PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. GERRY SARABIA, ACCUSED-APPELLANT.

People versus Sarabia

The Case

This is People versus Sarabia, a criminal appeal in which the People of the Philippines prosecute Gerry Sarabia for the killing of Nesino Toling, the publisher and editor of a local newspaper in Ozamiz City. The charge is murder, qualified by treachery and aggravated by nighttime and the use of an unlicensed firearm. The case matters to the reviewee for three reasons: it is a clean illustration of how the Supreme Court weighs positive identification against negative testimony, it shows the evidentiary weight of flight and escape as conduct inconsistent with innocence, and it demonstrates the strict standard for alibi — the accused must prove that it was physically impossible for him to be at the scene of the crime.

Procedural History

An information dated April 19, 1991 charged Nelson Verdida, also known as Commander Ramil, and Gerry Sarabia with murder before the Regional Trial Court of Ozamiz City. Only Sarabia was apprehended; Verdida eluded arrest and remained at large, so trial proceeded against Sarabia alone. After trial, the Regional Trial Court convicted Sarabia of murder qualified by treachery and sentenced him to an indeterminate penalty ranging from seventeen years, four months and one day as minimum to twenty years of reclusion temporal as maximum, to indemnify the heirs of the victim in the amount of 50,000 pesos, and to pay the costs.

Unsatisfied, Sarabia appealed to the Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals affirmed the decision of the trial court in all other respects but modified the penalty, sentencing him to reclusion perpetua with all its accessory penalties, and dismissed the appeal. The appellate court then elevated the entire records to the Supreme Court for proper disposition. The case is now before the Supreme Court on that appeal, with Sarabia insisting that the Court of Appeals committed a reversible error in affirming his conviction.

Facts

At about six o'clock in the evening of April 14, 1991, Nesino Toling, publisher and editor of the Panguil Bay Monitor, entered his newspaper office on Port Road in Ozamiz City. Elmo Galinato, a security guard posted in the middle of Rizal Avenue about seven meters away, saw the appellant Gerry Sarabia following behind Toling. After a couple of minutes, Sarabia opened the glass door, took one step inside, and fired three shots at Toling. He ran toward the adjacent Rose Pharmacy, returned a few minutes later, and fired another round of shots at the victim before walking away and fleeing toward the public market. Galinato recognized Sarabia, whose face was familiar to him because both of them worked as security guards in the area.

Marivic Cuamag, a secretary at a nearby gunstore in the same building, had been in Toling's office shortly before the shooting. She noticed Sarabia, wearing a white striped polo shirt, standing by the glass door about two meters from her. After she left and crossed the avenue, she heard a gunshot, and when she looked back she saw people milling around the office. Toling was brought to the hospital and declared dead on arrival. The autopsy recovered a .38 caliber slug from the back of his head, and the examining physician opined that the assailant was behind the victim at the time of the shooting.

Investigation led to Sarabia, who was taken into custody on April 18, 1991. He denied responsibility. On May 11, 1991, he escaped from his detention cell by sawing its wooden grills, leaving a handwritten note threatening to take revenge on all the people who had oppressed him and boasting that his firearm could never be taken. He was recaptured the next day. At trial, he interposed denial and alibi, claiming that on the date and time of the shooting he was in Sto. Niño, Mahayag, Zamboanga del Sur, drinking with friends at the house of Gerson Ramayrat. The defense also presented a fourteen-year-old witness, Lowe Ebarle, who testified that the gunman was not the appellant, although on cross-examination he admitted that he had seen the gunman only for a fleeting moment and only the side of his face.

Issues

• Whether or not the Court of Appeals erred in affirming the conviction of the appellant despite the testimony of defense witness Lowe Ebarle that the appellant was not the gunman.
• Whether or not the appellant's alibi and the certification of the barangay captain and residents of Sto. Niño, Mahayag, Zamboanga del Sur, should exculpate him.

Applicable Provisions

Article 248 of the Revised Penal Code, under which the appellant was charged and convicted, provides:

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 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.

Treachery, the qualifying circumstance found by the trial court, is what raises the killing to murder and carries the penalty of reclusion temporal in its maximum period to death.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court affirmed the conviction. It held that the task of assigning values to the testimonies of witnesses and weighing their credibility is best left to the trial court, which forms its first-hand impressions as a witness testifies before it. It also held that positive testimony prevails over negative testimony. The positive testimony of prosecution witness Galinato, narrating in detail the events leading to the shooting and positively identifying the appellant as the assailant, carries more weight than the negative testimony of defense witness Ebarle that the appellant was not the gunman. Galinato was only seven meters from the crime scene and had a clear opportunity to identify the appellant, whose face was familiar to him. His account was strengthened by Marivic Cuamag, who established the appellant's presence at the scene immediately before the shooting. In contrast, Ebarle saw the alleged assailant only for a fleeting moment and admitted that he merely saw the side of the gunman's face.

The Court added that the positive identification was bolstered by physical evidence: the white polo shirt with black stripes that Galinato described was found in the appellant's cell after his escape, and before escaping the appellant left a handwritten note bragging that he still had his firearm and would retaliate in due time. The Court held that the appellant's escape is hardly consistent with his claim of innocence.

On the second issue, the Court likewise ruled against the appellant. The barangay residents who signed the certification were not presented in court to testify on the circumstances as to when and how exactly they saw the appellant on that day, and even the persons who allegedly actually saw him in Zamboanga del Sur were not called as witnesses. Their non-presentation weakened the alibi. The Court further noted that there was nothing to indicate that the prosecution witnesses were actuated by ill motive to implicate the appellant, since he confirmed that he did not know them before their testimony. Finally, the appellant failed to establish that it was physically impossible for him to have been at the scene of the crime at the time of its commission.

Doctrine

First, positive testimony prevails over negative testimony. A categorical eyewitness account that identifies the accused as the assailant carries more weight than a witness who merely says the accused was not the gunman, especially where the latter saw the culprit only for a fleeting moment.

Second, the credibility of witnesses is best left to the trial court, which forms its first-hand impressions as a witness testifies before it, and its findings will not be disturbed absent a cogent reason.

Third, flight or escape is evidence of guilt. Conduct inconsistent with innocence, such as sawing through detention cell grills and leaving a threatening note, may be taken against the accused.

Fourth, alibi must be established by proof of physical impossibility. It is the weakest of defenses and cannot prevail where the accused failed to show that it was physically impossible for him to be at the scene of the crime at the time of its commission, and where the witnesses who could corroborate it were not presented in court.

Disposition

The Supreme Court affirmed the conviction of Gerry Sarabia for murder and upheld the penalty of reclusion perpetua imposed by the Court of Appeals, with all its accessory penalties.

Remember This

Memorize this line: positive testimony prevails over negative testimony, and alibi must rest on proof of physical impossibility. Examiners use this case to test the weight of eyewitness identification against a fleeting glimpse, and to test whether flight and escape may be counted as evidence of guilt.