PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE VS. RENE TAPALES Y SUMULONG, ACCUSED-APPELLANT

People versus Tapales

The Case

This is the People of the Philippines against Rene Tapales y Sumulong, a criminal case for the complex crime of rape with homicide. The accused was charged, together with two unnamed persons, with the brutal killing of Mildred Calip, a second year Medical Technology student, whose body was found on a street in a subdivision in Antipolo, Rizal. The case matters because the accused was convicted on circumstantial evidence alone and sentenced to death, and the Supreme Court was asked to decide whether a web of circumstances, no one of which was witnessed by anyone, could satisfy the requirement of proof beyond reasonable doubt. It is a master class in the strict scrutiny of circumstantial evidence in a capital case.

Procedural History

The case began in the Regional Trial Court of Antipolo, Rizal. Because the government witnesses were allegedly threatened and the relatives of the accused were reportedly influential in the locality, the prosecution asked that the trial be moved elsewhere. The accused himself moved for a transfer, since the father of the victim was a government prosecutor in Rizal. The Supreme Court granted the transfer, and the case was re-docketed and raffled to a branch of the Regional Trial Court of Manila.

After trial, the court found Rene Tapales guilty of rape with homicide and imposed the supreme penalty of death. The case then went up to the Supreme Court on automatic review, which is the ordinary path for a death sentence. The Supreme Court reversed the conviction and acquitted the accused.

Facts

At around five thirty in the morning of the twentieth of January, nineteen hundred ninety five, Mildred Calip left her home in Antipolo, Rizal, to attend her classes in Manila. Her brother Ferdinand testified that he walked her to the gate of their compound and saw her board a white tricycle with a black mudguard, an antenna and a stereo, driven by a person he later identified as Rene Tapales, who was already on board as a passenger. About half an hour later, at around six in the morning, her lifeless body was found sprawled on a grassy portion of the western shoulder of Lira Street in Lores Country Homes, some one hundred ten to one hundred twenty meters from the subdivision's water reservoir. The autopsy showed twenty five punctured wounds, three stab wounds, six contusions, two linear abrasions and fresh hymenal lacerations. The cause of death was hemorrhage from the multiple punctured wounds on her neck.

Another witness, a tricycle driver named Randy Ejara, testified that at around five forty five that morning, three tricycles slowly overtook him on Lira Street, coming from the direction of the water tank. He claimed he saw the accused on board one of them, looking afraid and agitated, and that when the accused noticed him, the tricycle sped away toward the exit of the subdivision.

Early the following morning, between three and three thirty, two barangay tanod, Rogelio Adan and Nelson Baran, saw the accused near the gate of the subdivision carrying a candle. They followed him to the very spot where the body had been found the day before. He allegedly said he was there to light a candle for Mildred so that her parents would forgive him, and that he knew her and the identity of her killers. They arrested him. On the way to the police station they passed the house of the victim's father, a public prosecutor, who saw the accused in their company. At the station the accused was found to have abrasions, hematomas, contusions and scratches, which he did not explain, and his briefs were said to be inverted and stained with blood. The accused denied the crime, claimed he was home asleep at the time, and explained that he went to the scene only to pray for the soul of the dead, as was his practice.

Issues

• Whether or not the circumstantial evidence presented by the prosecution was sufficient to establish the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt.
• Whether or not the trial court erred in giving full faith and credence to the testimony of the prosecution witnesses and in disregarding the defense of alibi.
• Whether or not the accused may be convicted of the complex crime of rape with homicide when the alleged conspiracy with two unnamed persons was never established.

Applicable Provisions

Article 335 of the Revised Penal Code, as amended by Section 11 of Republic Act Number 7659, defines the crime charged. The decision refers to this provision as the basis of the conviction below:

Article 335. When and how rape is committed. — Rape is committed by having carnal knowledge of a woman under any of the following circumstances: 1. By using force or intimidation; 2. When the woman is deprived of reason or otherwise unconscious; and 3. When the woman is under twelve years of age or is demented. The crime of rape shall be punished by reclusion perpetua. Whenever the crime of rape is committed with the use of a deadly weapon or by two or more persons, the penalty shall be reclusion perpetua to death. When by reason or on the occasion of the rape, the victim has become insane, the penalty shall be death. When by reason or on the occasion of the rape, homicide is committed, the penalty shall be death.

This provision supplies the elements of the complex crime and the death penalty that the trial court imposed, which the Supreme Court reviewed on the question of whether the evidence met the required quantum.

The decision also applies the settled rule on circumstantial evidence, which requires three elements before conviction may rest on it:

Circumstantial evidence to be sufficient for purposes of conviction must have the following elements: (a) there is more than one circumstance; (b) the facts from which the inferences are derived are proved; and, (c) the combination of all the circumstances is such as to produce a conviction beyond reasonable doubt.

This rule is the measuring stick the Court used to test each circumstance against the record.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that the circumstantial evidence fell short of proof beyond reasonable doubt. It examined the circumstances one by one. First, the testimony of Ferdinand Calip that he saw his sister alive at five thirty in the morning was placed in doubt by the unrebutted testimony of Venancio Medina, a taxi operator who found the body at around the same time, using the headlights of his car because it was still dark. The Court found it hard to believe that at five thirty two persons saw Mildred, one alive and one already dead. It also found it strange that Ferdinand would entrust his sister to a tricycle with two male strangers, and that he told no one immediately that he had seen the accused on board.

Second, the testimony of Randy Ejara that he saw the accused fleeing was placed in doubt by an ocular inspection held exactly one year later, where the parties stipulated that at five thirty the skies were still dark. The defense observed that the tricycle and its occupants were seen against the light of a lamppost, making recognition almost impossible. This was bolstered by the testimony of the homeowners association president and a Meralco engineer that there were no lights yet in that area on the day in question.

Third, the Court rejected as highly speculative and untrustworthy the inference drawn from the accused's return to the scene, described as visibly remorseful and intensely disturbed by his conscience. It held that while his presence at such an unholy hour with a candle deviated from the common norm, it did not warrant a conclusion that he was guilty.

Fourth, the Court found that the accused was never asked to explain his injuries, and that the prosecution merely presumed they came from a scuffle. The municipal health officer described the injuries as an abrasion and hematoma on the right elbow, a contusion on the lower knee and a small scar on the hand, and testified that they could have come from falling, a vehicular accident or crawling, and could have been sustained a day earlier. The claim of an inverted, bloodstained brief was discarded because the brief was never presented as an exhibit, and because a killer whose victim suffered such extensive wounds would not have lingered in such incriminating clothing.

Fifth, the Court noted that the prosecution never bothered to identify or locate the white tricycle, its driver or its owner, and that the accused was taken to the victim's residence for identification instead of straight to the police station, a deviation from standard procedure.

Sixth, the Court found the time element significant: the rape and killing could have been perpetrated in less than thirty minutes, and the perpetrator or perpetrators may still be at large. Finally, on the third issue, the Court held that although the Information charged a conspiracy among the accused and two unnamed persons, the prosecution never established the conspiracy or the accused's actual participation in it.

Doctrine

Circumstantial evidence may support a conviction only if there is more than one circumstance, the facts from which the inferences are drawn are proved, and the combination of all the circumstances produces a conviction beyond reasonable doubt. The circumstances must form an unbroken chain leading to one fair and reasonable conclusion pointing to the accused, to the exclusion of all others, as the guilty person. Where the evidence is capable of two or more inferences, one consistent with innocence and the other with guilt, the evidence does not satisfy the standard. Every doubt must be resolved in favor of the accused, expressed in the maxim in dubiis reus est absolvendus, meaning when in doubt the accused is acquitted. The prosecution bears the burden of proving guilt beyond reasonable doubt, and the defense is not called upon to disprove what the prosecution failed to prove.

Disposition

On reasonable doubt, the Supreme Court reversed and set aside the decision of the trial court, acquitted Rene Tapales y Sumulong of rape with homicide, and ordered his immediate release from custody unless held for some other lawful cause.

Remember This

The single line worth memorizing is that circumstantial evidence must form an unbroken chain pointing to the accused to the exclusion of all others, and any doubt must be resolved in his favor. Examiners use this case to test the sufficiency of circumstantial evidence in capital offenses and the strict standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt.