PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. ALEX OLIANO Y PUGONG AND GABRIEL CALIAG, ACCUSED, ALEX OLIANO Y PUGONG, ACCUSED-APPELLANT.

People versus Oliano

The Case

This is the People of the Philippines against Alex Oliano y Pugong, a criminal appeal from a conviction for murder. The accused was charged, together with one Gabriel Caliag, with having killed Benjamin Matias by gunshot on the night of the sixteenth of March, nineteen hundred eighty-seven, in the municipality of Santa Fe, Nueva Vizcaya. The case matters to a reviewee for two reasons. First, it is a clean statement of the rule that findings of the trial court on the credibility of witnesses bind the appellate court. Second, it shows how the Supreme Court treats an attack on a prosecution eyewitness built on alleged improper motive, and why the testimony of a victim's widow is not discredited merely because she is the widow.

Procedural History

The Provincial Fiscal filed an Information for murder before the Regional Trial Court of Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya, Branch 30. Both accused were arraigned in the Kalanguya dialect, which they spoke and understood, and both pleaded not guilty. In the course of the trial, the co-accused Gabriel Caliag died, and the trial court dismissed the case against him. The trial court then rendered judgment finding Alex Oliano guilty of murder, sentencing him to reclusion perpetua, and ordering him to pay the heirs of Benjamin Matias fifty thousand pesos as civil indemnity, ten thousand pesos as actual damages, and thirty thousand pesos as moral damages. The accused filed a motion for reconsideration, which the trial court denied. He then brought the matter to the Supreme Court by appeal.

Facts

On the evening of the sixteenth of March, nineteen hundred eighty-seven, Benjamin Matias and his wife Rosita attended a wedding at Sitio Taktak, Barangay Atbo, Santa Fe, Nueva Vizcaya. Among the guests were Gabriel Caliag and Alex Oliano. While supper was being served, Rosita heard Alex say that if it was Benjamin Matias who would give the meat, he would not accept it. Benjamin was then busy slicing meat for the guests. At about a quarter to midnight, the couple walked home, Benjamin ahead of Rosita, along a road about half a kilometer long. Two boulders stood on the left side of that road.

When the couple was about a meter from the boulders, someone fired a gun at Benjamin, hitting him at the back, the bullet exiting through his chest. Rosita then saw Alex Oliano behind the boulders, holding a rifle. She called out to him, asking why he had killed her husband when her husband had done him no fault. Alex aimed his gun at her, but it jammed. Rosita also saw Gabriel Caliag looking at her from behind a banana plant. The two men ran toward the mountain. The moon was bright that night, and Rosita had known Alex since he was seventeen years old, because they were neighbors.

Rosita called for help, and her neighbor Nancy Basatan came. To Nancy she said that Alex Oliano had shot her husband. Policemen arrived, and the station commander formed two groups to go to the houses of the two accused. Rosita was later brought to the house of a neighbor, where she saw both accused. She grabbed Alex by the collar and told him he was the one who killed her husband. Alex cried and replied that she was even attending mass. Caliag, on the other hand, looked happy and even played the guitar. Both were brought to the police station. The post-mortem examination showed a gunshot wound through and through, and the cause of death was cardiac arrest due to a gunshot wound on the heart. The defense, for its part, presented the accused and several witnesses to show that Alex had gone home from the wedding and was asleep when the policemen came for him, and it presented a paraffin test showing no gunpowder residue on his hands.

Issues

• Whether or not the trial court erred in giving full credence to the testimony of Rosita Matias identifying the appellant as the gunman.
• Whether or not the alleged improper motive of Rosita Matias, arising from the slight made against her husband hours before the killing, rendered her testimony false and unbelievable.
• Whether or not the widow's conduct in looking toward the boulders before going to her fallen husband, and the illumination from the moon, made her identification of the appellant incredible.

Applicable Provisions

Article 248 of the Revised Penal Code, as referred to in the judgment of conviction, defines and penalizes murder:

Article 248. Murder. Any person who, not falling within the provisions of Article 246, shall kill another, shall be guilty of murder and shall be punished by reclusion temporal in its maximum period to death, if committed with any of the following attendant circumstances: 1. With treachery, taking advantage of superior strength, with the aid of armed men, or employing means to weaken the defense, or of means or persons to insure or afford impunity. 2. In consideration of a price, reward, or promise. 3. By means of inundation, fire, poison, explosion, shipwreck, stranding of a vessel, derailment or assault upon a street car or locomotive, fall of an airship, by means of motor vehicles, or with the use of any other means involving great waste and ruin. 4. On occasion of any of the calamities enumerated in the preceding paragraph, or of an earthquake, eruption of a volcano, destructive cyclone, epidemic, or any other public calamity. 5. With evident premeditation. 6. With cruelty, by deliberately and inhumanly augmenting the suffering of the victim, or outraging or scoffing at his person or corpse.

The trial court convicted the appellant of murder under this article, finding that the killing was qualified by treachery, and imposed the penalty of reclusion perpetua.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that the appeal had no merit. The assessment of the credibility of witnesses and their testimonies is a matter best undertaken by the trial court, because of its unique opportunity to observe the witnesses firsthand and to note their demeanor, conduct, and attitude. Findings of the trial court on such matters are binding and conclusive on the appellate court, unless some facts or circumstances of weight and substance have been overlooked, misapprehended, or misinterpreted. The trial court gave credence to Rosita's testimony, and the appellant presented no compelling reason to overturn that finding.

On the second issue, the Court refused to accept the argument dressed in what it called psychological jargon. The existence of an ill motive does not automatically render a testimony false or unbelievable. The alleged motive, to avenge the slight against her husband, was too paltry a cause for any person to testify falsely against another and cause his incarceration for the most part of his life. The appellant failed to overcome the presumption that Rosita was not actuated by improper motive. More than that, the Court held that the fact that Rosita was the wife of the deceased, far from rendering her testimony biased, made it even more credible, for it is unnatural for a relative interested in vindicating the crime to accuse somebody other than the real culprit, since to do so would be to let the guilty go free.

On the third issue, the Court found nothing incredible in the widow's account. She testified that she heard the gunshot, saw the appellant behind the boulders, called out to him, and only then went to embrace her fallen husband. She explained that she could see the appellant because the moon was bright and the sky was clear. The trial court found that she could not have been mistaken, because of the moonlight, because the appellant had long been her neighbor, and because no sinister motive on her part was shown. Her narration was corroborated by her neighbor and by the investigating officers.

Doctrine

First, the findings of the trial court on the credibility of witnesses and their testimonies are binding and conclusive on the appellate court, unless some facts or circumstances of weight and substance have been overlooked, misapprehended, or misinterpreted. Second, the existence of an ill motive on the part of a witness does not automatically render the testimony false or unbelievable; the presumption that a witness is not actuated by improper motive stands unless overcome. Third, the relationship of a prosecution witness to the victim does not necessarily impair credibility; it may even strengthen it, because it is unnatural for a relative interested in vindicating the crime to accuse someone other than the real culprit. These rules are applied in reviewing a conviction for murder under Article 248 of the Revised Penal Code, where the penalty of reclusion perpetua was imposed.

Disposition

The Supreme Court denied the appeal and affirmed the judgment of conviction, holding the appellant guilty of murder and sentencing him to reclusion perpetua, with the damages awarded by the trial court.

Remember This

Memorize the line that the trial court's findings on credibility bind the appellate court absent facts of weight and substance overlooked or misapprehended. Examiners use this case to test whether a reviewee will treat a widow's testimony as automatically biased, or will instead apply the presumption of no improper motive and the rule that relationship may even bolster credibility.