THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. AGRIPINO FONTANOSA, ET AL., DEFENDANTS, CRISPULO GILVERO, SILVERIO CAÑETE, AQUILINO BACANG, GENOVEVO BARRO, MAURO BACANG, …

In an amended information filed with the Court of First Instance
of Davao on February 26, 1958, Agripino Fontanosa,
Silverio Cañete, Crispulo Gilvero, Aquilino Bacang, Teodosio Umpoc, Genovevo Barro, Mauro Bacang, Alfredo Cabardo, Martin Cabardo,
Macario Matas and Celso Lape were charged with murder
for the killing of Danilo Doneza,
committed, according to the indictment, as follows:

“That on or about December 13, 1957, in the Municipality of Bansalan, Province of Davao,
Philip­pines, and within the jurisdiction of this Court, the above-mentioned
accused, conspiring together and helping one another, with treachery and
evident premeditation, armed with rifles and sharp cutting instruments and with
intent to kill, did then and there wilfully,
unlawfully and criminally attack, assault and shoot one Danilo
Doneza with the said
firearms thereby inflicting upon him a gunshot wound which caused his
death.

“The commission of the foregoing offense was attended by the
aggravating circumstances of (1) superior strength, (2) use of firearms, (3) promise of a reward and (4) nighttime, the accused having
purposely sought it to facilitate its commission.”

After due trial, the lower court found all the accused, except Agripino Fontanosa, who was
acquitted, and Teodosio Umpok,
who is at large, guilty of murder qualified by trea­chery, and there being no
modifying circumstances present, sentenced them to reclusion perpetua to indemnify jointly and severally the
heirs of the deceased, Danilo Doneza,
in the sum of P6,000, and to pay the costs
proportionately.

From this judgment, appeal was taken by the defendants to the
Court of Appeals.  However, because the
penalty imposed by the trial court is reclusion perpetua,
the case was elevated to this Court for review.

This case involves a lessee of public forest land and a group of
squatters.  Evidence for the prosecution
disclosed that Romulo Ramos is the lessee of 960
hectares of public forest land in the sitio of
Daeg, barrio of Bala, municipality
of Bansalan,
Davao.  Subsequently, he converted the leased land
into a ranch on which he constructed two ranch houses for his cowhands, one on
the lower part of the ranch, called Ranch House No. 1, and the other on the
upper part thereof, known as Ranch House No. 2. 
In the latter lived Jose Tirol, Roberto Tirol, Julian Daroy, and the
deceased, Danilo Doneza,
all cowhands of Ramos.

At about ten o’clock in
the evening of December 13, 1957,
while the occupants of Ranch House No. 2 were asleep, there came a succession
of shots from the eastern side of the house. 
Awakened, the cowhands took cover and flat on the floor, not budging
from their prone positions until early in the morning when they found one of
their companions, Danilo Doneza,
wounded near the left ear.  On that same
morning of December 14, 1957, Doneza
was brought to a certain Dr. Villamin for treatment
and thence to Dr. Caños in Digos,
Davao.  However, due to the gravity of the wound, he
was finally taken to the Brokenshire
Memorial Hospital
in Davao City
where he died on December 20, 1957.

In the meantime, the municipal police of Bansalan
and the 72nd PC Company stationed in Davao City
were informed of the incident.   Immediately,
they proceeded to the ranch of Ramos to investigate.  They found Ranch House No. 2 riddled with bullets,
and empty rifle shells scattered 30 to 50 meters away from the house.  In the farm of the appellant Mauro Bacang, a poncho raincoat containing assorted
paraphernalia, including live ammunition and two Enfield
rifles, was discovered.  In the house of Celso Lape was found another
rifle.

Pfc. Tuvilla of the 72nd PC Company
conducted an investigation.  With the
exception of those of Celso Lape,
the appellants’ declarations were reduced to writing.  In their writ­ten statements, they admitted
participation in the attack on Ranch House No. 2 on the night of December 13, 1957.  These statements were subsequently signed and
acknowledged by the appellants before Special Counsel Roque
M. Barnes of the office of the
Provincial Fiscal of Davao.

In this appeal, the
appellants make the following assignments of error:

“1. The lower court erred in assuming jurisdiction to try the case.

“2. The lower court erred in not giving weight to the medical
certificates issued to the defendants-appellants, marked as exhibits 14, 14-A,
14-B, 14-C, 14-D, 15-A, 15-B and 15-C.

“3. The lower court erred in
failing to recognize the
fact that there was no motive on the part of the defendants-appellants to kill
or hurt the deceased, Danilo Doneza.

“4. The lower court erred in finding that the alleged
extra-judicial confessions made by the defendants-appellants, separately marked
as exhibits ‘E’, ‘F’, ‘G’, ‘H’, and ‘I’ were not obtained through violence,
maltreatment and intimidation.

“5. The lower court erred in giving much weight to the alleged
extra-judicial confessions executed by defendants-appellants, since the
prosecution failed to corroborate the same with evidence of corpus delicti.”

Upon the first issue, the
appellants maintain that the crime was not committed in Daeg, Davao, as urged by the prosecution, but in Dapok, Cotabato, by reason of
which the case should have been tried in the Court of First Instance of Cotabato.

We find no merit in this contention.  Pasture Land
Lease Agreement No. 173 (exh. V-1), issued in the
name of Romulo Ramos, shows that the 960 hectares of
public forest land leas­ed to him are located in the sitio
of Daeg, barrio of Bala, municipality of Bansalan, Davao.  The
sketch of the land attached to said Agreements (exh.
V) clearly indicates that Ranch House No. 2 is within
the area leased to Ramos.  Following
section 38, Rule 130 of the Rules of Court, these official entries in the
records of the Bureau of Forestry are considered prima facie
evidence of the facts therein stated, that is, that the land on which Ranch
House No. 2 stands is within the province of Davao.  To
overcome this presumption, the evidence must be clear and convincing (U.S. vs. Que Ping, 40
Phil. 17, 19), and in the absence of other competent evidence to overthrow the
same, the entries must be taken and accepted as conclusive (Intestate Estate of
Tenorio, 40 O.G. 1253, 1257; Gaas
vs. Fortich, 54 Phil. 196, 203).  The appellants’ evidence failed in this
regard and, consequently, the trial court be held to
have had jurisdiction to try this case.

The other assigned errors
being interrelated, we shall consider them together.

The case for the
prosecution is anchored mainly on the extra-judicial confessions made by the
appellants.  With the exception of Agripino Fontanosa who did not
make any confes­sion, Teodosio Umpok
who was not apprehended and is still at large, and Celso
Lape whose verbal confession wad not reduced to
writing, the appellants signed written statements relating to great detail
their participation in the attack on Ranch House No. 2.  These statements disclose that at about four
o’clock in the afternoon of December 13, 1957, Agripino
Fontanosa went to the house of Mauro Bacang at sitio Laya, Tacul Bansalan,
Davao to persuade the latter and the other appellants
who were then staying with him (i.e., Silverio Cañete, Aquilino Bacang, Genovevo Barro, Macario Matas and Crispulo Gilvero) to attack Ranch House No. 2 that evening; that the
appellants acceded to the proposal, although they initially objected, after
having been promised land of their own should they be successful in their
mission; that after supper that evening, the aforementioned appellants left the
house of Bacang to carry out their criminal plan;
that Mauro Bacang and Saverio
Cañete were armed with long-barreled guns while the
rest carried bolos; that they dropped by the house of Agripino
Fontanosa to inform him that they were already on
their way; that they met Teodosio Umpok in the house of Fontanosa armed with a carbine furnished by the latter;
that, thereafter they picked up Martin Cabardo,
Alfredo Cabardo and Celso Lape who were to guide them to the ranch house and to their
places of deployment; that upon arrival in the vicinity of Ranch House No. 2, the defendants deployed themselves, and
Mauro Bacang, Silverio Cañete, Teodosio Umpok and Celso Lape started firing at it; that the whole epi­sode took
place between eleven o’clock and twelve midnight with the gunfire lasting for
about thirty minutes; that, after the shooting, they dispersed, the group of
Mauro Bacang stopping by Fontanosa’s
place once more to inform the latter of the outcome of their mission; that Teodosio Umpok returned the
carbine of Fontanosa while Mauro Bacang
hid his gun and that of Silverio Cañete
upon arrival at the former’s house.

While admitting the
authenticity of their signatures on the extra-judicial confessions, the appellants deny their voluntariness
and veracity, alleging that they were procured through force, violence, duress
and intimidation.  Specifically, they testified that the PC soldiers under
Capt. Bucoy of the 72nd PC Company maltreated them,
inflicting bruises injuries contusions and wounds, on their bodies.  As proof of the injuries they sustained, they
presented medical certificates made out by Dr. Marcial
S. Santos and Dr. Dominador F. Mendoza of the Davao General Hospital.  This
pretense of the appellants does not deserve belief.  Except for the medical certificates issued to
Genovevo Barro and Crispulo Gilvero which attest to the presence of unhealed wounds on their
bodies, the rest merely reveal findings of scars, abrasions, discolorations and complaints of pain.  The appellants claim that this was because
the medical examination was conducted only on January 6,
1958, or eighteen days
after their confinement in the PC barracks at Davao City where the alleged maltreatment took
place.  Note must,
however, be taken of the fact that the counsel for the accused in the lower court had been these wounds as
early as December 23, 1957.  Nevertheless,
they were not brought to the immediate attention of a physician for proper
examination.  As the lower court observed
in its decision:

“If the accused were still suffering from injuries and the
injuries were visible on their bo­dies on December 23, 1957, when their lawyer, Atty. Buagas, saw them at the Provincial Warden’s Office, there
was no sufficient reason why Atty. Buagas, did not at
once or the next day took (sic) them to the hospital for medical
examination.  The excuse that there was
lack of guards at the Provincial Jail is not convincing.  Even granting arguendo
that there was lack of guards and no definite time could be ascertained as to
when a guard could be available Atty. Buagas would
have taken a doctor to the Provincial Jail to examine physically the accused
before the injuries healed.  Atty. Buagas would not wait until January 6, 1958, considering that the accused told
him that they were forced to make confessions. 
When the accused were finally exam­ined on January 6, 1958,
they were able to show only healed wounds, scratches or mere complaints of pain
which a doctor can not verify.”

As for the wound of Genovevo Barro, described in his
medical certificate as “contusion, xyphoid
process”, the examining physician
testified on cross-examination by the fiscal that it was apparently inflicted
only three days before his physical examination.  A similar disclosure was made with
respect to the unhealed wound of Crispulo Gilvero.  The said
wound, described as “partially healed multiple posterior elbow joint,
right”, must have been caused five or six days only prior to the doctor’s
examination.  Further testimony by the
examining physicians brought out the fact that the appellants’ scars and wounds
are of a superficial nature and could have been self-inflicted.

The appellant’s claim
that they were coerced, intimidated and brow-beaten into affixing their thumbmarks
and signatures on their extra-judicial confessions before Special
Counsel Roque M. Barnes of the Provincial Fiscal’s Office is
belied by the evidence on record.

Fiscal Barnes testified that after the PC soldiers brought the
accused to his office, they left the room at his request, leaving him alone
with the accused; that Jose C. Adao, a clerk of his
office, translated the contents of the affidavits into Visayan,
which is understood by all the accused; that the latter affirmed the truth of
their declarations; that he asked the accused if they
had anything more to add to their written statements and they answered in the
negative; that they voluntarily affixed their signatures and thumbmarks to their respective affidavits after which he received
their oaths; and that he did not see or notice any injuries or signs of
maltreatment on the bodies of the accused when they were brought to him.  Adao corroborated
the foregoing testimony.  He declared
that a PC soldier brought the accused to the fiscal’s
office sometime in December, 1957; that he translated the contents of the
affidavits into the Visayan dialect; that the
affiants voluntarily signed their respective written declarations in his
presence; and that he did not see or notice any injuries on the bodies of the
accused.

The Constabulary officers and soldiers were no less ca­tegorical
in their denial of the appellants’ claim of maltreatment.  Capt. Antonio A. Bucoy,
head of the squad that was sent to investigate the shooting in Daeg, testified on rebuttal that he did not order the
accused exposed to the sun or in any way maltreated.  Likewise, Pfc. Tuvilla,
PC investigator, testified that he did not lay hands on the appellants and
neither did he threaten to ill-treat them if they did not sign their respective
affidavits.  Other PC soldiers, namely, Benigno Ordinario, Clemente Layaguin, Generoso Espantaleon and Cesar Buit, corroborated the testimony of Pfc. Tuvilla.  Moreover,
the testimony of Lorenzo Ozam, a guard at the Davao Provincial Jail, militates against the appellants’
allegation of having been subjected to third-degree methods.  He related that he saw the appellants when
they were admitted to the provincial jail on December 23, 1957 but he did not see any injuries
on their faces and bodies after they removed their clothes for inspection.

The appellants assail the veracity of the extra-judicial
confessions by putting up the defense of alibi. 
The evidence for Mauro Bacang, Silverio Cañete, Crispulo Gilvero, Genovevo Barro and Aquilino Bacang tended to
establish their presence in Pikit, Cotabato on the night of December 13, 1957.  Macario Matas on the other hand, was allegedly in the house of a
certain Remegio Diana, a school teacher residing at Padada, Davao,
on that fateful night.  A similar defense
was raised by Alfredo and Martin Cabardo, who tried
to show they were in their house in Upper Patolangon,
a part of M’lang, Cotabato,
and Celso Lape, who
asserted that he was in his farm at Dapok, M’lang, Cotabato
when the incident at the Ramos ranch happened.

After a careful examination and dispassionate evaluation of the
evidence on hand, we find that the appellants’ defense of alibi lacks that
plausibility sufficient to convince us of their innocence.  Bearing in mind the oft-repeated
ruling of this Court that alibi is a weak defense for it is easy to ma­nufacture (People
vs. Badilla,
48 Phil. 718, 731; People vs. de Asis, 61 Phil. 384, 389; People vs. Japitana
and Santos, 77 Phil. 175, 180; People vs. Estacio G.R. No. L–11430, January 30, 1960) and
considering, too, the existence of the extra-judicial confessions,
which on their faces and as corroborated by other evidence, bespeak the true
sequence of events, we find the appellants’ evidence proffered to shore up their defense of ali­bi not convincing.

The alibi of Mauro
Bacang and his aforementioned compa­nions finds
apparent support in the testimony of Roque Dandan, a preacher
of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines who testified that Mauro Bacang and his friends dropped at his house at Kanapulo, Bansalan, Davao on December 7,
1957 on their way to Pikit, Cotabato, and again on December 14, 1957 on their way home from Pikit.  As proof thereof, he presented a notebook (exh. BB) which contains a list of the
persons who ate in his house on various occasions.  A close and careful examination of the notebook and its contents, however, fails to give credence to his testimony.

It is an old
composition notebook with frayed edges, the first eight pages of which contain references to biblical passages and what appears to be notes on proposed sermons.  The so-called list of visitors who ate in his house starts on the bottom third of the eighth page with the
entry of August 2 to 5, 1956 and ends on the last line of the next page with
the entry of December 5, 1958.  Except for the last two pages, the rest of the notebook is blank.  Mauro Bacang and
his friends are listed down as
visitors on December 7 and 14, 1957 while the former alone is
listed down on December 16 and 18, 1957.

The notebook acquires significance because of the fact that its existence was brought out
only on cross-examination by the
fiscal.  It was produced in evidence only
after Dandan was asked to bring it to court.  If
the entries therein were accepted as true then Bacang’s
alibi assumes an aura of credibility. 
However, this Court cannot rely on this piece of evidence.  While the entries were written in pencil and
supposedly at various dates, yet there appears no variation in the strokes nor in the shading of the pencil lines.  Furthermore, while the list of
visitors is written in pencil, the rest of the notations and entries in the
notebook are in ink.  Moreover, the
circumstance under which this notebook was produced is a bit puzzling.  Considering that Dandan
is a principal witness for the
defense and that all along he had been possession of this important piece of
evidence, isn’t it strange that he should make known its existence only after
the prosecution began asking him why he could remember his dates so well?
Wouldn’t it be more logical to expect the defense to present this evidence on
direct examination, considering that Dandan is their
witness? We have examined the record on this point and our doubts have not been
erased by the witness’ answers to the probing questions of the lower
court.  Consequently, we find ourselves
with the court a quo in disbelieving Dandan’s
testimony.

Neither can we accord
credit to the testimony of the other witnesses for Mauro Bacang.  Vicente Fontanosa,
who was contacted allegedly by Bacang in Pikit and who testi­fied
that the latter was with him on the
night of December 13, 1957 at Ely’s Cafe, is the son of Agripino
Fontanosa, one of the accused, and the counsel for
the squatters on the ranch of Ramos. 
Elena Fontilla, the owner of Ely’s Cafe in Pikit, remembers too much for a woman who keeps a
refreshment parlor frequented by numerous persons.  She re­members the dates of events long past
and of no moment at all when they happened—-feats of memory equally displayed
by the other witnesses for Bacang and his
companions.  Coin­cidence, too, seems to
play an important role in the defense of Bacang.  Odon Romero’s testimony that Mauro Bacang and his friends were with him at Ely’s Cafe on the
night of De­cember 13, 1957, celebrating the death anniversary of his father, does not deserve serious consideration.  As the lo­wer court observed:

“It was a strange coincidence that Odon Romero happened to be
in the house of Vicente Fontanosa when Mauro Bacang and his companions went there and that Odon Romero
celebrated the death anniversary of his father on December 13, 1957 at Ely’s
Cafe and Mauro Bacang and his inseparable companions
looked for Vicente Fontanosa, found him at Ely’s
Cafe, and were invited by Odon Romero to join in the celebra­tion.”

As for the alibi of Macario Matas, we find that it is
supported only by the testimony of Remegio Diana, who
is his brother-in-law, and by Rosaleo Nadela, who admitted that he was reminded only by Diana of the date when he met Matas, i.e., December 13, 1957.  Celso Lape’s alibi was not corro­borated by any witness.  The same is true with the alibi of Martin Cabardo.  In the case
of Alfredo Cabardo, only the testimony of his father,
Julio Cabardo, corroborates his alibi.  These testimonies are inadequate to support
the de­fense of alibi which must
be proved by “positive, clear and satisfactory evidence” (U.S. vs. Olais, 36 Phil.
828, 829)

The defense attempts to
dilute the strength of the pro­secution’s case by picturing it as one huge
conspiracy among the Constabulary soldiers, the Provincial Fiscal’s
Office and Romulo Ramos against the eleven
accused.  The strands in this supposed
web, of intrigue and machinations are formed by evidence for the defense that the
wound sustained by Danilo Do­neza
was caused not by a bullet but
by a protruding nail which pierced Doneza near the
left ear as he sought cover
during the shooting; by assertions that Doneza died
of respiratory complications and not as a result of a gunshot wound; by the testimony of hardly credible
witnesses identifying the rifles marked as Exhibits C, D and J as belonging not
to the accused but to the cowboys of Ramos; by the insinuation of Crispiniano Jorgio, one of the
defense witnesses that those who fired at Ranch House No. 2 were Ilocanos and Moros, based on his
having allegedly heard and seen several persons pass near his house after the
shooting speaking in Ilocano and wearing hats and
turbans; and by the attempt to establish as a fact that Ramos bribed the PC to
implicate the accused in the killing of Danilo Doneza. 
Unfortunately for the appellants, the web they constructed cannot bear
the weight of the prosecution’s evidence.

Dr. Asuncion Paraan, who performed the
autopsy on the body of Doneza twenty-four hours after
his death, testified that she found an external wound below the left ear lobe,
“possibly an entrance wound of a gunshot”.  The bullet (which was never found on autopsy)
traveled six inches into the neck, fracturing the cervical vertebrae and
resulting in the severance of the spinal cord which was the immediate cause of
death.  The appellants’ contention that Doneza
died because of respiratory complications is hardly supported by the evidence
on hand.

In this connection, their assertion that there is no evi­dence of
corpus delicti is not borne out by the
foregoing statement of Dr. Paraan and by the
testimonies of Jose Tirol and Ju­lian Daroy, who were sleeping beside the deceased on the night
of December 13, 1957, that Doneza sustained the wound
which caused his death during the shooting incident at Ranch House No. 2.  It hardly needs reiteration that in murder,
the fact of death is the corpus delicti
(People vs. Garcia, et al., 99 Phil., 381; 54 ff. Gaz., 336, 338).  The rule stated in section 3, Rule 133 of the Rules of Court
simply means that there must be some proof, aside from an extra-judicial
confession, to show that the crime has been committed (People vs. Mamaril, et al., 45
Off. Gaz., 3431, 3434).

While the prosecution may
have relied on the extra-judicial confessions of the appellants as their
primary weapon to secure conviction, yet they have not been lacking in other
evidence to corroborate the same.  Aside
from the evidence that the victim died of a gunshot wound, a witness for the
prosecution placed three of the accused within the immediate vicinity of the
scene of the crime just a few hours before the incident in question.  Felix Tolin, a
laborer of Agripino Fontanosa,
identified Mauro Bacang, Teodosio
Umpok and Silverio Cañete as among those who came to the house of Fontanosa on the night of December 13, 1957.  The
other four who remained in the dark were not identified by him.  He further testified that he saw the three
carrying rifles and that after about ten minutes they all left, heading for
the east side of Ranch House No. 2. 
Although he saw them talking with Fontanosa,
he did not hear their conversation.  It
is noteworthy that the number of persons who visited Fontanosa
that evening corresponds with the number given in the extra-judicial
confessions of the appellants.

There appears no reason to doubt or disbelieve the testimony of Tolin.  The
appellants themselves admit that there is no ill-feeling between them and Felix
Tolin and that the latter did not have any reason to
testify falsely against them.  A similar
admission was made by the appellants with respect to the other witnesses for
the prosecution.  While most of the
witnesses for the defense are either close relatives or associates of the accused,
those for the prosecution are mostly disinterested persons.

One other corroborative fact refers to the rifles used in the
shooting.  The extra-judicial confessions
of the appellants are definite about the number of guns used in the attack on
Ranch House No. 2 and their respective owners or keepers.  Mauro Bacang, Silverio Cañete, Celso Lape and Teodosio Umpok each had a
rifle.  That of Lape
was later taken from him by the Constabulary soldiers under Capt. Bucoy while the two rifles hidden by Bacang
were found by the PC in his farm.  Although
they denied ownership of the rifles during the trial, their denials are not
supported by any other evidence and are, in fact, contradicted by their own admissions to the PC soldiers assigned to look for the guns.

Finally, the appellants
assail the alleged failure of the lower court to recognize the fact that there
was no motive on their part to kill Danilo Doneza.  This
assertion is patently without merit.  The
appellants’ very own statements before Pfc. Tuvilla
reveal that they agreed to attack Ranch House No. 2 on the promise of Agripino Fontanosa that they will
by given land of their own should they be successful in attacking the ranch.  The entire incident was prompted by the land
conflict between Fontanosa, the alleged leader of the
squatters, and Ramos, the owner of the ranch. 
As Mauro Bacang stated in
his extra-judicial confession (exh. I), Agripino Fontanosa ordered the
shooting of Ranch House No. 2:

“Because of the land conflict between Dr. Ramos, and by reason
of which, he wanted the cowboys of Dr. Ramos killed so that Dr. Ramos will give
up ranching and he (Agripino Fontanosa)
will occupy and cultivate the area of the ranch with his men.”

No clearer exposition of the motives of the appellants could have
been made.

ACCORDINGLY, the judgment appealed from is hereby affirmed,
at appellants’ proportionate cost.

Concepcion, C.J., Reyes, J.B.L., Dizon, Regala, Makalintal, Bengzon, J.P., Zaldivar, and
Sanchez, JJ., concur.