THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. VICENTE RECOLIZADO ALIAS IDOT, ET AL., DEFENDANTS. VICENTE RECOLIZADO ALIAS IDOT, DEFENDANT AND APPELLANT.

Vicente Recolizado, with three other persons, was accused of robbery in band
with homicide and physical injuries before the Court of First Instance of
Cagayan. Of the four defendants, Valentin Aurelio and Alberto Calaycay pleaded
guilty, while the case was dismissed with respect to Ciriaco Tabarrejo for
insufficiency of evidence. The case was continued with regard to Recolizado who,
after trial, was found guilty and sentenced to reclusion perpetua, aside
from paying indemnity and costs. He was credited with one-half of the time he
has undergone preventive imprisonment, but in a subsequent order the portion of
the decision relative to preventive imprisonment was delated.

Recolizado has appealed.

Sometime on December 18, 1958, before twelve and one o’clock in the morning,
while Maria Castañeda and her husband Alejandro Umblas were sleeping in their
house at Minanga, Gonzaga, Cagayan, Maria was awakened when she heard footstep
below the house. She moved the curtain of the bedroom door where they slept and
saw Alberto Calaycay and Vicente Recolizado on the last rung of the stairs of
the house. The two had their faces below the nose covered with handkerchiefs.
Recolizado approached Maria and gave her a fist blow on her left eye which
caused her to fall on the floor, while Calaycay entered the room where her
husband was. As soon as Maria fell Recolizado hacked her with a bolo causing two
wounds on her back one below the right shoulder and the other below the right
armpit, which wounds produced scar 4.5″ and 2″ long. As Maria was lying down on
the floor she heard the screams of her husband who was being assaulted by
Calaycay. When Recolizado tried to strike Maria again with the bolo she got a
pillow and used it as a shield at which moment the money inside the pillow in
the sum of P500.00 dropped on the floor wherefrom it was taken by Recolizado
with the use of a flashlight. When the two intruders went up the house there was
an oil lamp burning but they put out the light when they entered the room. Maria
was able to recognize Recolizado because he frequented her store to buy
cigarettes and wine besides the fact that they were barripmates. As a result of
the wounds that the husband of Maria sustained, he died. According to Maria, in
order to gain entrance to their house, the malefactors destroyed three of their
doors located downstairs and in the kitchen.

The incident having been reported to the PC detachment in Aparri, Sgt.
Jovencio Lagmay went to Minanga to conduct an investigation. He took down in
writing the statements of Alberto Calaycay, Valentin Aurelio and Vicente
Recolizado which were sworn to before the Municipal Mayor of Gonzaga and the
local Justice of the Peace.

Dr. Federico Umayam performed an autopsy on the body of the deceased. He
found four stab and incise wounds which were described in a certificate he
issued to that effect. Said wounds caused internal hemorrhage which resulted in
the victim’s death.

Appellant set up the defense of alibi. He declared that on the night
of December 17, 1958 he did not leave his house in San Roque, Gonzaga as his
wife had an abortion in the afternoon on the same day, and so he did not go to
the house of Maria Castañeda to commit the crime as testified to by the latter;
that Maria might have pointed to him as one of the malefactors because he was
indebted to her although he eventually paid his debt; that when he signed his
written statement he was not given food for a period of three days; that when
said statement was read to him by the justice of the peace he protested saying
that its contents were not true; and that he admitted knowing his co-accused
Valentin Aurelio and Alberto Calaycay because the former borrowed his jacket and
the latter used to work for him in his land.

To support his alibi, appellant presented two witnesses, Tarcila
Medrano and his mother Susana Recolizado. Tarcila testified that on December 10,
1958 she had requested Susana to buy for her 20 chickens in the town of Gonzaga.
It was agreed that she was to get them at the house of Susana which in fact she
did on December 17, 1958. Arriving at the house in the afternoon of the same
day, she learned that the wife of appellant had suffered an abortion. Because of
this incident, she passed the night in the house of the Recolizados. She took
supper there and is positive that appellant never left the house that evening
because he attended to his sick wife. The next morning she returned to Aparri
bringing with her the chickens she had bought. This testimony was corroborated
by Susana Recolizado, mother of appellant, who said that she did not sleep that
night because she alternated in attending to her sick daughter-in-law.

The contention of appellant that he did not go to the house of Maria
Castañeda on the night in question cannot be sustained in the light of the
overwhelming evidence of the prosecution. To begin with, said claim is disproved
by his own affidavit which he subscribed before Judge Federico Labio of Gonzaga
on December 23, 1958. In fact, he tried to mitigate his liability by stating
therein that he was merely forced at gun point by his companions to go to the
house of Maria. His claim that he did not read the contents of his affidavit
before he affixed his signature thereto is also of no avail because judge Labio
testified categorically that he read several times said contents and translated
them into the Ilocano dialect. No reason was shown why Judge Labio should
testify the way he did unless it is in obedience to his duty as a public
official. We have, furthermore, the categorical statement of Maria Castañeda
that appellant is one of the malefactors who entered her house in the night in
question. Indeed, he is the one who boxed and maltreated her while the other
companion went to the other room to inflict the wounds that caused the death of
her husband. She was positive in her identification of appellant not only
because he was a barriomate but because he frequented her store to buy
cigarettes and wine. Her testimony was corroborated by Emilio Baay who said that
he saw appellant coming out of the house of Maria when he peeped thru the window
of his house when he heard her screams in the night in question.

Appellant’s alibi, it is true, appears supported by the testimony of
Tarcila Medrano, but the latter was not given credence by the court a quo
because, “it should be noted that Tarcila Medrano who claims that she went to
the house of Vicente Recolizado on December 17, 1958 could not give the dates of
the two other times that she went to the same house. She could not connect any
event of importance that would remind her that it was December 17, 1958, when
she went to the house of Vicente Recolizado.” Susana Recolizado’s testimony, on
the other hand, is inherently weak because of her relationship with
appellant.

The evidence, however, is not clear that the malefactors who entered the
house of Maria Castañeda were four armed persons or more as to sustain the crime
of robbery in band alleged in the information. Since the main witnesses for the
prosecution were merely able to identify two of the malefactors, their
insinuation that there may be others in the premises who were not seen because
of the darkness of the night is insufficient to sustain the charge. The evidence
must be positive that it is so, and this is not the cage. However, considering
that the crime committed is robbery with homicide aggravated by the fact that it
was committed in the dwelling house of the victims, we believe that the penalty
of reclusion perpetua meted out to appellant is adequate and should be
sustained (Article 294, Paragraph 1, Revised Penal Code).

With this finding, we find correct the ruling of the court a quo that
the portion of the decision which credits appellant with one-half of the
preventive imprisonment he has undergone should be deleted considering
that, under Article 29 of the Revised Penal Code, one convicted of robbery is
not entitled to such privilege.

Wherefore, being in accordance with law and the evidence, the decision
appealed from is affirmed, with costs against appellant.

Bengzon, C. J., Padilla, Labrador, Concepcion, Reyes, J. B. L., Barrera,
Paredes, Dizon, Regala, and Makalintal, JJ., concur.