THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. FRANCISCO ABALOS, DEFENDANT AND APPELLANT.

People versus Abalos

The Case

This is the People of the Philippines against Francisco Abalos, a criminal case for murder arising from a killing that took place in Samar during the Japanese occupation. The accused was a constabulary soldier who, on patrol with his detachment, shot and killed a fleeing guerrilla named Maximo Cabueños. The case matters to a reviewee for two reasons. First, it is a clean illustration of how the Supreme Court treats the defense of alibi when it stands against positive identification by an eyewitness. Second, and more importantly for the bar, it shows the Court refusing to find treachery where the decision to shoot was sudden and the positions of killer and victim were accidental, reducing the conviction from murder to homicide.

Procedural History

The accused was tried before Judge Fidel Fernandez of the Court of First Instance of Samar, which found him guilty of murder on the testimony of one eyewitness and on proof of admissions made by the accused. The defense set up alibi. From that judgment of conviction the accused appealed to the Supreme Court, which reviewed the record and the evidence and rendered the decision now before us.

Facts

During the Japanese occupation, Francisco Abalos was a constabulary soldier stationed at Catbalogan, Samar. On May 13, 1944, a constabulary detachment that included the accused and Artemio Merida, under the command of Lieutenant Ramento, proceeded to Gandara, Samar, on patrol duty. About two o'clock the next morning the company reached a place near barrio Peñaplata and went to the house of Maximo Cabueños, a guerrilla. Cabueños was not there, but the party found one Vicente Cipriano, whose services they enlisted as guide. Hearing their destination, the soldiers deployed so as to encircle the place.

The appellant and Artemio Merida, accompanied by Vicente Cipriano, walked to the right until they arrived at the house of one Jesus Rama. It was then about five o'clock in the morning. Even as the appellant and his companions were entering Rama's dwelling, Maximo Cabueños jumped through the window and scurried to a ricefield. The appellant pursued him and, shooting with his rifle, hit the runaway in the stomach. Cabueños fell. Helped later by Jesus Rama, the wounded man returned to the house, but he died that very afternoon.

Artemio Merida was beside Abalos at the moment the latter fired, and he saw the victim drop to the ground. Vicente Cipriano heard the detonation and, having been told by Abalos to go where that man was shot, found the victim in serious condition, his intestines coming out of the abdomen. Both Merida and Cipriano testified for the People. The accused admitted in court that he was present with the soldiers at Rawis near Peñaplata, but denied having shot the man, saying he was detailed to watch the bancas used by the party and that watching the bancas was all he did that evening. Defended by two attorneys, he elected to submit his case without corroborating testimony, and his counsel announced that the effort to bring Serafin Ramento to court had failed and asked to proceed even without the testimony of that officer.

Issues

• Whether or not the defense of alibi may prevail against the direct and positive testimony of an eyewitness identifying the accused as the killer.
• Whether or not the killing was attended by treachery, such that the accused should be convicted of murder rather than homicide.

Applicable Provisions

Article 249 of the Revised Penal Code, which defines and penalizes homicide, provides:

Any person who, not falling within the provisions of Article 246 shall kill another without the attendance of any of the circumstances enumerated in Article 248 hereof, shall be deemed guilty of homicide and be punished by reclusion temporal.

This is the provision under which the Court ultimately held the appellant liable, once treachery was excluded.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that the alibi must fail. The accused had a right under the law to compel the attendance of Lieutenant Ramento, yet he did not secure it. According to the prosecution, Ramento, investigating the affair at the place and time of the shooting, was informed by Abalos himself that he had shot Maximo because the latter had run. From this the Court drew the logical inference that Ramento's testimony, had it been presented, would not have favored the defendant. The Court reinforced its ruling with settled doctrine on the frailty of alibi, quoting that oral evidence of alibi is so easily manufactured and usually so unreliable that it can rarely be given credence, and that an alibi is not satisfactorily established where the testimony is not free from suspicion, is uncorroborated, and no insistence was made to secure the attendance of a witness who could have appeared and testified.

On the second issue, the Court agreed that the appellant had killed Maximo Cabueños, but refused to impute treachery. It did not appear that the shooting was premeditated, nor that the accused had consciously chosen that method of attack directly and specially to facilitate the perpetration of the homicide without risk to himself. His decision to shoot seemed sudden, in view of the victim's flight, and the positions of both the victim and the killer were entirely accidental. Treachery therefore could not be appreciated, and the crime was homicide, not murder.

Doctrine

First, alibi is a weak defense. It is easily manufactured and usually unreliable, and it cannot overcome the direct evidence of prosecution witnesses who were present at the time of the killing and saw the accused inflict the fatal wound. Where the accused had the right to compel the attendance of a material witness and failed to do so, and the circumstances suggest that the witness's testimony would not have favored him, the alibi is deemed insufficient.

Second, treachery requires that the offender consciously and deliberately choose a method of attack directly and specially calculated to facilitate the killing without risk to himself. Where the decision to shoot is sudden, prompted by the victim's flight, and the relative positions of killer and victim are accidental, treachery is not present. The killing is then homicide under Article 249 of the Revised Penal Code, punishable by reclusion temporal, and in the absence of mitigating and aggravating circumstances the penalty is imposed in its medium period.

Disposition

The appealed judgment of conviction was affirmed as to the finding of guilt, but modified as to the term of imprisonment, the appellant being sentenced to not less than six years and one day of prision mayor and not more than fourteen years, eight months and one day of reclusion temporal, with costs against him.

Remember This

Memorize the line that alibi is so easily manufactured and usually so unreliable that it can rarely be given credence, and that treachery is excluded where the shooting was sudden and the positions of the parties accidental. Examiners use this case to test the requisites of treachery and the quantum of proof needed to overcome the defense of alibi.