PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. PASCUAL BAYLON RILLORTA, WESLEY RILLORTA AND WILSON RILLORTA, DEFENDANTS-APPELLANTS.

People versus Rillorta

The Case

This is a criminal appeal in which the People of the Philippines prosecuted Pascual Baylon Rillorta and his sons Wesley Rillorta and Wilson Rillorta for the killing of Barangay Captain Emiliano Doton. The trial court convicted all three of the complex crime of direct assault with murder. The Supreme Court's decision matters for two reasons. First, it is a clean illustration of when treachery is not present, because a heated exchange of words preceded the attack. Second, it shows how a killing of a barangay captain in the performance of his duties is absorbed into the complex crime of homicide with assault upon a person in authority, and how the penalty is then computed under the complex crime rule and the Indeterminate Sentence Law.

Procedural History

The case began in the Court of First Instance of Pangasinan, Branch Six, sitting at Tayug. In its decision dated September 24, 1980, that court found Pascual and Wesley guilty as principals, and Wilson guilty as accomplice, in the complex crime of direct assault with murder. It sentenced Pascual and Wesley to reclusion perpetua, and Wilson to an indeterminate penalty ranging from eight years and one day of prision mayor as minimum to fourteen years and eight months of prision correccional as maximum. All three were ordered to indemnify the heirs of the victim jointly and severally in the amount of twelve thousand pesos for his death, plus five thousand three hundred fifty pesos for funeral expenses, and each to pay one-third of the costs. The accused appealed directly to the Supreme Court, assigning seven errors. The Supreme Court decided the appeal on December 15, 1989.

Facts

At about midnight of May 7, 1979, Sergeant Juan Serquina and Sergeant Socrates of the 151st Philippine Constabulary Company in Tayug, Pangasinan, went to Barangobong, Natividad, Pangasinan, upon the report of Edita Doton, a daughter of the victim. They found Barangay Captain Emiliano Doton lying dead in a creek, face down, with multiple hack wounds all over his body. A bystander, Hipolito Cagio, volunteered that the assailants were the Rillortas, father and sons. When Sergeant Serquina called out to Pascual Baylon Rillorta, the latter came out and surrendered a bolo with a sharp-pointed tip. A search of the house yielded another bolo with a rounded tip, tucked in the roof. Wesley Rillorta, after being apprised of his constitutional rights, gave a written statement admitting that he hacked the victim. The Rural Health Physician, Doctor Bienvenido Allas, who autopsied the cadaver, found thirty-two bolo wounds on the victim's head, neck, abdomen and arms.

The prosecution witness Romy Ramos, a thresher operator, testified that while his party was threshing palay near the victim's premises, Pascual Rillorta accosted him and threatened him with a gun, saying, "Damn you, you better go home or I'll kill you here." Rillorta resented the threshing of palay in his barrio by what he regarded as outsiders, because he wanted the palay stocks in his barrio threshed with his own thresher. On their way home to Barangay Calapugan aboard their thresher, Ramos and his companions Romy Elizaga and Ceferino Facon were stopped by the three accused. Pascual Rillorta, armed with a bolo, warned them not to return to thresh palay in Barangobong. Barangay Captain Doton, who was following behind Ramos' group, advised the accused to let the threshing party pass. The three accused then chased Doton. Upon overtaking him, they surrounded him and pushed him toward the creek. Pascual hacked him with a bolo while his sons Wesley and Wilson held Doton's hands. Doton cried out in Ilocano that he was going to die, that they were going to kill him.

Pascual denied killing Doton and claimed the deceased attacked him. Wesley claimed he merely defended his father. Doctor Felipe Cantor confirmed that in the early dawn of May 8, 1979, he treated Pascual for a superficial cut on the tip of the right small finger and another cut on the left finger that severed the bone. Wilson interposed alibi, saying he was in Tayug from eight o'clock to eleven o'clock that evening to have a tractor tire vulcanized, supported by the tireman and by a restaurant operator. He admitted, however, that the distance between Tayug and Barangobong takes only forty minutes to negotiate.

Issues

• Whether or not the trial court erred in finding that treachery attended the commission of the crime.
• Whether or not the deceased was performing his official duties as barangay captain when he was attacked.
• Whether or not the motive for the killing was Pascual Rillorta's resentment against the Ramos threshing party.
• Whether or not Wesley Rillorta acted in legitimate defense of his father.
• Whether or not Wilson Rillorta had knowledge of or participation in the killing.
• Whether or not the finger wounds of Pascual Rillorta were self-inflicted.
• Whether or not the trial court erred in giving more credit to the prosecution witnesses than to the witnesses for the defense.

Applicable Provisions

Article 148 of the Revised Penal Code, on direct assault, provides:

Any person or persons who, without a public uprising, shall employ force or intimidation for the attainment of any of the purposes enumerated in defining the crimes of rebellion and sedition, or shall attack, employ force, or seriously intimidate or resist any person in authority or any of his agents, while engaged in the performance of official duties, or on occasion of such performance, shall suffer the penalty of prision correccional in its medium and maximum periods and a fine not exceeding 6,000 pesos, when the assault is committed with a weapon or when the offender is a public officer or employee, or when the offender lays hands upon a person in authority.

This is the provision that elevates the killing into a complex crime, because the victim was a person in authority attacked on the occasion of the performance of his duties.

Article 249 of the Revised Penal Code, on homicide, provides:

Any person who, not falling within the provisions of Article 246, shall kill another without the attendance of any of the circumstances enumerated in the next preceding article, shall be deemed guilty of homicide and be punished by reclusion temporal.

This is the crime the Court found, in place of murder, after it struck down treachery.

Article 48 of the Revised Penal Code, on complex crimes, provides:

When a single act constitutes two or more grave or less grave felonies, or when an offense is a necessary means for committing the other, the penalty for the most serious crime shall be imposed, the same to be applied in its maximum period.

This is the rule that fixes the penalty for the complex crime of homicide with assault upon a person in authority.

Article 152 of the Revised Penal Code, as the Court reads it together with Presidential Decree Number 299, provides:

In applying the provisions of the preceding and other articles of this Code, any person who shall have charge, directly or indirectly, of any public function, or of that which is appurtenant thereto, shall be considered as a person in authority.

This is the basis for holding that a barangay captain is a person in authority.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court ruled for the appellants. The assault was not attended by treachery because it was preceded by a heated exchange of words between the appellants and the deceased. The Court held that it cannot be said the deceased was caught completely by surprise when the accused took up arms against him. The killing was therefore only homicide under Article 249, not murder.

On the second issue, the Court ruled against the appellants. The crime was a complex one of homicide with assault upon a person in authority under Articles 249 and 148, because when Doton intervened to prevent a violent encounter between the accused and Ramos' group, he was discharging his duty as barangay captain to protect life and property and to enforce law and order in his barrio. Under Article 152 and Presidential Decree Number 299, a barangay captain is a person in authority.

On the third issue, the Court found the motive established. Doton had no financial interest in the work of Ramos' group, since it was a certain Mrs. Soriano, not Doton, who invited Ramos to thresh in Barangobong. Pascual himself admitted his resentment, testifying that he felt bad because the barangay captain took another thresher, and that he had tried to express his sentiments by stopping the thresher and ordering the party to stop threshing in the barrio.

On the fourth issue, the Court rejected Wesley's plea of legitimate defense of his father, because the deceased had committed no unlawful aggression against Pascual. From the testimonies of the eyewitnesses, and judging from the number, location and nature of the wounds, the appellants were the aggressors. The autopsy found thirty-two wounds inflicted by two or more persons, and the witness Ceferino Facon declared that the appellants were the aggressors.

On the fifth issue, the Court rejected Wilson's alibi. Since the distance between Tayug and Barangobong takes only forty minutes to negotiate, it was not physically impossible for him to have returned to Barangobong at ten o'clock in the evening when the barangay captain was killed. His alibi cannot prevail over the positive identification by Ceferino Facon that he assisted in the killing by taking hold of the captain's hands.

On the sixth issue, the Court upheld the trial court. The deceased's hands were held by Wesley and Wilson while Pascual hacked the hapless victim, so the injury to Pascual's finger must have been either self-inflicted or inflicted by Wesley in the course of the hacking.

On the seventh issue, the Court found no error in the trial court's assessment of credibility, and affirmed the findings of fact.

On the penalty, the Court held that the penalty for the complex crime is the maximum period of the penalty for the more serious crime, homicide, which is the maximum period of reclusion temporal. Under the Indeterminate Sentence Law, the maximum term shall be within the prescribed penalty of reclusion temporal in its maximum period, and the minimum within the range of the next lower penalty of prision mayor in its maximum period.

Doctrine

Treachery is not appreciated when the attack is preceded by a heated exchange of words, because the victim is not caught completely by surprise and had the opportunity to prepare for the aggression. A barangay captain is a person in authority under Article 152 of the Revised Penal Code and Presidential Decree Number 299, and a killing committed on the occasion of his performance of official duties constitutes the complex crime of homicide with assault upon a person in authority under Articles 249 and 148. Under Article 48, the penalty for the complex crime is the penalty for the more serious crime applied in its maximum period, and under the Indeterminate Sentence Law the minimum term is drawn from the next lower penalty. Alibi cannot prevail over positive identification where the accused was not physically prevented from being at the scene of the crime.

Disposition

The Supreme Court modified the judgment by declaring all three accused guilty beyond reasonable doubt as principals in the complex crime of homicide with assault upon a person in authority, sentencing each to an indeterminate penalty ranging from twelve years of prision mayor as minimum to twenty years of reclusion temporal as maximum, ordering them to indemnify the heirs jointly and severally in the increased amount of thirty thousand pesos for the death plus five thousand three hundred fifty pesos for funeral expenses, with each to pay one-third of the costs, and affirmed the appealed decision as so modified.

Remember This

The line worth memorizing is that a heated exchange of words before the attack negates treachery, and that killing a barangay captain in the performance of his duties is homicide with assault upon a person in authority, penalized under the complex crime rule. Examiners like to use this case to test the elements of treachery, the status of a barangay captain as a person in authority, and the computation of the indeterminate penalty for a complex crime.