PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. REYNALDO VALIENTE, ACCUSED-APPELLANT.

From the decision of the trial court, accused Reynaldo Valiente filed
an appeal with the Court of Appeals, having been found guilty beyond reasonable
doubt of the crime of Murder by the trial court and was sentenced accordingly
to suffer an indeterminate penalty of from ten (10) years and one (1) day of prision
mayor as minimum, to eighteen (18) years, eight (8) months and one (1) day
of reclusion temporal as maximum
and to pay the heirs of the deceased Renato Portullano an indemnity of
P30,000. The prosecution, likewise
interposed an appeal challenging the penalty imposed.

The appellate court sustained the finding of guilt and conviction
of the accused, but modified the penalty imposed to reclusion perpetua
and increased the civil indemnity to P50,000.00. Thus this case was certified to Us for review.

Finding no reversible error, We uphold the decision of the Court
of Appeals.

The Information filed against Reynaldo Valiente states:

“That on or about July 29,
1987, in the Municipality of Calinog, Province of Iloilo, Philippines, and
within the jurisdiction of this Court, the above named accused, armed with a
firearm, without any justifiable motive, with treachery, evident premeditation and taking advantage of the nighttime
to better realize his purpose, with deliberate intent and decided purpose to
kill, did then and there wilfully, unlawfully and feloniously attack, assault,
shoot, hit and wound one Renato Portullano with the firearm with which he was
provided at that time, thereby
inflicting two (2) gunshot wounds on the vital parts of his body which caused
his death immediately thereafter.”^[1]

A brief statement of the facts reveal that on July 29, 1987, at
about 9:00 p.m., Renato Portullano, a patient at the male ward of Calinog
District Hospital, Calinog, Iloilo, while lying on his bed was shot twice by a
masked gunman. The first shot hit him
on his right jaw, while the second, his lumbar region on his left side
back. The victim died while under the
medical attention of Dr. Roberto Castronuevo, resident physician and OIC, and
the nursing staff of the said hospital.

The identity of the assailant was established mainly through the
statements of three eye-witnesses, namely Primitiva Portullano, Nenita
Portullano and Brenda Portullano, the first being the mother of the victim
while the latter two were his sisters.

The three witnesses’ account of the incident tend to show that on
the said fateful day Renato Portullano, who was then seriously ill of
influenza, was being attended to by his mother and two sisters. Nenita was then at the door of the female
ward from where she can see the patients of the male ward, while her mother,
Primitiva and her sister, Brenda, were lying together on a bed beside that
being occupied by the victim. When
Primitiva stood up to go to the bed of her son, a thud coming from the outside
was heard. After a while, they saw a
person running towards the male ward and entered it. The assailant fired two successive shots, with a 5-second
interval, hitting the victim and then a supposed third shot was fired hitting
the glass jalousie near the victim.

Primitiva and Brenda ran out of the room after the second shot,
to shout for help. But while Brenda
went to the female ward, her mother stayed at the door of the male ward and as
she was standing there she recognized a man coming towards her as the accused. Reynaldo Valiente. The assailant shouted to the doctors that nobody should go out
and ordered Primitiva to lie flat on her stomach, which she did. The accused stood near her for a while then
ran outside of the hospital. At that
instance, Primitiva stood up and shouted for Dr. Castronuevo who immediately
came and proceeded to the male ward together with Primitiva and Brenda. But while inside, they saw a person at the
window near the victim, pointing a gun at them.

Dr. Castronuevo and Brenda then ran out of the room, while
Primitiva sought cover under the bed of her son, pulled him down from the bed
and when he was already on the floor, dragged him outside the room near the information table. Primitiva became hysterical and proceeded to
the female ward crying and shouting that it was Valiente who killed her son.

On the other hand, accused testifying in his behalf, denied responsibility for the
shooting leading to the death of
Renato Portullano. He alleged
that he was on duty as maintenance man of the Calinog District Hospital on July
29, 1987 from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. From work, he proceeded home to Barangay Bahi, San Julian, Calinog,
which is about 3 kilometers from the hospital. From there, he went to his farm and applied fertilizer on his rice plantings. He returned to his house at the poblacion which is about 1
kilometer from the hospital at about 6:30 p.m.

At about past midnight that same day, a group of persons went to
his house, invited him to go with them to the Municipal Building, as he was suspected
of shooting “Commander Turko” in the hospital. Valiente did not accept the invitation, not
until Mayor Alex Castigador intervened and convinced him to go with the
authorities. The following day, he was
subjected to a paraffin test.

Appellant alleged that before the paraffin test was conducted, he
washed his hands which was full of grease, having helped in fixing the jeep
they were riding on, and then lighted up with a match 3 mosquito coils upon
instruction of a policeman.

Valiente denied having known the victim while still living, nor
having talked to the mother and her daughters, Brenda and Nenita, on any
occasion. He, however admitted having a
brother, an NPA member by the name of Ramon Valiente, who was killed in an
encounter with the 12th Infantry Battalion in 1986. He likewise denied knowing the deceased as Commander Turko or
that his brother Ramon was known in NPA circle as Ka Tirso.

The main issue in this case is whether the masked man who shot the victim twice was positively
identified by the prosecution witnesses as the accused-appellant.

It is the contention of
the accused that his conviction was not supported by that quantum of
proof necessary for conviction. He
particularly questions the court’s giving credence to the testimonies of the
prosecution witnesses, who are the mother and sisters of the victim, whose
testimonies are tainted with bias and prejudice, and hence incredible, doubtful
and unbelievable.

We do not believe
so. On the contrary, We find the
conclusions of the court a quo to be well substantiated by the evidence
on record as to warrant conviction of the accused beyond reasonable doubt. The fact that the prosecution witnesses are
related to the victim, does not necessarily cast serious doubt upon their
credibility in the absence of an improper motive in making the witnesses
testify against the accused.^[2] In the case at bar, We find none. As properly observed by the appellate court:

“’While evidence as to the identity of the accused as the
person who committed the crime should be carefully analyzed, it has been held
that where conditions of visibility are favorable and the witness does not
appear to be biased against the man on the dock, his or her assertions as to
the identity of the malefactor should normally be accepted. And this is more so where the witnesses are near relatives, as in this
case, because these people usually strive to remember the faces of the
assailants.’”^[3]

As to the witnesses’ identification of the accused as the gunman,
the trial court had this to say:

“The Court is convinced that while the identification of the
accused as the masked gunman, who had his face covered with a colored
handkerchief, as testified to by Brenda Portullano and wearing a hat as pointed
to by Primitiva Portullano in her version, with his eyes visible through his
own device, may have been obscure at first because of the inherent difficulty
that said witnesses encountered, the testimony of Dr. Roberto Castronuevo to
the effect that Primitiva Portullano, the mother, who was with him at the
hospital staff (sic), giving emergency procedures to the victim, had even
shouted ‘He is from the hospital who is the killer,’ and ‘Valiente surely is
the killer,’ lend some color of truth to the mother’s identification of the
accused, whom she had seen shortly that evening and while his (sic) son was
first confined at the hospital from July 4 to 29, 1987 and heard him converse
with his (sic) son. The motherly
instincts of Primitiva Portullano, who only reached Grade 6, could not have
failed her when she identified the masked gunman as the accused, through his
physical build and voice characteristics, and she wanted this to be confirmed
through his (sic) son as pointed out by Dr Castronuevo who declared that while
he was attending to the victim, Primitiva confronted her son, asking him ‘Toto,
it is Valiente for sure?’ but the son could no longer answer.

” . . .  Nenita Portullano, in her testimony
also recalled having known him (the accused)
for 7-years having been classmates with the accused in high school. He (sic) also saw him in the poblacion of
Calinog and was familiar with his build and physical features. Brenda once rode with the accused in a
passenger jeep bound for Roxas City to attend a rally of the League of Filipino
Students in 1984 or 1985.”^[4]

x x x

“On the other hand, Primitiva and Brenda were aware of the
hostile attitude of the accused to the victim, during the time when Renato was
confined for the first time at the Calinog Hospital, on July 4, 1987 and was
about to be discharged therefrom on July 6, 1987. According to Primitiva, she was present when after the accused
entered his room, her son asked the accused, ‘Nalds, you are here, are you
working here?’ to which the accused gave a curt ‘No’ answer. Then, when he was about to be discharged,
there was an altercation regarding her son’s refusal to have his picture
taken. The accused was heard to say
that during the time that Renato arrived, he could have killed him, to which
her son replied that he should not go after him since he is willing to reform
and live a new life.”^[5]

x x x

“It has been held that a person can be identified in the dark
by his voice and structure of his body.^[6] In
the case at bar, the place where the accused shot the victim was even
lighted. The Court is therefore
persuaded to hold that by the concurrence of several characteristics, namely,
the size of the person, his gait and tone of voice, the accused was properly
identified by the prosecution witnesses, Nenita, Primitiva and Brenda as the masked
gunman who shot the victim, Renato Portullano, to death in the evening of July
29, 1987, inside the male ward of the Calinog District Hospital in Calinog,
Iloilo.”^[7]

As against the positive testimonies of the prosecution witnesses
that the accused was the assailant, the latter’s defense of alibi cannot
prosper. Valiente himself testified
that at the time of the incident, he was then at his house, which is some 1 to
3 kilometers from the District hospital where the shooting occurred.^[8]
He further said that, at that time he was in
the company of two men, Lorencio Lego and Ronnie Lou Lego,^[9]
who were not, however, presented as witnesses to corroborate his defense. The rule is that defense of alibi is
considered with suspicion and always received with caution, not only because it
is inherently weak and
unreliable, but also because it is easily fabricated. For an alibi, as defense, to overcome the positive identification
of the prosecution, it must satisfy the test of “full, clear and satisfactory
evidence.” This test requires not
only proof that the accused was somewhere else other than the scene of the
crime but clear and convincing proof of physical impossibility for the accused
to have been at the place of the commission of the crime.^[10]

On the alleged inconsistency of the testimonies of prosecution
witnesses Primitiva, Nenita and Brenda Portullano with the testimonies of
prosecution witness, Dr. Castronuevo and defense witnesses, Daquita and
Lacuesta regarding the number of shots actually fired, the apparent conflict
was resolved by the trial court as follows:

“The variance in the testimonies of the three prosecution
eye-witnesses, Nenita Portullano, Primitiva Portullano and Brenda Portullano
regarding the number of shots fired by the gunman and that of Dr. Castronuevo,
Efren Daquita and Arthur Lacuesta, can be explained by the fact that in his
testimony Efren Daquita who was at the main door of the hospital and who ran to
the next building after hearing a loud noise there, declared that he fired a
warning shot with his gun after he was pointed to by a masked man, and after he
had (sic) fell flat on the floor and crawled outside.”^[11]

Other circumstances which the trial court relied upon are the
following:

“1. The facility by
which the masked gunman entered the hospital building through the main door,
locked it and after shooting Renato in the male ward, had waited and threatened
Dr. Castronuevo with a gun pointed at him from outside the window of the male
ward, and thereafter made good his escape without any trace. This shows that the masked man was familiar
with the location of the rooms and the entrance and exit doors of the hospital
and said knowledge can only come from the accused, being the building
maintenance man.

“2. The telephones
in the information, drug store and a certain Jasmin had no dial tone, which
could have been the work of a man conversant with the facilities in the
hospital, and such familiarity, could have only come from the accused, who was
the hospital repair man.

“3. The accused as
the brother of Ramon Valiente, an NPA member, could have taken it against
Renato who had the rank of Commander Turko for having surrendered to the
military and in the process, reveal the secrets of the organization. In fact, there is reason to believe that
accused and Renato were intimate friends, when Renato allegedly addressed the
accused as ‘Nalds’,”^[12]

Finally, the accused maintains that the positive result of the
paraffin test conducted on him by Lt. Zenaida Zinfuego, Forensic Chemist of the
PC Crime Laboratory, was merely circumstantial and should not be given any
probative weight.

We do not agree. As a
matter of fact, the trial court made a very interesting analysis on how the
paraffin test gave the accused away as the real perpetrator, and We quote:

“As against the claim of the accused that in the afternoon of
July 29, 1987, he went to his rice farm, with an area of 2 hectares and applied
fertilizer thereon, consisting of 2 (and) 1/2 bags of mixed fertilizers, and
that when he was at the laboratory room preparatory to being made to undergo a
paraffin test, he was made to light three (3) ‘katol’ mosquito killers with
matches, and the findings of Lt. Zinfuego on the result of the paraffin test,
(Exhibits “A” and “B”), the Court finds that the latter
deserves more credence than, and its probative value outweighs, the highly
improbable version of the accused.

“The Court is not inclined to accept the testimony of the
accused that he only washed his hands
with water, without using soap after applying fertilizer on his farm, when he
returned home to the poblacion and even before eating supper, and subsequently
thereafter or for a period of 3 days, until he was in Camp Delgado, where he
was made to wash his hands with water before the paraffin test, it being
contrary to the common experience and the ordinary habits of mankind. Moreover, the version of the accused that he
was made to light with matches, three mosquito (Katol) killers after he had
washed his hands with water and wiped them with a dirty piece of cloth before
the paraffin test was conducted at the PC Crime Laboratory by S/Stg.
Liderato Sidel was denied by the latter in his rebuttal testimony. This witness (Sidel) declared that after the accused had washed his
hands, without soap, these were left to dry, without wiping them and that once
the subject had washed his hands, the suspect cannot light a match or a
mosquito killer, before the paraffin test is conducted.

“Clinching the prosecution’s theory that the accused had recently
fired a gun due to the presence of gunpowder residues embedded in his pores
after the dermal paraffin test was conducted, is the findings of Lt. Zenaida
Zinfuego, Forensic Chemist, of the PC Crime Laboratory, and a qualified expert
on paraffin test, to the effect that the gunpowder residue found on both hands
of the accused, are distinguishable from the specks caused by contaminants,
because the latter float and are clustered in form and there is immediate
reactions, while in gunpowder, there is a gap of five minutes before it reacts.

“Her explanation that the presence of more nitrate on the left
hand than on the right hand of the accused as shown on the “XS” marks in Exhibit “D”,
results from the fact that the left hand was more exposed since it was covering
the right hand when the gun was fired, is supportive of the prosecution’s
version that the accused was holding the gun with both hands when he fired it
two times, hitting the victim and that the left hand was clutching the right
hand. The Court finds no cogent reasons
(sic) to depart from the findings of Lt. Zinfuego on the result and
interpretation of the paraffin test made on the accused, Reynaldo
Valiente.”^[13]

As to the proper imposable penalty, accused having been found guilty
of the crime of murder, the latter should be meted the penalty of reclusion perpetua, there being no
mitigating or aggravating circumstance. The civil indemnity for the death of the victim, Renato Portullano,
should be P50,000.00 as ruled by the appellate court.

WHEREFORE, accused Reynaldo Valiente, having been found
guilty of the crime of murder beyond reasonable doubt is hereby sentenced to
suffer the penalty of reclusion perpetua and to indemnify the heirs of
the victim in the amount of P50,000.00.

SO ORDERED.

Narvasa, C.J., (Chairman), Padilla, and Regalado, JJ., concur.

Melo, J., no part.

^[1]
Original Records, p. 1.

^[2]
People v. Tunhawan, G.R. No. L-81470, 166 SCRA 638 (1988).

^[3]
People v. Alvarez, G.R. No. 70446, 169 SCRA 730 (1989), citing People v.
Bernat, G.R. No. L-55179, 120 SCRA 918 (1983). Decision, p. 12-13.

^[4]
Trial Court’s Decision, pp. 12-13.

^[5]
Ibid, p. 11.

^[6]
People v. Domen, G.R. No. 47675-76, 120 SCRA 486 (1983).

^[7]
Trial Court’s Decision, p. 13.

^[8]
TSN, September 21, 1989, pp. 4-5.

^[9]
TSN, Ibid, p. 5.

^[10]
People v. Gaddi, G.R. No. 74065, 170 SCRA 649 (1989).

^[11]
Trial Court’s Decision, p. 9.

^[12]
Ibid, p.13.

^[13]
Ibid, pp. 14-15.