RAMON DORADO, PETITIONER, VS. COURT OF APPEALS AND PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, RESPONDENTS.

Petitioner is before the
Court on what might well be deemed
the last chapter of a veritable
twenty-nine-year odyssey which bears witness to his long struggle, against great odds, to prove himself innocent of the crime of taking
another man’s life.  Prosecuted in April
1958,^[1] together with his brother Henry Dorado and Leopoldo Barrios, for the murder of Manuel Villasis, Ramon Dorado went through a trial that dragged on
for fifteen years and saw a succession of three Trial Judges sit and hear the evidence,^[2] his
co-accused Barrios discharged to
become a state witness^[3] and death overtake his brother, the other
co-accused,^[4] before judgment was finally passed.

Thus, petitioner stood
alone in the dock when a decision was handed down on December 29, 1973 by a
fourth Trial Judge^[5] who had not heard a single word of testimony
and whose findings could only have been based solely on the written
record.  He was found guilty of the lesser offense of homicide and sentenced to an
indeterminate prison term of from 10 years of prision mayor to 17 years of reclusion temporal, to indemnify the widow of the deceased Manuel Villasis
in the sum of P6,000.00, without subsidiary imprisonment in case of insolvency,
and to pay the costs.^[6]

Petitioner appealed to
the Court of Appeals where he was represented by another set of lawyers.^[7]

The Court of Appeals
affirmed his conviction.^[8] Refusing to accept defeat, petitioner went
to this Court on a petition for
review,^[9] but his efforts to have his appeal heard and considered met only
unvarying failure until less than a year ago. 
This, through what can only be regarded as a series of misadventures
mainly due, as petitioner was later to claim, to gross neglect or lack of
interest on the part of counsel who successively represented him First, his
petition was summarily denied for late filing and late payment of legal fees.^[10] Then, having obtained a reconsideration on
his own, partly on the plea that his former co-accused, Leopoldo
Barrios had retracted in writing and under oath the testimony he had given at
the trial, petitioner’s new counsel, the Citizens Legal Assistance Office (CLAO)
managed to mislay that document — which petitioner claimed he had given said
office much earlier^[11] — and could not produce it when the
Solicitor General, directed by the Court to comment on said writing, manifested
that he had been furnished no copy thereof. 
Worse, when the CLAO was served with notice of the consequent dismissal
of the petition for review^[12],
said counsel opted to take no further recourse, leading to entry of judgment in
the case^[13] and remand of the records to the Court of
Appeals.^[14]

The CLAO, given another
chance at petitioner’s plea, still failed to submit the memorandum required by
the Court.  Undaunted, petitioner,
through counsel,^[15] made what he called “*** a final effort
to draw the (Court’s) attention *** to the injustices suffered by (him) ***,
with only his innocence and quest for fairness propping (sic) his
spirits.”^[16] The Court heeded his entreaty, and setting
aside the entry of judgment, granted him a hearing.^[17] The parties, petitioner and respondents,
were heard an oral argument on October 29, 1986.

Turning now to the facts
and the record, it is not disputed that in the afternoon of April 7,
1958, the corpse of
Manuel Villasis was found near a creek in Barrio Agdalipe, Municipality of Pontevedra, Capiz.  The body bore various wounds, chief of which
were eight (8) pellet wounds that penetrated the right side in the area of the
7th, 8th, 9th and 10th ribs, six (6) incised wounds in the left abdominal area
below the rib cage (hypochondrium) and a 2-inch long incised wound cutting
through skin and subcutaneous tissue to the bone in the radial aspect of the
wrist.  There were other wounds involving the left ear (pinna) and
the back of the left elbow and numerous abrasions, some of them sustained post-mortem.  The
Municipal Health Officer of Pontevedra, Dr. Ricardo Dasal, who conducted the autopsy, gave it as his opinion
that the eight pellet wounds were the most fatal and could have caused death in
thirty minutes due to massive hemorrhage resulting from injury to the internal
organs.^[18] Five shotgun pellets and blood-stained
coconut husks were found on the front yard of the dead man’s house,
which also showed signs that some of its topsoil had been scraped off.  A post of the front gate was smeared with blood.^[19]

On the following day,
April 8, 1958, petitioner Ramon Dorado, his brother Henry and Leopoldo Barrios were picked up for questioning by
Philippine Constabulary soldiers, and two days later all three were charged
with the murder of Manuel Villasis before the Justice
of the Peace Court of Pontevedra.^[20] There Leopoldo
Barrios executed a sworn statement admitting involvement in the killing of Villasis and implicating the Dorado brothers as having had
a direct part therein.^[21]

All three respondents
having waived their right to present evidence at the preliminary investigation conducted by the Justice of the Peace, the
latter transmitted the record of the proceedings to the Court of First
Instance.  Thereafter the Assistant
Provincial Fiscal of Capiz filed an information
charging them with murder.^[22] What followed has to a substantial extent
already been recapitulated.

Coming now to
petitioner’s plea before this Court, which in essence is that he was convicted
on the strength of testimony either later recanted or impeached
by the record itself as false and unworthy of credence, it appears that the
prosecution’s case against petitioner is almost wholly built upon the
declarations of two persons:  his
co-accused Leopoldo Barrios who turned state witness,
and the victim’s widow, Millie (Mely) Bisnar.

According to Leopoldo Barrios, who claimed that he was the live-in
servant of Ramon Dorado at the time that Manuel Villasis
was killed, the killing arose out of Dorado’s unsanctioned use of the victim’s carabao.  He declared
that on April 6, 1958,
Dorado had ordered his other houseboy, one Miguel, to catch that animal
and use it to plow his (Dorado’s) field. 
Miguel did so, and when Villasis saw his beast
being thus employed, he took it back forthwith. 
Learning of this, Ramon Dorado vowed to get even with Villasis.^[23]

The following morning, Ramon’s brother,
Henry, came to his house.  The two
conferred briefly and then Ramon told Leopoldo to get
a bolo and a revolver and come along with them. 
They proceeded to the house of Villasis and
upon reaching his front yard, Ramon called out: 
“Manuel, come down because this is now your time.” Villasis came to the front door holding a scythe.  Ramon
ordered him to drop the scythe and raise
his hands.  Villasis
obeyed and went down the stairs, but
his feet had barely touched ground when Ramon fired at him with a
shotgun.  Then Henry grabbed the bolo
from Leopoldo and thrust it into the right side of Villasis’ abdomen where Ramon’s shotgun
had previously found its mark.  Again
Henry thrust the bolo, this time into the victim’s left side.  Then with his hands he retrieved the
shotgun pellets imbedded in Villasis’ stomach and
threw them away.  At Ramon’s orders, Leopoldo and Henry carried Villasis’
body to the nearby creek, with Ramon following, carrying the scythe. 
They laid Villasis and his scythe on the ground
and Henry once more struck the body with the bolo, hitting it in the left ear
and the right wrist.  Then the three
returned to the victim’s yard.  There
Henry scraped with a spade the soil
where the dead man’s blood had been spilled. 
The scraped soil was placed in a
basin and dumped into the creek.^[24]
This done, the three men went back to Ramon’s house and at the latter’s orders, Leopoldo hid
the firearms and the bolo at the foot of some banana plants growing not far
from the house, covering them with dried banana leaves.^[25]

For her part, Millie Bisnar testified that while at home with her husband in the
morning of April 7, 1958, she heard Ramon Dorado shouting:  “You are accustomed to that.  Come down Manuel because the time has come
for you.” She went near the door from where she saw Ramon and Henry Dorado
and Leopoldo Barrios, the first holding a shotgun and
the other two each with a revolver.  She also saw her husband go down the stairs and
heard a gunshot.  Certain that the shot
came from Ramon’s revolver because she had seen him aiming it at her husband
and fearing for her life because she heard Henry Dorado shouting that he was
going to kill everyone in the house, she jumped from the kitchen to the ground
and fled to the house of her cousin, Loreto Buenvenida,
in Barrio Binangig, to whom she related what had
happened.  Loreto, who was a PC soldier,
accompanied her back to her house.  They
found it deserted, her trunk ransacked and clothes scattered all about.  Loreto then returned to his house, while she
went out in search of her husband whose dead body, bearing several wounds, she
found near the creek^[26]

No other witness was presented
by the prosecution to testify about the events of that fatal day.  The only other testimony of any significance
concerned the recovery of what were claimed to be the weapons used in the
killing of Villasis from the place where Leopoldo Barrios said
he had hidden them at the instructions
Ramon Dorado.

For the defense, the
Dorado brothers and several other witnesses testified.  Petitioner himself swore that in the evening of April
6, 1958, he had gone
to Barrio Bahit to attend a despedida
party for Maria Dillera who was to leave for Manila
the next day. The following morning, at
about 4:30 o’clock,
he had accompanied Dillera to the railroad
station, and after she had boarded the
train he had gone pack to her house for his
cane which he had forgotten to bring.  He had left at about 7:00 o’clock and arrived home in Agdalipe between 9:00 and 9:30 o’clock.  He
had eaten lunch, napped and gotten up at about 1:00 o’clock in the afternoon to work in
his garden.  He had known nothing of what
befell Manuel Villasis until late in the afternoon when he heard the sounds of crying from the latter’s house
and having gone there to find out what was wrong, had been told by Millie Bisnar that Villasis had been
killed during a drinking spree.^[27]

 Ramon Dorado also denied that Leopoldo Barrios was ever employed by him, declaring that
it was his mother whom Barrios had worked for in 1948 or 1950 and that he had
dismissed Barrios from his mother’s employ for stealing
chickens.^[28] He disclaimed any motive to harm Villasis, asserting that he and the deceased were on good terms, and that political harassment
lay behind his prosecution or the latter’s death.^[29]

Testifying for the
defense, Cadelaria Demalata,
a neighbor of Villasis couple, that in the late afternoon of April 6, 1958, she had seen Manuel Bisnar,
father-in-law of Manuel Villasis, and Loreto Buenvenida, the soldier-cousin of his wife Millie Bisnar, pass by her house on their way to the house of said deceased.  The two fetched Villasis,
who left with them for a destination not
known to the witness.  After the three
had left, Millie Bisnar called her over to her (Millie’s) house and asked if she could have
Candelaria’s husband gather tuba from the Villasis’ coconut
trees.  Candelaria’s
husband acceded and delivered all the tuba he was able to gather to Millie at about sundown.  This,
Millie then sold.  Manuel Bisnar, Loreto Buenvenida and
Manuel Villasis returned at about 10:00 o’clock in the evening with a fourth man
whom Candelaria did not know.  Villasis
went up to his house, changed to shorts
and undershirt, slung his scythe
on his waist and prepared to gather tuba for his guests to drink.  It was then that Millie told him the tuba from their trees had
already been gathered and sold by her.  This
enraged Villasis,
who reproached her for causing him embarrassment with his guests and proceeded
to slap and kick her.  At that point
Manuel Bisnar broke in to defend his daughter, accusing Villasis of
want of respect for maltreating
her in his presence.  The latter
retorted:  “Here you are.  Everytime we have a
small quarrel with my wife you intervene. 
I am going to kill you all.” Then he entered a room and came out
cocking a gun.  He went down into the
yard and challenged his father-in-law to follow, which the latter did.  Loreto Buenvenida
intervened and wrestled with Villasis for possession
of the gun.  As this transpired, Millie Bisnar iumped down from the
kitchen and ran away, Candelaria following
suit and running to her own house where she found her husband with whom she
then proceeded to the house of Manuel Bisnar.  At the Bisnar house
they found Millie, her sister Delia, her children, her mother and another
younger sister.  Candelaria
and her husband spent the night there.^[30]

Alipio Bayhon, an old man
of Agdalipe whose occupation was hook-and-line
fishing in the creeks of the barrio, testified that on the night of April 6, 1958, he was at the stream
near the house of Manuel Villasis.  He had heard voices, one of these in a
challenging tone, followed by the report of a gun.  Turning to look, he had seen three persons
walking on the temporary bridge across the creek whom he recognized as Leopoldo Barrios, Manuel Bisnar
and Loreto Buenvenida.  Leopoldo and Loreto
each carried a gun while Bisnar held a bolo.  When Leopoldo, who
was in the lead, reached the end of the bridge, he asked:  “Manong Loret, is he dead or not?” Loreto answered:  “He is dead.” That was between the hours of 10:00 and 10:30
in the evening.  Later, at about 1:00 o’clock a.m., the witness had seen Barrios
and Buenvenida return, re-cross the bridge and
proceed in the direction of Ramon Dorado’s house, still carrying their
guns.  They came back at about 2:00 o’clock a.m. without the guns.^[31]

Matias Baselonia
was, by his own account, drinking tuba in the house of Manuel Villasis on that evening of April 6, 1958, when Villasis,
Manuel Bisnar, Loreto Buenvenida
and another person arrived there.  His
testimony about the incidents occurring thereafter substantially replicates
that of Candelaria Demalata.  He told the Trial Court of how Villasis had slapped and kicked his wife in a fury over the
sale of the tuba, how Bisnar had come to the
defense of his daughter, the altercation that ensued and Millie Bisnar’s flight from the house.  Before he himself fled from the scene, he had
witnessed the scuffle between Buenvenida and Villasis for the possession of the gun and seen Manuel Bisnar draw his bolo.^[32]

Ludovico Distajo
was the barrio lieutenant of Agdalipe at the time of
the incident.  He testified that he knew
Millie Bisnar and that on the evening of April 6, 1958, he had seen and talked
to her as she was passing by his house. 
When he asked her where she was
bound for at so late an hour, she replied that she was on her way to her
father’s house because her husband and her father were drunk and she was afraid
of them.^[33]

Rexime Olivare, a member of the Pontevedra
Police Force, was among those who went
to where Villasis‘ body had been found after its
discovery was reported.  He declared that
on his way there he had met a grieving Millie Bisnar carrying a scythe,
(presumably that found near the body of the deceased).  He and Millie, together with another
policeman, Celestino Boliber,
had gone to where the body lay.^[34] Boliber had
queried Millie as to how and why her husband died.  She had replied that she did not know because
she was in Binangig when it happened.^[35]

Also introduced in
evidence was an entry in the blotter of the Pontevedra
Police Force^[36] identified by Police Sergeant Pepito Manalad, tending to show that
instead of being present, as she claimed, when her husband was shot in their
own home, Millie was in fact in her father’s house in Binangig
when told by her sister of her husband’s death. 
Said entry records a statement attributed to Millie Bisnar
when she reported the killing to the police and written down in the vernacular
by Sgt. Manalad,^[37] and an English translation thereof, which
was entered into the record of the Trial Court as Exhibit 8-A, reads:

“I Maria (sic) Bisnar came to the police
department at about 10:00 to inform what happened to my husband Manuel Villasis that my younger sister Delia told me while I was
in the house of my father Manuel Bisnar at Binangig, Panay, Capiz, that my husband was shot by Ramoning
(steno note) and his companion was Poldo.  And that was the reason why I went to our
house and tried to investigate and I did not find my husband.”^[38]

No part of the foregoing
array of evidence appears to have made any impression on either the Trial Court
or the Court of Appeals, the former limiting itself to appraising favorably and
in some detail the evidence presented by the prosecution and rejecting Ramon
Dorado’s proferred alibi; and the latter dealing
mainly with the twin questions of whether a trial judge who had not presided
over any of the hearings of a case could legally render a decision on the
merits thereof, and whether Dorado’s co-accused, Leopoldo
Barrios, was properly discharged from the indictment in order to testify for the prosecution.  There
is no doubt that these questions were correctly resolved, i.e.,
that alibi is an inherently weak defense, that a regularly appointed and
qualified trial judge labors under no legal impediment to decide a case simply
because others before him had heard all of the evidence therein, and that the
discharge of Leopoldo Barrios was proper and in
accordance with the law and rules on the matter.  That is, however, not the point here. 
What is a more significant consideration is that in assessing the
question of petitioner’s guilt or innocence, either or both of said Courts
appear to have ignored or failed to take into account circumstances of weight
that ought to have tipped the scales in his favor.

Harking back to the
testimony given by Leopoldo Barrios and Millie Bisnar, it is a fact that only one of them, Barrios,
claimed to have been an eyewitness to the killing.  Millie Bisnar did
not see her husband actually shot; she only heard the report of a gun after which, in fear of her life, she jumped from the kitchen
and fled to her father’s house.

Soon after the killing,
while Barrios was detained with the Dorado brothers in the municipal jail of Pontevedra, Capiz, he wrote a
note that he feared for his life from being detained in the same cell with the Dorados because he had falsely declared that they were the
ones who killed Manuel Villasis.  Said note^[39] reads;

“DAPAT MAHIBALOAN SANG TANAN:

Aco Leopoldo
Barrios naga pangabay sa mga PC ngamabuliban
nila aco coma acusado dili aca gusto nga isulod aco sa
carcel nga upod cami ni Ramon Dorado cag ni
Henry Dorado.  Guina
pangabay co ini cay aco naga to-o nga
aco may piligro san acon cabuhi tongod
nga nag sugid aco nga sila
ang nag patay sa cay Manuel Villasis can ini nga guin
sugid co
indi mato-od.

Ini nga pangabay acon guin
himo na acon
caugalingon nga cabobot-on nag wala sing nag todlo o nag olog-olog sa acon.

Acon ini guin pangabay sa
mqa PC sa pag obra sini
nga afedabit a dili aco mica hibalo
mag sulat.”

On the strength of that note, the
prosecuting fiscal obtained an order of the Justice of the Peace of Pontevedra placing Barrios in the custody of the Philippine
Constabulary.

As early, therefore, as
even before the filing of the information, there were already indications that
should have given pause about placing full and unqualified reliance upon the
word of Barrios.  This notwithstanding,
he was later discharged in order to testify for the prosecution.  And while said discharge traversed no law or
rule as already stated, the fact remains that his note or letter just referred
to, the authenticity and authorship of which have never been impugned and,
indeed, have been recognized by the note being made the basis for a motion to
transfer Barrios to PC custody, introduces not a little doubt of the truth of
his earlier written statement and subsequent testimony, i.e., that Villasis died at the hands of the Dorados.  The doubt is deepened by Barrios’ affidavit
of retraction^[40] wherein he recanted the testimony he
had given at the trial and substantially confirmed the version given by the
defense witnesses of the events that transpired in the house of Villasis in the
evening of April 6, 1958.

The solicitor General
does not question the
authenticity of the affidavit of retraction, but dismisses it as undeserving of
credence because executed 23 years after the killing, after the case
had been decided by the Trial Court and said decision affirmed by the Court of
Appeals, observing that “*** (t)ruth does not
take that long to surface.”^[41] Again, that is not the point, however.  The point is whether or not said retraction, coupled with Barrios’ earlier admission that
he had lied about imputing the killing to petitioner and his brother, warrant
taking another long hard look at the evidence for the defense which, consisting
of the mutually corroborative testimony of at least three witnesses, furnishes
a reasonably credible alternative to the prosecution’s theory and version of
the death of Manuel Villasis.  The Court is of the considered view that they
do, particularly as the credibility of the other principal prosecution witness,
the victim’s widow, is also eroded by recorded testimony and evidence already
adverted to tending to belie her claim that she was present at the scene when
her husband was shot and that she knew who shot him.  Indeed, her statement that she saw petitioner
aim a revolver at her husband and thereafter heard a shot — clearly implying
that the latter had been shot and killed with a revolver — fails to square
with the clear physical evidence that the only gunshot wounds sustained by said
deceased had been inflicted with a shotgun.

It is also of no small
significance that the prosecution’s version of the killing fails to account for
some of the injuries found on the body of the deceased at the post-mortem
examination.  According to the medical
examiner, some of the wounds could have
been inflicted by a stick or a
rough object, and the numerous post-mortem abrasions could have resulted
from the body being slid over a rough object after death.  Said injuries find no adequate explanation in
either the testimony of the prosecution witnesses or in the other physical
evidence.

The evidence for the
defense, in offering a reasonable alternative hypothesis that the victim met
his death at the hands of other persons impelled by motives at least as
plausible — if not more so – as that attributed to petitioner, engenders
equally reasonable doubts of the latter’s guilt.  Moreover, shorn of the testimony of Leopoldo Barrios which, in view of both his ante litem plea to be sequestered from the Dorado
brothers while in detention^[42] and his subsequent retraction, must now be
regarded with a good deal of skepticism, the case against petitioner becomes
wholly circumstantial.  It is
well-settled that circumstantial evidence in order to warrant conviction, must
fairly exclude every reasonable hypothesis of innocence^[43] and that where evidence manifestly relevant
to any decisive issue has been disregarded or overlooked, this Court may
properly exercise its power to review the findings of fact of the Court of
Appeals as an exception to the rule making such findings binding upon it.^[44]

The Court is not oblivious to the fact that its decision to hear
and favorably consider petitioner’s plea after previous adverse rulings might
suggest that suits brought before it may
initially receive less than the close attention and careful study that
this highest tribunal, as the court of last resort, is expected to give every
case without exception.  This is not
true.  Here, the initial rulings were
based on procedural faults which did not go into the merits at all.  In practical effect, what the Court has done
was simply to reconsider, on
what the pleadings and the subsequent oral argument demonstrated to be good and
valid grounds, a first denial of the petition on the merits.

The Court has thus not been deterred by the possibility of
criticism for what may unthinkingly be viewed as inconsistency in its actions
from preventing for correcting a miscarriage justice, especially where it is personal liberty and honor that hang in
the balance.  Withal, it must be stressed
in no uncertain terms that as it has so often demonstrated in the
past, this Court will reconsider actions that it
has taken only for grave and important reasons and when in its view the
interests of justice imperatively require it. 
What has been done here should offer no precedent or
furnish encouragement to those who may come to believe that the
Court can be worn down by
successive and repeated pleas whose only merit lies in the persistence
of their advocates.  Let it be made clear that the Court will not brook or
regard with leniency any attempt to impose on its time and patience or trifle
with its processes, but will deal
appropriately with all patently dilatory, frivolous and unmeritorious pleas.

WHEREFORE, the petitioner’s Motion for Reconsideration
dated August 15, 1986
is granted.  The appealed Decision of the
Court of Appeals is reversed and petitioner is
acquitted on reasonable doubt, with cost de oficio.

SO ORDERED.

Teehankee, C.J., Cruz, Paras, and Gancayco, JJ., concur.

^[1]
In Criminal Cases No. 2652 of the Court of First Instance of Capiz, Branch II.

^[2]
Judges Ignacio Debuque,
Jose A. Aligaen and Silvestre Br. Bello.

^[3]
CFI Record, p. 21.

^[4]
CFI Record, p. 544.

^[5]
Hon. Pelayo v. Nuevo,

^[6]
CFI Record, p. 676.

^[7]
Attys. Miguel Albar
and Alfonso Dadivas, Jr.; in the Trial Court
petitioner had been defended, originally by Attys. Jose Torres and Jose Belvis and later by Attys. Alfonso Dadivas,
Jr. and Francisco Firmalino.

^[8]
On September 24, 1980 in CA-G. R. No. 17810-CR; Rollo, p.
118.

^[9]
filed September 21, 1981; Rollo, pp. 11-18.

^[10]
Resolution dated October
5, 1981; Rollo, p. 66.

^[11]
Rollo, p. 198.

^[12]
Resolution of December
12, 1984; Rollo, pp. 181-182.

^[13]
on January 11, 1985; Rollo,
p. 189.

^[14]
on March 25, 1985; Rollo, p.
191.

^[15]
Bello Abiera and
Associates.

^[16]
Motion for Reconsideration with
Petition for New Trial dated August 15, 1986; Rollo, pp.
404-412.

^[17]
Resolution of September
11, 1986.

^[18]
Trial Court’s Decision; Appellant’s
brief, pp. 29-33; Rollo, p. 46.

^[19]
Decision, CA-G. R. No. 17810-CR; Rollo,
pp. 118, 122.

^[20]
CFI Record, p. 1.

^[21]
Id., pp. 12-18.

^[22]
Id., pp. 39, 52-53.

^[23]
TSN   August  10, 1962, pp. 342-343.

^[24]
TSN August 10, 1962, pp. 343-348.

^[25]
Id, pp. 349, 360.

^[26]
TSN   April 23,1962, pp. 226-243.

^[27]
TSN September 29, 1971, pp. 379-387.

^[28]
TSN September 29, 1971, pp. 387-391.

^[29]
TSN September 29, 1971, pp. 391-396.

^[30]
TSN February 15, 1965, pp.
772-784.

^[31]
TSN July 3, 1963, pp. 614-625.

^[32]
TSN August 12, 1963, pp. 667-674.

^[33]
TSN July 22, 1969, pp.
836-839.

^[34]
TSN July 2, 1963,
pp. 489-491.

^[35]
Id., p. 490

^[36]
Exhibit 2.

^[37]
TSN July 2, 1963, pp. 525;
540-542; 567-568.

^[38]
TSN October 1, 1971, p. 458, 462.

^[39]
Exhibit “1-Dorado,” p. 32 CFI
Record.

^[40]
Rollo, pp. 216-217.

^[41]
Rollo, p.. 246.

^[42]
Exhibit “1-Dorado”, supra

^[43]
People v. Orpilla, 110 SCRA 53, citing 4 Jones on Evidence,
5th Ed., pp. 1860-61; People v. Modesto, 25 SCRA 36, citing People v.
Ludday, 6 Phil. 216, 221-222.

^[44]
People v. Cruz, G.R. No. 71462,
June 30, 1987, citing many cases; People v. Bernal, 131 SCRA 1; People v. Chavez, 121 SCRA
806, citing People v. Santos, 94 SCRA 277; and People v. Padirayon, 67 SCRA 135, and cases therein cited.