PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. BENJIE RAMILLA Y AUSENTE ALIAS “CHEM-CHEM,” ACCUSED-APPELLANT.

The scene is familiar. A
group of persons on a drinking spree. An unwary passerby. A
drunken approach. A rumble. A stabbing. And one more human life is wasted on the street.

That is what the prosecution claimed to have happened on
September 1, 1988, at about 9 o’clock in the evening, at Quirino street in
Tondo.

As related by Edgar (Egay) Santos at the trial,^[1]
he and his friend William Santos were on their way home when they passed by a
store where the herein appellant, Benjie Ramilla, and some companions were
drinking. Upon seeing them, the group
whispered among themselves and Ramilla then approached William. Ramilla grabbed William’s hair and dragged
him about five meters away. Demetrio
Cabretino handed a knife to Roberto Castillo, who then started stabbing William
as two others in the group held the helpless victim’s arms. Ramilla kicked William several times before
the stricken man fell to the ground.

Egay ran and reported the incident to William’s father. They rushed to the hospital and learned that
William was already dead. Cause of
death per the subsequent autopsy report was massive hemorrhage due to the stab
wound on his chest.^[2]

From the hospital, Egay accompanied two policemen to Ramilla’s
house, where they were told by his mother that he was not in. They nevertheless entered and found Ramilla
in the kitchen hiding behind a table and gathering his belongings.^[3]
He was invited to police headquarters for questioning.

Ramilla alone was charged with the murder of William Santos
because his companions had all disappeared. He testified on his own behalf and presented several witnesses for
corroboration.

His defense was denial. He swore that on the night in question, he was asleep in his house,
being under orders from his parents not to go out late at night and thus avoid
trouble. He swore that he was not hiding
when the policemen came to arrest him. He also said Egay used to be his friend but they were no longer on
speaking terms.^[4]

Adelaida Ramilla corroborated her son’s alibi. She also said her son and Ramilla had a
falling-out a week before and that she herself had sent Egay out of her house
because he had eaten her food. There
was an exchange of invectives between them then and Egay had left with the
threat “Tatandaan mo.” She suggested that the incident
explained the motive for his testifying falsely against her son.^[5]

An alleged eyewitness, Arturo Esplago, testified that it was a
stranger who stabbed William to death. The killer came from an alley and immediately attacked William, who ran,
shouting “Away! Away!” The wounded man was surrounded by
people as a woman shouted “Tama na, tama na, tigilan mo na!”
William then staggered toward the alley and fell before he reached the corner.^[6]

Demetrio Mata swore he saw the same incident and also insisted
that the killer was a stranger who came from the alley and then fled after
stabbing William. There was a mob that
surrounded William before he ran toward the alley and fell when he reached the
corner as he clutched his stomach.^[7]

In his decision dated April 8, 1991, Judge Procoro J. Donato of
the Regional Trial Court of Manila found Benjie Ramilla guilty of the murder of
William Santos and sentenced him to suffer the penalty of reclusion perpetua,
to pay the victim’s heirs P50,000.00 as civil indemnity and P10,000.00 as moral
damages.^[8]

The decision is now faulted by the defense for not applying the
equipoise rule and for giving credence to the testimony of the lone eyewitness
for the prosecution as against the alibi of Ramilla and the testimonies of his
own witnesses.

The equipoise rule is applicable only where the evidence of the
prosecution and the defense are so evenly balanced as to call for the tilting
of the scales in favor of the accused who is presumed innocent under the Bill
of Rights. The rule is not applicable
here because there is no equipoise. The
evidence of the prosecution is heavier than that of the defense and has
overcome the constitutional presumption of innocence in favor of the appellant.

The trial court found that the testimony of Egay Santos was more
convincing than the testimonies of the defense witnesses. We agree that the motive ascribed to him for
testifying against Ramilla is far too insubstantial to deserve belief. More importantly, we find from the swift flow
of events that night that it was not possible for Egay to concoct a malicious
and false story for the purpose only of implicating the appellant.

The stabbing took place suddenly at about nine o’clock that
evening. Egay immediately reported the
attack to William’s father and together they rushed to the hospital where they
found William already dead. Egay was
interviewed there by the investigating policemen, to whom he reported William’s
involvement in the killing, and then went with them to his house where he was
picked up at about one o’clock the following morning. The group then proceeded to police headquarters, and there Egay
submitted to investigation and made his sworn statement at about four o’clock
the same morning. There was no time for
fabrication. Egay merely narrated what
he had actually seen. Notably, his
sworn statement^[9]
conformed completely with his subsequent testimony at the trial, where he again
recounted the killing of William Santos in the evening of September 1, 1989.

By contrast, the evidence for the defense suffers from many major
flaws that dissuaded the trial court from accepting it. The alibi was far from convincing because
Ramilla’s house, where he claimed to have been sleeping at the time of the
stabbing, was only a few minutes walk from the scene of the crime. Its inherent weakness is further debilitated
by its corroboration from Ramilla’s own mother, which must also be taken with a
grain of salt because of its suspect bias and truthfullness. No other witness supported the alibi.

The testimonies of the alleged eyewitnesses, who claimed that the
killer was a mysterious stranger, are not reliable either. The Court notes inter alia that
whereas Esplago maintained that William fell in front of Mata’s house, about
three houses away from the corner of the alley,^[10] Mata
himself was sure that William fell at the corner.^[11]
Esplago said that when William was stabbed, he started running and shouted
“Away! Away!” as the people milled around him. We find this reaction rather strange as a
person in his condition would have said something more relevant like “Tulungan
ninyo ako! Sinaksak ako!” or some such exclamation expressing his
desperation. Instead, he acted like a
town-crier announcing an objective news item affecting some distant and unknown
person. We also wonder why, as narrated
by Mata, William was clutching his stomach as he ran when, according to the
autopsy report, he had been fatally stabbed in the chest.

These may be minor contradictions understandable in the narration
by several witnesses of the same violent occurrence, but they are nevertheless
useful and revealing in the comparison of such narrations with the testimonies
of other witnesses for the other side. The trial judge obviously made such a comparison, and this comparison,
added to his observation of their demeanor on the stand, persuaded him to
believe Egay rather than Ramilla and his corroborating witnesses. We have said often enough that the
assessment of the witnesses by the trial judge is received with considerable
respect on appeal, if not indeed deemed conclusive on the reviewing court. The exception is where such assessment is
tainted with arbitrariness, but we do not find that flaw here.

The evidence shows that there was, indeed, a conspiracy, as the
trial court held. Thus, as William and
Egay approached, Ramilla and his companions whispered to each other, then
Ramilla dragged William by the hair, and as two of the group restrained his
arms, William was stabbed by one man with a knife handed to him by another and
was kicked several times by Ramilla as their victim fell. There was community of purpose among the
group. There was concert of action in
the killing of William. Ramilla was
clearly part of the conspiracy and so must be held equally guilty with the rest
of his companions even if it was not he who actually wielded the knife that
killed William.

We agree that treachery attended the crime and qualified it to
murder because the victim was completely taken by surprise when the group
attacked him and he was rendered unable to defend himself when they held his
arms and stabbed and kicked him. Abuse
of superior strength was correctly not appreciated as a separate aggravating
circumstance because it is deemed absorbed in treachery.^[12]

But the prosecution failed to prove evident premeditation by
Ramilla and his companions. Its
essential elements are: (1) the time when the offender determined to commit the
crime; (2) an act manifestly indicating that the culprit had clung to his
determination; (3) a sufficient interval of time between the determination and
the execution of the crime to allow him to reflect upon the consequences of his
act and to allow his conscience to overcome the resolution of his will.^[13]
These elements have not been established by the People. It has not been shown that Ramilla’s group
was lying in wait for William and Egay that night to carry out a plan to kill
him as earlier agreed upon by them. The
plan seems to have been made on the spur of the moment, clearly without
premeditation as above defined.

For this reason, we must correct the statement in the decision
that “there is no need to discuss whether this qualifying circumstance is
present because conspiracy has already been shown and conspiracy denotes
premeditation.” This generalization is not applicable to the case at bar
because, as Chief Justice Ramon C. Aquino explained in his book:^[14]

Under normal conditions, where conspiracy is directly established,
with proof of the attendant deliberation and selection of the method, time and
means of executing the crime, the existence of evident premeditation can be
taken for granted. But in the case of implied conspiracy, evident premeditation
may not be appreciated, in the absence of proof as to how and when the plan to
kill the victim was hatched or what time elapsed before it was carried out, so
that it cannot be determined if the accused had “sufficient time between
its inception and its fulfillment dispassionately to consider and accept the
consequences.” There should be a showing that the accused had the
opportunity for reflection and persisted in effectuating his criminal design.

The invocation of voluntary surrender as a mitigating
circumstance is not acceptable. Ramilla
did not surrender. The police went to
his house, where he was found crouching behind a table in the kitchen and was
invited to the police station. The fact
that he did not resist but peacefully went with the policemen does not mean
that he voluntarily surrendered. He did
not present himself voluntarily to the police^[15] and
neither did he ask them to fetch him at his house so he could surrender.^[16]
He was found skulking in the kitchen, after his mother had denied his presence
in the house, and was apparently gathering his belongings at that time,
possibly for flight.

William Santos was only 21 years old when he was killed. Benjie Ramilla is now 24 years old. Two young men have been doomed by this
mindless murder, which has sent one to an untimely death and the other to a
life behind bars.

And so another murder has been added to the long list of crimes
committed in Tondo, hotbed of hoodlums and arena of thuggery. Lost in its notoriety are the quiet good
works of the great majority of its inhabitants, who pursue the even tenor of
their lives with goodwill toward each other and respect for the law,
unflappable resilience in the face of misfortune, and an abiding faith in the
providence of the Almighty.

WHEREFORE, the appeal is DISMISSED and the challenged
decision is AFFIRMED, with costs against the appellant.

SO ORDERED.

Davide, Jr., Bellosillo, and
Quiason, JJ., concur.

^[1]
TSN, pp. 2-5, December 14, 1988.

^[2]
Exhibit E, Original Records, p. 84.

^[3]
TSN, pp. 6-7, December 14, 1988.

^[4]
TSN, pp. 4, 6, June 6, 1991.

^[5]
TSN, pp. 14-16, May 30, 1989.

^[6]
TSN, pp. 3-4, May 30, 1989.

^[7]
TSN, pp. 5-6, May 31, 1989.

^[8]
Original Records, pp. 156-173.

^[9]
Original Records, p. 146.

^[10]
TSN, p. 4, May 30, 1989.

^[11]
TSN, p. 6, May 31, 1989.

^[12]
People v. Centeno, 172 SCRA 607; People v. Manzanares, 177 SCRA
427.

^[13]
People v. Diwa, 23 SCRA 468; People v. Clamor, 198 SCRA 642; People v. Nabayra,
203 SCRA 75.

^[14]
Aquino, The Revised Penal Code, Vol. 1,
1976 Ed., pp. 338-339.

^[15]
People v. Adlawan, 83 Phil. 194;
People v. Siojo, 61 Phil. 307.

^[16]
People v. Canoy, 90 Phil. 633.