PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. HENRY SALVERON, ACCUSED-APPELLANT.

To better understand the antecedents of this case, we go back to
May 22, 1981, when Gloria de Felipe was allegedly robbed and raped by Raul
Salveron, Jesus Dalida, Mauricio Dumangas and several other unidentified
persons.

During their trial in 1982, Raul Salveron was shot to death
inside a bus by a passenger who escaped and has not been arrested to date. A few weeks later, Jesus Dalida was killed
in his house under mysterious circumstances that have yet to be unraveled. Mauricio Dumangas was luckier: he too was attacked with apparent intent to
kill but survived to accuse his attackers.

They were, according to him, Rosibal de Felipe, the husband of
Gloria de Felipe, Marianito Billones, Jr., and Jessie Vito, who were all
eventually charged with frustrated homicide.

It was during the pendency of this case that Rosibal de Felipe
was himself gunned down, on March 26, 1986, in Barangay Dolores, Municipality
of Balasan, Iloilo. The killing was
imputed to the herein appellant, Henry Salveron, the son of the late Raul
Salveron, in an information for murder filed against him and Federico Sadava.^[1]
This is the case now before the Court.

At the trial, the prosecution presented Victoriano Gregorio as
its star witness. He declared that at
about 6:00 o’clock in the evening of the said date, he went to see Rosibal at
his house but was told by his wife that he was not there. On his way back, Gregorio met Henry Salveron
and Federico Sadava at the foot of the bridge in Barangay Dolores and asked
them what they were doing there. Salveron said they were waiting for somebody. Gregorio proceeded on his way and, halfway through the bridge,
met Rosibal, who was riding on a motorcycle. They talked about some cattle for sale and agreed to meet at the town of
Estancia the following day. Gregorio
had reached the other end of the bridge when he heard gunshots. He ran for fear of his life but after a
while stopped and looked back, in time to see Henry Salveron standing at the
bridge with a long firearm. Gregorio
then sped back to Rosibal’s house, but by another route, to inform Gloria that
her husband had been shot.^[2]

Rosibal was already dead when Gloria reached him. The autopsy revealed that he had died due to
gunshot wounds in the head, body, arm and thigh caused by a high-powered
firearm.^[3]

Captain Nicanorito Gomez, station commander of the Integrated
National Police branch at Balasan, testified that after conducting an
investigation of the killing, he and his men went out to look for Salveron and
Sadava and were informed that they had gone to Camansi, Anilao, Iloilo, about
100 kilometers away. The team proceeded
to this place and there found the two, who willingly went with them to the PC
headquarters at Camp Delgado, Iloilo City.^[4] There,
the suspects were subjected to a paraffin test by Zenaida Sinfuego, a forensic
chemist, who said she found them both positive for gunpowder residue.^[5]

The defense pleaded alibi. According to Salveron his uncle Romeo Salveron fetched him on March 21,
1986, so he could work at his farm in the town of Anilao as the latter was no
longer able to do so because he was sick of tuberculosis. He started plowing the following morning at
6:00 o’clock and ended at 9:00, after which he and his uncle went hunting with a
licensed .22 caliber rifle.^[6]

Salveron added that on March 27, 1986, after asking his uncle’s
permission, he went to fetch Federico Sadava from Cabautan to help him with the
farm. They returned to Anilao at half
past 1:00 in the afternoon and immediately started plowing the field. Afterwards, they went hunting with the same
rifle Salveron and his uncle had used earlier.^[7]

It was on March
28, 1986, while they were resting in his uncle’s house, that they were picked
up by Captain Gomez and his men and taken to Camp Delgado.

After assessing the evidence of the parties, Judge Ricardo P.
Galvez of the Regional Trial Court of Iloilo City acquitted Federico Sadava for
lack of evidence of conspiracy but found Henry Salveron guilty as charged. In a well-written decision, he sentenced
Salveron to suffer the penalty of reclusion perpetua and all accessory
penalties, to indemnify the victim’s heir in the sum of P50,000.00, and to pay
the costs.^[8]

The appellant objects to this judgment. He argues in his brief that the trial court erred in assuming
that he had a motive in killing Rosibal de Felipe; that he fled to Anilao after
the killing; and that the nitrate burns pointed to his guilt.

Salveron misses the point completely. The assumptions he protests are merely corroborative of the
principal evidence of the prosecution, which is the testimony of Gregorio.

Gregorio saw Salveron with a rifle seconds after gunshots rang
out. Rosibal de Felipe was dead on the
ground. There was no other conclusion
but that Salveron had killed Rosibal.

The nitrate burns on Salveron’s hands only affirmed that
conclusion. The claim that he had gone
hunting was too pat for the trial judge, who understandably felt that the story
had been concocted to explain the nitrate burns. The paraffin test did not violate the appellant’s right against
self-incrimination as it involved only an examination of a part of his
body. As Justice Holmes said in Holt v.
United States:^[9]

[T]he prohibition of compelling a man in a criminal court to be a
witness against himself is a prohibition of the use of physical or moral
compulsion to extort communications from him, not an exclusion of his body as
evidence when it may be material.

The alibi itself, although corroborated by Romeo Salveron and
Elvira Barredo, was not convincing enough in the face of the positive
identification by Gregorio of Salveron as the killer. That identification proved that Salveron went to Anilao not
before but after the killing of Rosibal. Besides, Salveron would have the court believe that he deliberately left
his wife and children, as well as his mother, simply to assist his ailing
uncle. The record shows that the uncle
did not really need his nephew because he had from six to ten hired laborers who
were then helping him.^[10]

The assumed motive of Salveron to avenge the killing of his
father merely strengthened the finding of the trial judge that the appellant
was guilty of killing Rosibal. We are
not persuaded by the argument of the defense that Salveron would have reacted
earlier to his father’s murder if his purpose was revenge. Vengeance may take its time aborning; four
years may not be long enough to appease the vengeful heart. In any event, we have repeatedly held that
proof of motive is not essential where the culprit has been positively
identified, as in the case at bar.^[11]

The fact that Gregorio was not in the list of witnesses that was
attached to the information was satisfactorily explained by the
prosecution. The record shows that the
criminal complaint filed with the municipal court on March 29, 1986 did not
include Gregorio among the witnesses because his sworn statement was taken only
on April 1, 1986, and it was this list that was merely copied when the
information was prepared by the provincial prosecutor. At any rate, the omission did not disqualify
Gregorio from testifying later because, as we said in People v. Pacabes:^[12]

We have held in a long line of decisions that the prosecution is
allowed to call witnesses other than those named in the complaint and
information. While the accused in a
criminal prosecution is entitled to know the nature and cause of the accusation
against him, it does not mean that he is entitled to know in advance the names
of all the witnesses for the prosecution. The success of the prosecution might be endangered if such right be
granted to an accused for the known witnesses might be subjected to pressure or
coerced not to testify. The time for
the accused to know all the witnesses against him is when they take the witness
stand.

The trial court convicted Salveron of murder but did not explain
how it was qualified by evident premeditation or treachery as alleged in the
information. The allegation was simply
accepted without proof. This Court
itself has gone over the records and finds that neither of these circumstances
attended the commission of the crime.

The prosecution has not established the essential elements of
evident premeditation, to wit: a) the time when the offender determined to
commit the crime; b) an overt act showing that the culprit had clung to his
determination to commit the crime; and c) a sufficient lapse of time between
the determination and the execution of the crime as to allow him to reflect
upon the consequences of his act.^[13] In fact, no evidence whatsoever of any of
these elements was presented by the People.

Like evident premeditation, treachery cannot be merely presumed,
and certainly not from the environmental facts of the particular case before
us. While it may be argued that
Salveron ambushed Rosibal on his way home, there is also absolutely no positive
evidence of this conjecture. On the
other hand, it may also be supposed that, because he was riding on his
motorcycle, Rosibal could have used the vehicle to avert the attack upon him or
even to ram his attacker or at least deflect his fire. We resolve the doubt in favor of the
accused. We hold that there was no
treachery because it has not been shown that Salveron employed means, methods
or forms calculated to insure the execution of the killing without risk to
himself arising from the defense the victim might have made.^[14]

In the absence of either of the alleged qualifying circumstances,
we must find that the crime committed by Salveron was merely homicide and not
murder. Homicide is punishable with reclusion
temporal;^[15]
in this case in its medium period, there being no aggravating or mitigating
circumstance. Under the Indeterminate
Sentence Law, the penalty is reduced to an indeterminate penalty ranging from prision
mayor as minimum and reclusion temporal in its medium period
as maximum.

We hope that the bloody trail of vendetta that began with the
alleged robbery and rape of Gloria de Felipe will end with the killing of her
husband, Rosibal de Felipe in the case we here decide. Whatever retribution is warranted upon the guilty
in this tangled web of vengeance upon vengeance must be decreed, not by those
who feel they have been wronged, but by the law itself through the processes of
the courts.

WHEREFORE, the appealed decision is MODIFIED and the
appellant is hereby declared guilty not of murder but of homicide, for which he
is sentenced to the indeterminate penalty of 10 years of prision mayor,
as minimum, to 17 years and 4 months of reclusion temporal, as
maximum. He shall also indemnify the
heirs of Rosibal de Felipe in the sum of P50,000.00 and pay the costs.

SO ORDERED.

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

Bellosillo, J., on leave.

^[1]
Rollo, p. 8.

^[2]
TSN, January 6, 1987, pp. 4-12.

^[3]
TSN, September 10, 1987, p. 5; July 29,
1986, pp. 10-18; Exhibits “A,” “B,” and “C.”

^[4]
TSN, April 19, 1988, pp. 4-9.

^[5]
TSN, June 9, 1987, pp. 5-11; Exhibit “I.”

^[6]
TSN, December 12, 1989, pp. 4-6.

^[7]
Ibid., pp. 10-13.

^[8]
Rollo, p. 21.

^[9]
218 U.S. 245.

^[10]
TSN, January 23, 1990, pp. 21-23.

^[11]
People v. Cadag, 208 SCRA 781; People v. Danico, 208 SCRA 472; People v. Gabatin, 203 SCRA 225; People v. Ballinas, 202 SCRA 516; People v.
Gadiana, 195 SCRA 211.

^[12]
137 SCRA 158.

^[13]
People v. Pletado, 210 SCRA 634; People v. Nabayra, 203 SCRA 75;
People v. Clamor, 198 SCRA 642.

^[14]
People v. Castor, 216 SCRA 410; People v. Devaras, 205 SCRA 676;
People v. Barba, 203 SCRA 436; People v. Tiozon, 198 SCRA 368;
People v. Lubreo, 200 SCRA 11.

^[15]
Article 249, Revised Penal Code.