THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. JOSE DEMETRIO Y LAGRADA ET AL., DEFENDANTS, MAURICIO ARROYO AND ERNESTO POBLETE, DEFENDANTS-APPELLANTS.

Jose Demetrio, Ricardo Mendoza, Ernesto Poblete, Eduardo
Ignacio, Mauricio Arroyo, and John Doe alias Pedro were accused of
robbery with rape in the Court of First Instance of Manila in an information
which reads as follows:

“The undersigned accuses Jose Demetrio y Lagrada, Ricardo
Mendoza y Ramirez, Ernesto Poblete y Mendoza, Eduardo Ignacio y Malam, Mauricio
Arroyo and ‘John Doe’ alias Pedro, the true name and whereabouts of the
last named accused being still unknown, of the crime of robbery with rape,
committed as follows:

“That on or about the 25th day of August, 1946, during
nighttime purposely sought, in Sta. Mesa Heights, Quezon City, but within 2-1/2
miles from the limits of the City of Manila, and, therefore, within the
jurisdiction of this court, the said accused, conspiring and confederating
together and mutually helping one another, willfully, unlawfully and feloniously
broke into and entered the house at No. 18 Pulog, Sta. Mesa Heights, in said
Quezon City, inhabited by Severo Mapugay, Belen Cube, Carmen Cube and others,
and once inside, by means of threats and intimidation, to wit: by threatening to
do bodily harm with their firearms and knives with which they were all armed,
upon the occupants of said house should they resist, willfully, unlawfully and
feloniously, with intent of gain and without the consent of the owners thereof,
took, stole and carried away the following personal property, to wit:

“Money in cash amounting to P500, belonging to the said Severo
Mapugay;

“Various pieces of jewelry, all valued at P2,000, belonging to
both Belen Cube and Carmen Cube,

to the damage and prejudice of the said owners in the total sum
of P2,500, Philippine currency.

“That on the occasion of said robbery, the accused Jose
Demetrio y Lagrada, by the use of force and intimidation, to wits by violently
pushing the said Belen Cube and forcibly causing her to lie down on the floor
and threatening to stab her with the knife he was then holding should she
resist, willfully, unlawfully and feloniously succeeded in having sexual
intercourse with her against her will and consent.

“All contrary to law.

(Sgd.) “JOSE B. JIMENEZ
“Assistant
Fiscal.”

The case was tried only as to four of the accused, Ricardo
Mendoza having escaped from detention before the trial and John Doe alias
Pedro not having been arrested. The court found the said four accused guilty,
stating hat the acts committed by the accused constitute the complex crime of
robbery with rape.” However, it senneed only the accused Mauricio Arroyo for the
complex crime of robbery with rape; and the accused Jose Demetrio, Eduardo
Ignacio, and Ernesto Poblete, for robbery only.

Jose Demetrio and Eduardo Ignacio chose to abide by the
decision of the trial court.

Mauricio Arroyo and Ernesto Poblete appealed to the Court of
Appeals, which subsequently endorsed the case to this court because it was of
the opinion that upon the facts of the case both appellants were guilty of
robbery with rape, with the aggravating circumstances of the crime’s having been
committed by a band and in the dwelling of the offended parties, without any
mitigating circumstance, and that therefore the penalty that should be imposed
against them is life imprisonment.

It appears from the evidence that between 1:30 and 2:30 a. m.
on August 25, 1946, a band of five malefactors, one of whom was armed with a
carbine, another with a revolver, two with hunting knives, and one unarmed,
broke into the house designated as No. 18 Pulog Street, Santa Mesa Heights,
Quezon City, but within 2 1/2 miles from the limits of Manila, which was
inhabited by Severo Mapugay, Belen Cube, Carmen Cube, Jesus Cube, Natividad
Fernando, Gregorio Fernando, Samuel Fernando, Alejandro Mapugay, Lolita Gabriel,
and Romulo Bunao. These inmates of the house were aroused by the malefactors and
herded at the point of guns into one of the rooms of the house where one of the
intruders kept them under guard. The intruders then tied the hands of Severo
Mapugay and another adult male companion and brought them to an adjoining room
where they were kept separate from the women. After gaining control of the
situation the robbers ransacked the place and took money, jewelry, clothes, and
other valuable personal properties belonging to Severo Mapugay and the sisters
Belen and Carmen Cube amounting to P1,450 and P2,000, respectively. In the
course of the robbery one of the robbers took Belen Cube, a twenty-two-year-old
student of dentistry in the Centro Escolar University, to another room where by
means of force and intimidation and despite her vigorous but futile resistance
he succeeded in having carnal knowledge of her. Her companions could not succor
her because they were being guarded by the other robbers.

At the request of Sgt. B. Herrera of Precinct No. 2, Dr. Angelo
Singian, Medical Examiner of the Manila Police Department, performed a physical
examination of Belen Cube on August 31, 1946, and found that her hymen had been
recently lacerated at 3, 6, and 11 o’clock positions and that there was slight
bleeding on the lacerations when he inserted his index finger. The doctor
further certified: “The recent lacerations of the hymen indicate that the
subject had been a victim of sexual intercourse in the past few days. From the
appearance of the hymen and vagina, it is believed that she was a virgin
previous to this sexual incident.” (See Exhibit G and testimony of Dr.
Angelo Singian.)

That same morning of August 25 Severo Mapugay reported the
crime to Precinct No. 2 of the Manila Police Department located in the old
Bilibid compound, describing the physical features of most, if not all, of the
five robbers. According to Severo Mapugay, Carmen and Belen Cube, while the
lights in their house were out at the time of the robbery, it was not dark
because the lights of the neighboring houses were on and reflected thru the
shell windows of their house; that, moreover, the robbers carried flashlights
which they constantly used during the commission of the robbery, specially while
ransacking the place; and that those flashlights plus the reflection of the
lights from the neighboring houses furnished sufficient illumination for them to
see and remember the facial and physical features of the robbers.

It turned out that a series of robberies with rape and one
robbery with homicide were committed in or near the same vicinity about the same
time that the crime in question was committed. Based on the descriptions of the
robbers furnished by the victims and on other data obtained in the course of the
investigation, members of the Manila Detective Bureau succeeded in arresting the
five herein accused on different dates: Jose Demetrio and Ricardo Mendoza on
August 31, 1946; Eduardo Ignacio on September 4, 1946; and Mauricio Arroyo and
Ernesto Poblete on September 12, 1946. Eleven cases of robbery in band, some
with rape and one with homicide, were presented against them.

A carbine (Exhibit A), which was presented and identified
during the trial to be the same as or at least similar to that used by the
robbers in committing the crime in question, was found in the possession of the
appellant Mauricio Arroyo when he was arrested. He was also prosecuted for and
convicted of illegal possession of the firearm.

On September 4, 1946, Severo Mapugay and Belen Cube were shown
a group of detained prisoners in the detective bureau of the Manila Police
Department, and right then and there they identified from among the group the
accused Jose Demetrio, Eduardo Ignacio, and Ricardo Mendoza as three of the
malefactors who robbed them in the early hours of August 25, 1946. When Belen
Cube was asked to identify the one who raped her, she said that he was not among
those present; but after Mauricio Arroyo was arrested on September 12, 1946, she
positively pointed to him as the one who had raped her. She confirmed that
identification of the said accused in her testimony during the trial.

Each of the four accused (excluding Ricardo Mendoza, who
escaped and was not tried), upon being investigated by the police after the
arrest, admitted his participation not only in the robbery in question but in
other robberies with rape that had been reported to the police, and each named
his companions in the commission of the crime. According to them, however, the
amount of the loot was much smaller than that claimed by the victims in the
present case. From their statements (Exhibits B, C, D, and E) which were taken
by questions and answers in Tagalog and respectively signed by them, it appears
that pursuant to a previous agreement they gathered at 1449 Lealtad Extension,
Manila, where the accused Ernesto Poblete was residing, on the evening of August
24, 1946, spent part of the night in that house, and about 1:30 in the morning
of August 25 they went together to the house at 18 Pulog Street, Quezon City,
which they had agreed to rob. Jose Demetrio was then armed with a pistol;
Mauricio Arroyo, with a carbine; and Eduardo Ignacio and Ernesto Poblete, with
hunting knives. Ricardo Mendoza was not armed. They found the door of the house
locked, but above it there was an opening which was not yet covered by a panels
as the construction of the house was still unfinished. Ernesto Poblete entered
the house thru that opening and opened the door for his companions. However, the
accused Eduardo Ignacio, Mauricio Arroyo, and Ernesto Poblete, in their
respective statements, imputed the rape of Belen Cube to one Pedro or Pedring.
Jose Demetrio, in his statement Exhibit B, admitted having raped one Amada
Ranido on the occasion of the robbery committed by him and his coaccused at 1533
Int. 14 G. Tuazon, Sampaloc, Manila, on the night of August 19, 1946, as well as
Fortunata Sadian on August 28, 1946, at 1533 Int. 13-A G. Tuazon, Sampaloc,
Manila; and that Mauricio Arroyo also raped the last-mentioned victim. Jose
Demetrio, however, denied having participated in the robbery committed at 18
Pulog Street, Santa Mesa Heights. Nevertheless, he did not appeal from the
sentence of conviction.

Each of the two appellants Mauricio Arroyo and Ernesto Poblete,
testifying in his own behalf, limited himself to impugning the validity of his
written statement before the detective bureau (Exhibit D by Mauricio Arroyo, and
Exhibit E by Ernesto Poblete), saying in effect that he had been compelled to
sign it thru force and intimidation.

We are inclined, however, to give more credence to the
testimony of Detective Avelino Evangelista, who took the statements, to the
effect that the appellants made their statements voluntarily and without the use
of any force or intimidation. It is difficult to believe that the answers given
by the appellants to the questions propounded to them were mere inventions of
said detective; for, in the first place, the facts disclosed by said answers
could have been known only to the appellants themselves and, in the second
place, the answers reveal an intention of the declarants to minimize their
responsibility for the crime. For instance, both appellants attributed to one
Pedring the possession of the carbine as well as the commission of the rape. If
Evangelista himself had fabricated the answers, he would have made them conform
to the theory of the prosecution and would not have included therein any
exculpatory indication.

In any event, even if we should disregard appellants’
extrajudicial admissions, there would still remain the uncontradicted and
unimpeached testimony of Severo Mapugay, Belen Cube, and Carmen Cube positively
identifying the appellants as two of the robbers. That Belen Cube was correct
and sincere in her identification of the appellant Mauricio Arroyo as the one
who raped her on the night in question, may be seen from the fact that before
the arrest of said appellant and when she identified Jose Demetrio, Eduardo
Ignacio, and Ricardo Mendoza as three of the robbers, she positively informed
the detectives that the one who had raped her was not one of the said three
accused. That shows that she had a fixed recollection of the identity of her
assailant.

We cannot, therefore, entertain any doubt as to appellants’
guilt.

The crime committed is that of robbery accompanied by rape,
which is penalized in paragraph 2 of article 294 of the Revised Penal Code with
reclusion temporal in its medium period to reclusion perpetua.
This penalty must be imposed in the maximum degree, inasmuch as the crime was
committed (1) by a band and (2) in the dwelling of the offended parties.
(Article 14, paragraphs 6 and 3, Revised Penal Code.) These two aggravating,
circumstances were erroneously not taken into consideration by the trial
court.

The second paragraph of article 296 provides that any member of
a band who is present at the commission of a robbery by the band shall be
punished as principal of any of the assaults committed by the band, unless it be
shown that he attempted to prevent it. In the present case the offense charged
against all the accused was the complex crime of robbery with rape. It was fully
established during the trial that on the occasion of the robbery Belen Cube was
raped by one of the robbers lot only was there no proof introduced by either of
the appellants that he attempted to prevent the rape but on the contrary, the
prosecution proved beyond reasonable doubt that the appellant Mauricio Arroyo
was the one who committed the rape and that his companions, far from preventing
him from coirtmitting the rape, facilitated its commission by guarding and
preventing the other inmates of the house from succoring his victim.

Since under such circumstances all the accused were liable as
principals for the crime of robbery with rape in accordance with paragraph 2
article 296, the mistaken allegation in the information that it was the accused
Jose Demetrio who raped Belen Cube is immaterial and non-prejudicial, because
even if neither of the appellants had committed the rape both of them would have
been liable therefor provided it was committed by one of the band. (See
also U. S. vs. Tiongco, 37 Phil. 951; U.S. vs. Bretaña, 49 Phil., 444.)

The judgment appealed from is modified in the sense that the
appellants Mauricio Arroyo and Ernesto Poblete shall each suffer reclusion
perpetua and shall jointly and severally indemnify Belen Cube in the sum of
P1,000. In all other respects not inconsistent herewith the sentence appealed
from is affirmed, with the costs of this instance against the appellants.

Moran, C.J., Feria, Bengzon, Tuason, Montemayor, and
Reyes, JJ., concur.

OZAETA, J.:

I certify that Mr. Justice Pablo voted for the above
modification of the sentence appealed from.