PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. GILBERT FLORESTA Y SELENCIO, ACCUSED-APPELLANT.

People versus Floresta

The Case

This is the People of the Philippines against Gilbert Floresta, a criminal case in which the accused was charged with Murder for the shooting death of Jay Lourd Bones on the evening of December 28, 2012, in Masbate City. The trial court convicted him, and the Court of Appeals affirmed with modifications. The Supreme Court, on ordinary appeal, reversed and acquitted him. The case matters because it teaches the sharp distinction between admissibility of evidence and its probative weight, and because it shows how a dying man's spontaneous utterance that falls short of a positive identification cannot, by itself, carry a conviction.

Procedural History

An Information was filed before the Regional Trial Court of Masbate City, Branch 44, charging Gilbert with Murder under Article 248 of the Revised Penal Code. In a decision dated November 23, 2015, the trial court found him guilty beyond reasonable doubt, sentenced him to reclusion perpetua, and ordered him to pay the heirs of the victim 50,000 pesos as civil indemnity and 50,000 pesos as moral damages. Gilbert appealed to the Court of Appeals. In a decision dated April 21, 2017, the Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction with modifications, increasing the civil indemnity and moral damages to 75,000 pesos each, awarding 75,000 pesos as exemplary damages and 50,000 pesos as temperate damages, and imposing interest at six percent per annum on all monetary awards from finality until fully paid. Gilbert then filed an ordinary appeal to the Supreme Court, which decided the case in June 2019.

Facts

At around eight in the evening of December 28, 2012, Jay Lourd Bones was having a drinking session with his friend Allan Andaya and a certain Benjie at the kitchen of his house. After drinking two shots of gin, Jay Lourd suddenly stood up and said to Allan that he had been hit. As Allan was about to embrace him, Allan heard a cracking sound behind him and ran away.

Jay Lourd's wife, Jennifer, was breastfeeding their youngest child when she heard the gunshot from the kitchen. She hurried to the kitchen and found her husband bloodied on the floor. She covered his wound with a piece of cloth, and at that moment he told her, "Panggay, you see if Gilbert is still there?" She hid in a room with her elder child until relatives arrived to bring Jay Lourd to the hospital. She stayed behind to wait for the police, and when told the investigation would continue the next day, she proceeded to the hospital, where she learned her husband had died. She then went to the Masbate City Police Station and told the authorities that it was Gilbert who shot her husband. Gilbert was apprehended.

For his defense, Gilbert interposed alibi. He claimed he was watching a cockfight in the afternoon and then playing cara y cruz with friends until nine in the evening, after which he returned to Barangay Malinta and saw a crowd near Jay Lourd's house. He learned of the shooting, went home to dinner, and was later investigated, examined, and detained by police officers who arrived at his house. Two friends corroborated his account.

Issues

• Whether or not the conviction of Gilbert Floresta for Murder should be upheld.
• Whether or not Jay Lourd's utterance, "Panggay, you see if Gilbert is still there?", is admissible in evidence as part of the res gestae.
• Whether or not that utterance constitutes direct evidence positively identifying Gilbert as the assailant.
• Whether or not the circumstantial evidence on record is sufficient to establish Gilbert's guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

Applicable Provisions

Article 248 of the Revised Penal Code, which defines and penalizes Murder, is the crime charged, and its elements must be proven, including the qualifying circumstance and the identity of the killer:

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 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 Court uses this provision to frame the elements of Murder that the prosecution had to prove, including that the accused killed the victim.

Ruling

The appeal is meritorious. On the first issue, the Court held that the prosecution failed to establish with proof beyond reasonable doubt that Gilbert was the perpetrator who shot and killed Jay Lourd. It stressed that an appeal in a criminal case opens the entire case for review, and the reviewing tribunal must correct errors in the appealed judgment whether assigned or not.

On the second issue, the Court agreed that Jay Lourd's utterance is admissible as part of the res gestae. The requisites concur: there was a startling occurrence, the mortal shooting; the declaration was made spontaneously, shortly after the shooting, without opportunity to contrive; and it concerned the shooting and its immediately attending circumstances.

On the third issue, however, the Court held that the courts below erred in treating the utterance as direct evidence of the killing and of Gilbert as the perpetrator. Admissibility must not be equated with weight. The utterance contained no positive and categorical identification of Gilbert as the assailant. Guided by the equipoise rule, where inculpatory facts are capable of two or more explanations, one consistent with innocence and the other with guilt, the evidence does not fulfill the test of moral certainty and cannot support a conviction.

On the fourth issue, the Court held that the circumstantial evidence was likewise insufficient. Aside from the utterance, only one other circumstance possibly pointed to Gilbert, a previous quarrel, and the totality did not produce moral certainty. Allan's testimony further cast doubt, since he admitted it was very dark and he did not see the shooter. The Court concluded that the identity of the offender, like the crime itself, must be established by proof beyond reasonable doubt, and without proof of identity there can be no conviction.

Doctrine

A declaration is part of the res gestae and admissible as an exception to the hearsay rule when the principal act is a startling occurrence, the statements were made before the declarant had time to contrive or devise, and the statements concern the occurrence in question and its immediately attending circumstances. But admissibility is not weight: evidence may be admitted yet fail to prove an issue. Under the equipoise rule, where inculpatory facts admit of two or more explanations, one consistent with innocence, the evidence does not fulfill the test of moral certainty. Circumstantial evidence suffices only if there is more than one circumstance, the facts from which inferences are drawn are proven, and the combination produces conviction beyond reasonable doubt, forming an unbroken chain pointing to the accused to the exclusion of others. Finally, the identity of the offender must be proven beyond reasonable doubt, for even if the crime is established, there can be no conviction without proof of identity.

Disposition

The appeal was granted, the Court of Appeals decision was reversed and set aside, and Gilbert Floresta was acquitted of Murder, with the Director of the Bureau of Corrections ordered to cause his immediate release unless he is lawfully held for another reason.

Remember This

Memorize this line: admissibility is not weight, and a res gestae utterance that does not positively identify the accused cannot sustain a conviction. Examiners use this case to test the equipoise rule, the requisites of res gestae, and the sufficiency of circumstantial evidence on the identity of the offender.