PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. MARIO EVANGELISTA Y BUNYAG, ACCUSED-APPELLANT.

Mario Evangelista was charged with violation of Section 15, Article
III of Republic Act No. 6425, as amended (the Dangerous Drugs Act of 1972).

The information filed by the Assistant Prosecutor alleges:

“x x x. That on or about the 23rd day of April, 1991, in the
Municipality of Makati, Metro Manila, Philippines and within the jurisdiction
of this Honorable Court, the above-named accused, without the necessary license
or prescription and without being authorized by law, did then and there
willfully, unlawfully and feloniously sell, deliver and give away 0.08 grams of
Methamphetamine Hydrochloride (‘Shabu’), a regulated drug, in
consideration of P200.00 to one SSgt. Glenn I. Logan, a poseur-buyer, in
violation of the above-cited law.

Contrary to law.”^[1]

Upon arraignment, the accused pleaded not guilty to the
charge. After trial, the court a quo
rendered a decision dated 3 September 1992, the dispositive portion of which
reads in part:

“WHEREFORE, finding accused Mario Evangelista y Bunyag guilty
beyond reasonable doubt of having committed the offense for violation of Section
15, Art. III, R.A. 6425 as amended, he is hereby sentenced to suffer life
imprisonment and to pay a fine of P25,000.00. x x x.

SO ORDERED.”^[2]

The prosecution presented the testimony of Staff Sergeant Glenn
I. Logan of the Narcotics Command, Philippine National Police (“PNP”). The prosecution originally intended to
present P/Lt. Leslie Chambers of the PNP Crime Laboratory Service ?????
however, prosecution and defense entered into a stipulation of facts covering
the matters originally to be established by testimony of P/Lt. Chambers, which
testimony was accordingly dispensed with. The testimony of the prosecution witness, SSgt. Glenn I. Logan was
summarized by the trial court as follows:

“x x x. On April 23, 1991 at about 2:40 p.m.,
he [SSgt. Glenn I. Logan] was at 6767 Adahlia, Guadalupe Viejo, Makati where a
buy-bust operation was conducted. He
was part of the team which
conducted the buy-bust operation and he played the role of the
poseur-buyer. Capt. Charles Calima, the
leader of their team furnished him with two (2) P100.00 bills to be used in the
operation (Exhs. ‘E’ & ‘E-1’). The
subject of their operation was one Mario Evangelista @ Mayot whom he identified
in Court. Their team was guided to the
place of Evangelista by their confidential informant who introduced him to
Evangelista at the door of the house while the other members of their team
positioned themselves in strategic locations. After being introduced to Evangelista as a buyer, the accused asked him
how much he was going to buy. He
ordered from the accused P200.00 worth of shabu but the accused demanded from
him the amount of P200.00 before agreeing to the transaction. After he handed the amount of P200.00, the
accused left for a while and when he returned, he handed to him an aluminum
foil containing the suspected shabu which he identified in Court as Exh. ‘B.’
He also identified the shabu in a self sealing plastic bag which was marked as
Exh. ‘B-1’ as the specimen which was retrieved from the pockets of the
accused’s short pants. After examining
the specimen which was handed to him, he arrested Evangelista.

On cross-examination he reiterated some vital facts in the direct
examination and further testified that he did not know the accused prior to
April 23, 1991 and that it was their confidential informant who knew the
accused and the latter’s residence. He
conducted a surveillance in the morning of April 23, 1991 and he saw the
accused just standing across the street fronting his residence.”^[3]

Accused-appellant denied the charges and offered his own story
which the trial court summed up in the following terms:

“x x x [P]rior to his indictment in the instant case, he [Mario
Evangelista] was working as a driver for Mrs. Cometa whose house is about two
(2) kilometers from his own house. On
April 23, 1991 between the hours of 12:00 noon and 1:45 p.m. while he was
taking his lunch in an eatery (carinderia) located in the corner of Camia and
Gumamela Sts. which was about 5 kms. from his house, he was suddenly
apprehended by SSg. Glenn Logan. He did
not know the reason why he was apprehended. In fact, he did not even know SSg. Glenn Logan at the time. Neither did he know any member of SSg.
Logan’s team. He denied having seen the
shabu allegedly sold by him (Exh. ‘B’) as well as the shabu which was allegedly
recovered from the pocket of his short pants (Exh. ‘B-1’). He also denied knowledge of the P200.00
allegedly used as buy-bust money.”^[4]

Another witness was presented by the defense, in the person of
Rodolfo Laurente, who corroborated Evangelista’s story:

“[T]hat the accused was his neighbor and that he had known
Evangelista since 1990. He knew
Evangelista to be a family man with no derogatory record. On April 23, 1991 between the hours of 12:00
noon and 1:00 p.m., he was eating in a ‘carinderia’ located at the corner of
Gumamela and Camia Streets. There were
many people in the eatery at the time, among whom was the accused Mario
Evangelista. All of a sudden
Evangelista was apprehended by policemen. He did not know the reason why Evangelista was apprehended.”^[5]

From his conviction in the trial court, accused-appellant
interposed this appeal assigning the following as errors:

I. The court a quo
erred in believing the testimony of SSgt. Glenn I. Logan, who appears not to be
credible.

II. The court erred in not taking due consider­ation of the
statement of defense witness Rodolfo Laurente.

III. Finally, the court a quo erred in finding that the
accused was guilty beyond reasonable doubt.

After a careful examination of the records of this case, the
Court finds no error warranting reversal of the findings of facts and the
conclusion of the trial court.

The rule has long been settled that the findings of facts of the
trial court are accorded great weight and respect and its conclusions on the
credibility of the witnesses are not disturbed save for clear and compelling
reasons, such as that the trial court has overlooked some important facts
which, if properly considered by the trial court, would change the result of
the case.^[6]

The trial court found the testimony of prosecution witness S/Sgt.
Glenn I. Logan, who had acted as poseur-buyer in the “buy-bust” operation as
straightforward, convincing and worthy of credence and accordingly, adequate to
overcome the presumption of innocence to which appellant Mario Evangelista was
entitled:

“Upon weighing the evidence presented by the prosecution and the
defense, the Court is convinced that the constitutional presumption of
innocence in favor of the accused has been sufficiently overcome by the proof
beyond reasonable doubt of his guilt. The principal prosecution witness in the person of Ssg. Glenn Logan
convincingly testified that it was accused Mario Evangelista who sold to him
the methamphetamine hydrochloride placed inside an aluminum foil for
P200.00. He positively identified the
accused in Court. He also identified
that methamphetamine hydrochloride shown to him and marked as Exhs. B and B-1
as the same methamphetamine hydrochloride he bought and confiscated from the
said accused. There is nothing on the
record that will show that Ssg. Logan was actuated with improper motive to
testify falsely against the accused. In
fact, both Ssg. Logan and the accused admitted in their respective testimonies
that they did not know each other prior to April 23, 1991.

‘Credence should be given to the narration of an incident by
prosecution witnesses who are police officers and presumed to have performed
their duties in a regular manner in the absence of evidence that said witnesses
were actuated by improper motives. Their testimonies should be entitled to full faith and credit.’ (People –versus-
­Boholst y Amadore, G.R. 73008, July 23, 1987)

‘When there is no evidence and nothing to indicate the principal
witness for the prosecution was actuated by improper motives, the presumption
is that he was not so actuated and his testimony is entitled to full faith and
credit.’ (People -vs- Patog, 144 SCRA 429).”^[7]

Appellant in his Brief attempted to show that S/Sgt. Logan had
made inconsistent statements when he testified and that, therefore, S/Sgt.
Logan had lied on the witness stand. Appellant pointed to the following testimony of S/Sgt. Logan:

“x x x. Please consider these:

Q:        Before
you ????? ????? conduct buy-bust operation, did you conduct a surveillance with
your team members?

A:         It
was the confidential informant who knows alyas Mayot’s residence, sir.

Q:        In
other words, Mr. Witness, there was no prior surveillance conducted on the
person of the accused before the buy bust operation?

A:         There
was in the morning of April 23, 1991, sir.

Q:        It
was only in the morning of April 23, 1991 of the same date by whom?

A:         I
was the one who conducted the surveillance, sir. (TSN, page 18, Oct. 14, 1991)

Then, in a previous answer, SSgt. Logan
told the court:

Q:        Who
led you to the residence of the accused?

A:         It
was the confidential informant, sir.

Q:        Nobody
else knew the residence of the accused?

A:         I
am not aware of it, sir. (TSN, page 17, October 14, 1991).”^[8]

From the foregoing excerpts of S/Sgt.
Logan’s testimony, appellant argues that since S/Sgt. Logan was not aware of
the residence of the accused, he could not have been able to conduct
surveillance of such residence as alleged by him. Appellant then concludes that S/Sgt. Logan never placed under surveillance
accused’s residence.

One difficulty with appellant’s argument is that he relies on
excerpts that he did not quote in the sequence in which such testimony
was actually given by S/Sgt. Logan. The
testimony of S/Sgt. Logan was given in the following terms and sequence:

“Q:     Mr.
Witness, did you know the
accused prior to April 23, 1991?

A:       No[t] personally,
sir.

Q:      It was (sic) only on the date of the buy-bust operation
that you came to know the accused?

A:       Yes, sir.

x x x                                                                  x
x x                                                                        x
x x

Q:      Who led you to the
residence of the accused?

A:       It was the
confidential informant, sir.

Q:      Nobody else in the
team knew the residence of the accused?

A:       I am not aware of
it, sir.

Q:      Before you went to
conduct buy-bust operation,
did you conduct a surveillance with your team members?

A:       It was the
confidential informant who know alyas Mayot’s residence, sir.

Q:        In
other words, Mr. Witness, there was no prior surveillance conducted on
the person of the accused before the buy-bust operation?

A:         There
was in the morning of April 23, 1991, sir.

Q:        It
was only in the morning of April 23, 1991 of the same date (sic) by whom?

A:         I
was the one who conducted the surveillance, sir.”^[9]
(Underscoring supplied)

We are unable to see any inconsistency
that may reasonably be imputed to S/Sgt. Logan in the above testimony. S/Sgt. Logan testified that he did not know
the address or residence of the accused prior to 23 April 1991, the day when
that address was placed under surveillance in the morning and the “buy-bust”
operation actually carried out in the afternoon. S/Sgt. Logan testified that it was the confidential informant or
informer who knew the residence of the accused, the same informer who led the
“buy-bust” team to that address which turned out to be Mario Evangelista’s
address. The conclusion which appellant
came up with — i.e., that no surveillance and therefore, no “buy-bust”
operation had in fact been conducted by the police authorities ????? clearly a non
sequitur. Thus, appellant has not
adduced any reason why this Court should reverse the conclusion of the trial
court that S/Sgt. Logan’s testimony must be given credence.

It will be seen that the defenses of appellant Mario Evangelista
were denial, “frame-up” and alibi, all of which are inherently, or most
frequently, weak defenses commonly rejected by trial courts.^[10]
Appellant did not attempt to prove his “frame-up” defense. Simple denial, upon the other hand, commonly
is insufficient to overcome the positive and convincing testimony of police
officers who have not been shown to have some evil motive falsely to accuse
appellant of such a serious crime.

In respect of his claim of alibi, Mario Evangelista testified
that on 23 April 1991, between the hours of 12:00 noon to 1:45 p.m., he was in
an eatery (carinderia) which
was about five (5) kilometers away from his residence where the “buy-bust”
operation took place.^[11] The
prosecution witness S/Sgt. Logan testified that the “buy-bust” operation occurred
about 2:40 p.m. of the same day at the accused’s residence.^[12]
Thus, appellant’s own testimony is not inconsistent with that of the
prosecution witness; for five (5) kilometers is a short distance, travelled in,
say, ten (10) minutes by means of passenger jeepneys or buses. It was not, in other words, physically
impossible for him to have been at the scene of the crime at about 2:40 p.m. of
the day that the “buy-bust” operation was conducted.

We find, therefore, that the defenses pleaded by appellant Mario
Evangelista offer no compelling basis for overturning the conclusions of the
trial court in according full credence to the testimony of S/Sgt. Logan. The common place rule is that the findings
of the trial judge and the credibility of witnesses are not to be disturbed on
appeal, but rather to be accorded high deference since the judge was in a
position physically to observe the witnesses while on the witness stand and,
therefore, to ascertain which of them should be accorded credence.

That the trial court relied basically upon the testimony of a
single witness is no ground for overturning the judgment of the trial
court. In People v. Labra,^[13] the
Court ruled that:

“x x x. The testimony of a
single witness, if credible and positive, is sufficient to convict. Sgt. Danilo Gallego’s testimony was clearly
sufficient since he in fact witnessed the sale of marijuana. Accused-appellant failed to establish ill
motive on the part of Gallego and neither was he able to satisfactorily show
that he was ‘framed.’”^[14]

Finally, the physical evidence on record, that is, the joint
affidavit of arrest, the booking sheet and arrest report, the receipt (or
acknowledgment) of property seized, the photostatic copy of the money used in
the “buy-bust” operation, among other items,^[15]
reinforced the presumption of regularity of the performance of official duty by
the arresting officers. That
presumption appellant Mario Evangelista never succeeded in overcoming.

Finally, we turn to determination of the penalty properly
imposable upon appellant Evangelista. Under Sections 15 and 20 of R.A. No. 6425, as last amended by R.A. No.
7659, and as construed and applied with retroactive effect in the very recent
Decision of this Court in People v. Martin Simon (G.R. No. 93028, 29
July 1994), and given the circumstances that (a) the “shabu” sold by
appellant Evangelista consisted only of one (1) aluminum foil with a weight of
0.08 gram^[16]
and that (b) no aggravating or mitigating circumstance was found in the instant
case, the penalty properly imposable upon appellant Vivar is prision
correccional in its medium period. Applying the Indeterminate Sentence Law, again in accordance with the
majority ruling of this Court in the Martin Simon case, appellant Mario
Evangelista is properly sentenced to imprisonment for a term ranging from, as a
minimum, six (6) months of arresto mayor to a maximum of two (2) years
and four (4) months of prision correccional in its medium period.

WHEREFORE, for all the foregoing, the decision of the
trial court dated 3 September 1992 is hereby AFFIRMED, with the modifications,
however, that the fine of P25,000.00 is deleted, and that appellant shall
suffer imprisonment for an indeterminate period ranging from six (6) months of arresto
mayor as minimum to two (2) years and four (4) months of prision
correcrional as maximum. Costs
against appellant.

SO ORDERED.

Bidin, Romero,
Melo, and Vitug, JJ., concur.

^[1]
Rollo, p. 4.

^[2]
Id., pp. 10-16.

^[3]
Id., pp. 12-13.

^[4]
Id., p. 13.

^[5]
Id., p. 14.

^[6]
People v. Martinez, 205 SCRA 666 (1992); Collado v. Intermediate
Appellate Court, 206 SCRA 206 (1992); People v. Mauyao, 207 SCRA 732
(1992); Borillo v. Court of Appeals, 209 SCRA 130 (1992); People v.
Francisco, 182 SCRA 305 (1990).

^[7]
Rollo, pp. 14-15.

^[8]
Id., p. 30.

^[9]
TSN, 14 0ctober 1991, pp. 16-18.

^[10]
People vs. Fernandez, 209 SCRA 1 (1992); People vs. Acuram, 209
SCRA 281 (1992).

^[11]
TSN, February 25, 1992, pp. 4 and 6; Rollo, pp. 113 and 115.

^[12]
TSN, October 14, 1991, pp. 6-9: Rollo pp. 82-85.

^[13]
215 SCRA 822 (1992).

^[14]
215 SCRA at 827.

^[15]
Original Record, pp. 6-10 and pp. 54-55.

^[16]
The information charged Evangelista with having sold 0.08 gram of
methamphetamine hydrochloride (shabu). We note that the “Booking Sheet and Arrest Report” and the “Receipt of
Property Seized” executed by the arresting and seizing officers stated the
amount of shabu sold as 0.20 gram “more or less.” (Record, pp.
8-9). The Report (Exhibit “C”) of PNP
Crime Laboratory Service, dated 24 April 1991, and signed by Forensic Chemist
Leslie B. Chambers, referred to the “specimen submitted” for examination
(Exhibit “A”) as: “one piece of
aluminum foil containing 0.08 gram of white crystalline substance” and (Exhibit
“B”) “one small self-sealing transparent plastic hag containing 0.99 gram [sic]
of-white crystalline substance.” (Record, p. 53). The trial court made no finding on the matter of the precise
amount of shabu sold by appellant Evangelista.