THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. PEDRO BAUTISTA, ET. AL., DEFENDANTS AND APPELLANTS.

Pedro Bautista alias Pedro Agno, Felipe, Alberto and Roman,
all surnamed Bautista, and Mariano Baticos alias Marianito, were
charged with murder for having conspired to kill one Crisanto Ponyo
before the Court of First Instance of Batangas. All pleaded not guilty.
However, at the inception of the trial, the defense reserved the right
of Pedro Bautista to enter a plea of guilty in the event that the trial
court shall find that the crime committed is only homicide in which
event said accused should be given the benefit of the mitigating
circumstances of incomplete self-defense, plea of guilty, and voluntary
surrender. But, after trial on the merits, the trial court found all of
the accused guilty of murder qualified by abuse of superior strength,
with the mitigating circumstance of voluntary surrender with regard to
Pedro Bautista, and without any modifying circumstance as to the rest.

Accordingly, Pedro Bautista was sentenced to suffer an indeterminate penalty running from 10 years and 1 day of prision mayor, as minimum, to 17 years 4 months and 1 day of reclusion temporal,
as maximum, with the accessory penalties prescribed by law and to pay
1/5 of the costs, The other accused were sentenced each to suffer the
penalty of reclusion perpetua, With the accessory penalties
prescribed by law, and to pay 1/5 of the costs. The trial court ordered
the five accused to indemnify, jointly and severally, the heirs of the
deceased in the amount of P6,000.00, without subsidiary imprisonment in
case of insolvency on account of the nature of the principal penalty
imposed, while Pedro Bautista was credited with 1/2 of the preventive
imprisonment he had undergone.

The five accused have appealed from the decision.

On the moonlit night of March 4, 1960, Juanito Hernandez was about
to retire to his house at barrio Balagtas, Batangas, Batangas, when he
heard his cousin Crisanto Ponyo, with whose, voice he was familliar,
utter the following: “Hinihiling kong huwag kayong lumapit.” Attracted
by the voice, Hernandez went down running to the place about 20 meters
away whence the shout came from, and hiding himself behind a guava tree
he saw and recognized, by the bright moonlight, at a distance of about
3 brazas, Felipe Bautista and his sons, Alberto, Pedro and Roman, as well as his son-in-law, Mariano Baticos, armed with balisong
knives and an iron bar, surrounding Crisanto, even as the latter
earnestly begged them not to come near him. Disregarding the
supplication of Crisanto, who was also armed with a balisong
knife, Felipe struck Crisanto on the face with the iron bar, and almost
simultaneously Alberto, Pedro, Roman and Mariano ganged up on Crisanto
and stabbed him with the bladed weapons they were carrying causing the
latter to fall dead to the ground. Thereafter, the five assailants
scampered away.

Forthwith, Hernandez informed Crisanto’s wife and his parents-in-law
of the incident, who even accompanied them to the scene of the crime,
where later some policemen arrived and interrogated him. Hernandez was
taken to the police headquarters that same night where Sgt Balmes took
his statement in the presence of Sgt. Austria, both of the local police
force. In his statement, Hernandez named the five accused as the
persons who assaulted and caused the death of the deceased.

That same night, about 11:00 o’clock, Dr. Agapito Dimaandal,
Municipal Health Officer of Batangas, performed a post-mortem
examination on the (dead) body of Crisanto Ponyo and found the
following injuries:

“1. Contusion, about a pesita in size on the right cheek;

2. Abrasion on the upper lips and left side of the nose;

3. Laceration on the middle dorsal aspect of the right forearm;

4. Stab-wound—3 cm. x 1 cm. at the root of the back of the neck;

5. Stab-wound on the right breast one inch above the nipple, 3.5 cm. x 1 cm. penetrating into the lung substance beneath;

6. Hacking wound at the level of the umbilicus, 6 cm. x 2 cm. with the intestine coming out;

7. Stab-wound triangular in form 3 cm. x 1 cm. at the right lumbar region;

8. Stab-wound 5 cm. x 1.5 cm. at the inferior angle of the right scapular;

9. Two puncture wounds 4 mm. in width on the left lumbar region.”

According to Dr. Dimaandal, injuries Nos. 1, 2 and 3 were caused by
a blunt instrument, while injuries Nos. 4, 5, 6, 8 and 9 were caused by
a sharp-pointed instrument, like a knife, and injury No. 7 by a
three-edged sharp instrument. In his opinion, injuries Nos. 5, 6, 7 and
8 are mortal in nature and caused the instantaneous death of the victim.

On March 7, 1960, or three days after the incident, Alfonso Corlit,
who also witnessed the occurrence, likewise executed a written sworn
statement naming the five accused as the assailants.

Here, as well as before the trial court, appellant Pedro Bautista
insists that he alone inflicted the wounds that caused the death of the
deceased. He, however, tried to prove that he merely acted in
self-defense. The other four appellants merely offered alibi as their defense.

Briefly, the version of Pedro Bautista is as follows: At about 8:00
o’clock in the evening of March 4, 1960, while he was on his way to
visit Flaviana Hernandez, whom he was courting, he met on the road
Crisanto Ponyo who is not in favor of his overture to Flaviana, a first
counsin of Crisanto’s wife, and who harbored some ill-feeling against
him, because his brother, Alberto, had separated from his wife,
Gregoria Corlit, who is also a first cousin of Crisanto’s wife. Upon
their meeting, Crisanto shouted: “Labas ang baraco”, meaning come out
bully, but because he wanted to avoid trouble he went to one side of
the road, but nevertheless, Crisanto called him just the same saying
that he had something to tell him. When he came near Crisanto all of a
sudden the latter grabbed his shirt with his right hand while with his
left hand held an open balisong knife, saying, “I am going to take your
life now.” At this juncture, Crispin Ginhawa and Emiliano Aguda, who
happened to be nearby, requested Crisanto to desist from his threat,
but he did not mind them and even told the two to go away lest
something might befall them. So the two left and went home. Immediately
thereafter, Crisanto stabbed him and he parried the blow and they
grappled for the possession of the knife until both fell on the cement
pavement of the road as a result of which the knife struck Crisanto’s
stomach. Taking advantage of this opportunity, he wrested the knife
from Crisanto but as the latter continued trying to retrieve the
weapon, he continued stabbing Crisanto almost seven times, after which
he left and surrendered to the authorities.

As it would be noted, the version given by the defense of Pedro
Bautista is one from which one may infer that in killing the victim he
acted in self-defense. Indeed, in assuming full responsibility for the
killing his motivation cannot be other than his desire to clear from
the charge his co-accused who are his father, brothers and
brother-in-law. While this desire is plausible and understandable, it
cannot however be given substance, considering the weight of the
evidence that was unfolded by the prosecution and which was found
worthy of credence by the court a quo. In this respect, to
prove self-defense, it behooves the defense to come forward with clear
and sufficient evidence to prove (1) that the accused is not the
unlawful aggressor; (2) that there was lack of sufficient provocation
on his part; and (3) that he employed reasonable means to prevent or
repeal the aggression. Here, the defense failed to prove these
circumstances, as may be gleaned from the following observation of the
trial court:

“In the first place, it cannot outweigh, much less destroy, the
vivid recital of the occurrence made by the People’s eyewitnesses,
Juanito Hernandez and Alfonso Corlit, whose straight forward account
thereof is sincere in its spontaneity and convincing in its directness
and minuteness. It must be recalled that both of them have unfolded
their knowledge of the incident in their respective sworn statements,
Exhs. ‘A’ and ‘2’, Hernandez, a few hours after the killing, and
Corlit, a few days thereafter. It is also worthy to note that the scene
of the carnage was only about twenty (20) meters from the house of
Hernandez, so that, he could have really heard Ponyo’s utterance and be
drawn to the place of the commotion. As a matter of fact, when counsel
for the defense cross-examined Hernandez in detail as to the relative
positions of the defendants and the victim at the scene of the
occurrence, he, Hernandez, unhesitatingly indicated their relative
positions as now shown in the sketch, Exh. ‘1’ Were he not really a
witness to the incident, he would vacillate, waver and finally say he
cannot remember the particular spot each of the parties was then. He
would simply generalize, like what Pedro Agno did in his affidavit,
Exh. ‘B’, by stating that the defendants just surrounded the deceased.
That Corlit has also witnessed the bloody incident is likewise
persuasive, since he was at the time going to fetch water from the
artesian well near whiph the killing took place.

“The fact that Hernandez and Corlit are the first cousins of Ponyo’s
wife does not necessarily make them untrustworthy witnesses, especially
considering that Hernandez is, after all, also related to the defendants,
Felipe Bautista being the step-brother of his grandmother, and
consequently Felipe’s sons, Pedro, Alberto and Roman are his,
Hernandez’, uncles.

“Again, the fact that defendant Alberto Bautista has been estranged
from his wife, Gregoria Corlit, sister of Alfonso Corlit, is not a
sufficient cause for the latter to falsely implicate the entire
male members of the Bautista family with so serious an offense, a
capital crime at that, as the one at bar, taking into account that
Alberto and Gregoria have been living separately anyway for about ten
(10) years already before the incident. Besides, it is improbable that
Mariano Baticos, who is related to the other defendants merely by
affinity would have been involved in the killing, were not the People’s
eyewitnesses actuated by truth and clear conscience.

“In the second place, the number, nature, and location of
the injuries sustained by the deceased, which are enumerated and
described in the post-mortem report, Exh. ‘D’, quoted above, of Dr.
Dimaandal, municipal health officer of Batangas, not only belie the
theory of self-defense, for they were obviously inflicted for offense,
rather than for defense purposes, but also confirm eloquently the
People’s theory that the five defendants herein set upon and ganged up
against the deceased with their weapons.

“It may not be amiss to state further that it could not be possible
for all said ten (10) injuries of the deceased to have been inflicted
by one and the same knife, Exh. ‘C’, as the defense would like this
Court to believe. Indeed, according to Dr. Dimaandal, injuries Nos. 1,
2 and 3 were caused by blunt instrument, while injuries Nos. 4, 5, 6, 8
and 9 were caused by a sharp pointed instrument like a knife, and injury No. 7 was caused by a three-edged sharp instrument. In other words, at least three different kinds of weapon
were employed in the infliction of the aforesaid injuries. This, again
bear out conclusively the testimonies of  Hernandez and Corlit, that
defendants used at least two kinds of weapon in assaulting the
deceased, to wit, an iron bar and balisong knives, except
that they must have just been honestly mistaken that the three-edged
sharp instrument used by one of the defendants was also a balisong knife.

“In the third place, defendant Pedro Bautista’s plea of
self-defense does not have the ring of truth and sincerity, the same
being opposed to the physical facts, as already pointed out above.
Besides, he is naturally a biased witness, whose interest in his
acquittal and that of his father and brothers, cannot be
over-estimated, so that, his testimony must be regarded with extreme
caution, if not with suspicion of distortion. As adverted to above, the
Court cannot help but feel that Pedro Bautista alias Pedro
Agno simply tried to play the role of a hero to his co-defendants by
assuming sole authorship of Ponyo’s untimely demise, by setting up the
plea of justifiable homicide, thereby hoping ‘to kill two birds with
one shot’. This Court, however, cannot be so misled in the face of the
positive and conclusive evidence of the prdsecution to the contrary.”

We cannot but agree to the foregoing observation considering the
flaws we find in the story related by Pedro Bautista in connection with
some facts and circumstances that appear undisputed in the record.
Among these, the most important and decisive is the statement of Dr.
Dimaandal, who performed the autopsy on the body of the victim, that
some of the wounds he found were caused by a blunt instrument, others
were caused by a sharppointed instrument, like a knife, and injury No.
7 was caused by a sharp three-edged instrument. This statement belies
the very substance on which the theory of self-defense is predicated
that when Pedro Bautista met the deceased on the eventful night he was
not armed and when the deceased stabbed him with a balisong
knife they grappled for its possession and he was able to wrest the
knife with which he stabbed the deceased seven times leaving him dead
flat on the ground. This narration is in clear contrast to the finding
of Dr. Dimaandal that the wounds of the victim were inflicted by at
least three instruments which could not have certainly been produced by
the only balisong knife referred to by Pedro Bautista. This
circumstance furnishes the best corroboration to the theory of the
prosecution that the victim was assaulted and attacked by the five
appellants who at the time were armed with an iron bar and several balisong knives.

It is contended that the testimony of the two eyewitnesses of the
prosecution, namely, Juanito Hernandez and Alfonso Corlit, should not
have been given credence for the simple reason that, according to the
witnesses for the defense, Crispin Ginhawa and Emiliano Aguda, they
were not present at the scene of the crime and so they could not have
witnessed the occurrence, aside from the fact that they are first
cousins of the wife of the victim. In the first place, mere
relationship of the witness to a party in the controversy does not as a
rule disqualify him if he is otherwise trustworthy, otherwise many
crimes would remain unsolved. If Hernandez and Corlit were not seen by
the defense witnesses at the scene of the crime it does not necessarily
imply that they were not present, for they might have been hiding
somewhere. And in this case this is true with regard to witness
Hernandez who, according to the evidence, saw the aggression while
hiding behind a guava tree. The same thing may be said of Corlit who
must have been hiding somewhere else.

Anyway, little credence can be given to the testimony of Ginhawa and
Aguda whose presence at the scene of the crime is also of doubtful
admissibility considering that in the sworn statement made by Pedro
Bautista he made mention only of one Vicente Culla as the person who
witnessed the incident. No mention was made of Ginhawa and Aguda. The
eleventh hour appearance of these two witnesses may be explained by the
fact that Vicente Culla was not available and so he was not presented
as a witness.

Another important flaw we find is that, according to the story of
Pedro Bautista, after grabbing the knife from his alleged aggressor,
the herein victim, he still continued delivering stab blows upon him
totalling in all seven times. This, indeed, is incompatible, with the
plea of self-defense. It is a clear manifestation of a desire to
liquidate him.

Regarding the other appellants’ defense, their evidence merely
consisted in denying their presence at the scene of the crime on the
plea that they were in their respective homes. This defense can hardly
be sustained considering the evidence pointing unremittingly to their
presence and to their individual participation. Being a defense easy to
concoct, it must be established by a clear and convincing evidence and
not merely supported by witnesses who bear close ties of relationship
to the accused. Alibi, besides, cannot deserve credence if it
is not shown that the accused was so far away from the scene of the
crime that it would have been physically impossible for him to be
present and commit the crime. Here, these circumstances are wanting,
and as such reject the theory of alibi.

On February 23, 1962, the case against Roman Bautista was dismissed
because he died during the pendency of this appeal. This decision
should, therefore, be considered as relating merely to the other four
accused.

Wherefore, with the modification above indicated as regards
appellant Roman Bautista, the decision appealed from is affirmed, with
costs against the other appellants.

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