to support a finding of alevosia, even if the purpose was to kill, so long as the decision was made all of a sudden and the victim's helpless position was accidental. The qualifying circumstance of treachery may not be simply deduced from presumption as it is necessary that the existence of this qualifying or aggravating circumstance should be proven as fully as the crime itself in order to aggravate the liability or penalty incurred by the culprit.

Nothing in the record showed that the appellant knowingly intended to insure the accomplishment of his purpose without risk to himself. Treachery not having been proved, the crime was homicide, not murder. The penalty for homicide is reclusion temporal, and in the absence of modifying circumstances, reclusion temporal in its medium period. Applying the Indeterminate Sentence Law, the Court fixed the minimum at prision mayor in its medium period.

Doctrine

First, the discharge of an accused to be a state witness requires that all the conditions of Section 9 of Rule 119 be complied with, and the grant of discretion is not arbitrary but sound judicial discretion. The discharge may be ordered at any stage, from the filing of the information until the defense starts to offer evidence. Second, an irregular discharge does not invalidate the acquittal of the discharged accused who testifies, nor render his testimony inadmissible. Third, treachery cannot be deduced from the mere suddenness of the attack; it must be proved as fully as the crime itself, and where it is not proved, the killing is homicide, not murder.

Disposition

The Supreme Court modified the decision of the trial court, finding Benjamin Aniñon guilty beyond reasonable doubt of homicide and sentencing him to an indeterminate penalty of eight years and one day of prision mayor in its medium period, as minimum, to seventeen years and four months of reclusion temporal in its medium period, as maximum, with the accessory penalties of the law, and to indemnify the heirs of Cesar Agustin in the amount of thirty thousand pesos.

Remember This

The line worth memorizing is that the suddenness of an attack does not, by itself, establish treachery, so the killing remains homicide. Examiners use this case to test the requisites for discharging a state witness and the distinction between murder and homicide.