THE PEOPLE OP THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. FAUSTINO BUAN ET AL., DEFENDANTS. CONRADO BRUNO, APPELLANT.

Past midnight of January 23, 1936, while the doors of the store at No.
1235 Azcarraga Street, Manila, were closed and the inmates thereof were
asleep, Faustino Buan, by standing on the shoulders of his coaccused
Faustino Palac, succeeded in climbing to the media agua
sheltering the door of the store and, by clambering over it, was able
to reach the window and enter the house through the same. He went
downstairs and found himself inside the store. Soon after, the two
Chinese who were asleep therein woke up and, in the fight which ensued
among the three, the accused Buan wounded one of said Chinese named Yap
Kim Seng, escaping thereafter by running upstairs, going out of the
window through which he had entered and jumping from the media agua
to the sidewalk below. Yap King Seng died as a result of the wounds he
had received from the accused Buan. On that same morning, some articles
mentioned in the information and money, with a total value of P44.50,
disappeared from the store.

All the above-stated facts
were proven during the trial and the participation of the accused
Faustino Buan and Faustino Palac in the crime was established by their
respective confessions dated March 3 and 6, 1936, made in the presence
of police inspector Fidel Zaldana. The three accused were sentenced by
the lower court to the penalty of reclusion perpetua, to indemnify the heirs of the deceased in the sum of P1,000 and to pay the costs of the trial.

All of them appealed from the judgment but Faustino Buan and Faustino
Palac desisted from their appeal, leaving that of Conrado Bruno alone
in force.

The appellant’s two coaccused incriminated him
in their respective confessions in such a way as to make it appear that
he had consented to take part in the perpetration of the robbery, his
participation in the commission of the crime consisting in his having
stood guard at the corner of Aguilar and Azcarraga Streets while Buan
was entering the store in the manner above-described. However, while
the confessions of Buan and Palac are admissible against themselves as
evidence of their guilt, they are not admissible against the appellant
Conrado Bruno, first, because they lack the indispensable requisite of
corroboration by other evidence. (U. S. vs. Balisaean, 4 Phil., 545; U. S. vs. Ambrosio and Falsario, 17 Phil, 295; U. S. vs. Wayne Shoup, 35 Phil., 56; U. S. vs. Remigio, 37 Phil., 599; People vs.
De Otero, 51 Phil., 201), and, second, because during the trial, those
same accused who confessed their crime denied that their coaccused
Bruno had knowledge of their intention to commit robbery when they were
on their way to Yap Kim Seng’s store.

By eliminating the
confessions of Buan and Palac, only the appellant’s statement made in
the presence of inspector Zaldana on March 2, 1936, remains. Said,
statement, however, shows no admission of conspiracy, much less of the
appellant’s direct participation in the commission of the crime which
is the subject matter of the present case. The pertinent part of the
appellant’s statement is as follows:

“One midnight, between 12 and 1 in the morning of a certain date in
January which I no longer remenber, while I was walking along Calle
Azcarraga, going to the People’s Panciteria at the corner of
Misericordia and Azcarraga, I met Faustino Buan with a companion whose
name I do not know but whom I can recognize if I will see. When
Faustino saw me he asked me to go with him, so I did not go anymore to
the Panciteria, and instead, I went with them. Faustino told me while
we were walking that they will get into the Chinese store at the corner
of Aguilar and Azcarraga to rob the place. When we arrived at the
corner of Aguilar and Azcarraga, I saw the two of them whispering to
each other, after which, Faustino got on the shoulder of his companion,
climbed into the open window of the store facing Calle Aguilar and then
entered the house. When Faustino was already up the house, his
companion approached me and talked with me, telling me that he had seen
me in Corregidor and that he and Faustino had been companions for a
long time. After about five minutes had passed, I heard a noise inside
the house, I saw Tino coming out of the window, thru which he entered,
to the media agua and from there he jumped to Aguilar street * * * Afterwards, I went out alone, took a calesa
and went to the house of Tino on Calle Alburquerque, but Tino and his
companion were not yet there, so I had to wait for sometime before his
companion who shouldered him arrived. After a while, Tino arrived in a calesa
and he even asked me twenty centavos with which to pay his fare. When
he arrived at the house where we were, he was complaining because he
had sprained his right foot. I asked him right away why he stabbed the
Chinaman and he told me that he stabbed him because he was trying to
hold him. I asked him if he got some money and he told me that he did
not get any. After that, I left the place and went home.”

That is all. It is at once noticeable that the mere fact that Faustino
Buan told the appellant that he and Palac intended to enter the Chinese
store to rob does not conclusively prove that the three conspired
together to commit robbery. Neither does the fact that the appellant
later went to his neighbor Buan’s house to ask him why he had wounded
the Chinese and whether he had succeeded in obtaining some money.

The appellant, testifying as a witness, denied having voluntarily made
his statement in the presence of inspector Zaldafta and stated that
between 12 and 1 o’clock in the morning of January 24th, he saw
Faustino Buan at the corner of Magdalena and Azcarraga Streets. Buan
asked him where he was going and Bruno answered that he came from the
bowling alley and was on his way to the panciteria

(People’s Panciteria).

There being no evidence to show beyond a reasonable doubt that the
appellant had taken part in the commission of the crime in question,
the judgment appealed from is reversed and the information definitely
dismissed as to said accused Conrado Bruno, with the proportionate part
of the costs de oficio. So ordered.

Avancena, C. J., Villa-Real, Abad Santos, Imperial, Diaz, and Laurel, JJ., concur.