G.R. No. 59876. August 31, 1989
PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. DIOSDADO DE GUIA, ACCUSED-APPELLANT.
FELICIANO, J.:
This case came before us on automatic appeal from a decision of the
then Court of First Instance of Zambales, Branch 2, lba, imposing the death penalty upon the accused in
Criminal Case No. 1456-I.
The accused-appellant was charged with the crime of murder in an
information which read as follows:
“That on or about the 21st day of July, 1981, in Barangay San Agustin, in the municipality of Iba, province of Zambales,
Philippines, and within the jurisdiction of this Honorable Court, the said
accused, armed with a deadly weapon, to wit:
A bolo, with intent to kill, and with evident premeditation and
treachery, did then and there wilfully, unlawfully
and feloniously attack, hack and wound one Narciso
Gonzales, thereby inflicting upon the latter, the following injuries, to wit:
1.
Hypolemic shock;
2.
Wound, hacking, depressed, penetrating cranial cavity, about 15 cm. left
maxilla to temporal area with bleeding thru left ear;
3.
Wound, hacking, depressed, penetrating cranial cavity, about 10 cm.
right occipital area extending to the neck;
4.
Wound, hacking, deep, 10 cm. left posterior chest wall;
5.
Chip fracture, left scapula;
6.
Wound lacerated, superficial about 3 cm. long left posterior chest wall;
7.
Wound lacerated, superficial, interrupted, about 7 cm. left posterior
chest wall;
8.
Wound, lacerated, superficial about 3 cm. left posterior chest wall
which injuries directly caused the death of said Narciso Gonzales.”[1]
The facts of this case as found by the trial court are set out in the evidence for the
prosecution, since counsel for the defense did not present any evidence:
“Evidence for the
prosecution
EMMA VALDEZ, medical records clerk of the President
Ramon Magsaysay
Memorial Hospital,
testified on and identified the certificate of death (Exhibit ‘A’) and the
medico-legal Certificate (Exhibit ‘B’), both signed and issued by Dr. Linda Fabunan.
NOEL MONTEFALCON, a farmer, testified that he and Narciso Gonzales plowed a parcel of land in Sitio Marangla, Barangay San Agustin, Iba from
eight to ten o’clock in the morning
on July 21, 1981. Thereafter, they went to the house of Nena Abrigo, also in Barangay San Agustin, arriving thereat at around eleven o’clock.
Nena Abrigo
requested them to clean pieces of fish called ‘ke-ey’. While they were cleaning fish at the kitchen,
Diosdado de Guia (a person
identified earlier by the witness)
entered ‘from behind’ and began hacking Narciso
Gonzales. He and Narciso
Gonzales were standing, cleaning fish, when the latter was hacked by Diosdado de Guia. Diosdado de Guia hacked Narciso Gonzales
several times, hitting the latter on the left face, at the back of the head,
and on the middle portion of the back.
With his wounds, Narciso Gonzales ran to the
roof of a shed for firewood to hide, but Diosdado de Guia continued looking for him.
He had to scamper away from the place (he was then around ten
meters away from the shed), because Diosdado de Guia also went after him.
Later, he hailed a mini-bus, because he wanted to bring Narciso Gonzales to the hospital. Narciso Gonzales
was able to board the mini-bus, but he failed to follow suit because Diosdado de Guia chased him. As a matter of fact, Diosdado
de Guia hacked anew Narciso
Gonzales on the back — in the presence of many persons — while the latter was
boarding the mini-bus, thereby spurring the vehicle to speed away. He succeeded in evading any tragedy by
outrunning Diosdado de Guia. He was investigated by police officer Warlito Quinto in connection with
the case, which investigation was reduced to writing (Exhibit ‘A’). He affirmed the contents of his sworn
statement and identified the signature thereon.
EUDIAS ABRIGO, a housekeeper in San Agustin, testified that she
knew the accused, Diosdado de Guia,
and the victim Narciso Gonzales, the former being a barangay mate in San Agustin, while the latter being a
helper at the house of her mother, Nena Abrigo. The house of
her mother is around twenty meters from here.
Narciso Gonzales was hacked to death by Diosdado de Guia (the person whom
he (sic) had earlier identified inside the courtroom). As a result, she and her mother incurred
expenses to the tune of P2,800.00 (Exhibit
‘D-1-a’). Of said amount, P1,800.00 went to the funeral parlor, while P1,000.00
was spent for food and beverages during the wake (Exhibit ‘D-1’).
The defense counsel conformed to all the evidence formally offered
by the prosecution. Also, he did not
present any evidence to substantiate his verbal prayer for leniency.”[2]
After presentation of evidence by the prosecution, the defense
not having presented any evidence for the accused-appellant, the trial court rendered a decision on 5 April 1982 finding
the accused Diosdado de Guia
guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the crime of murder and sentencing him to
death, and to indemnify the heirs of Narciso Gonzales
in the sum of P12,000.00 apart from paying expenses incurred by Eudias Abrigo in the amount of
P2,800.00, plus costs.
Accused-appellant de Guia, through his new counsel de oficio,
Atty. Reynaldo T. Mempin, alleged in his brief that
the trial court erred in:
“I
x x x failing
to exercise the solicitous care in seeing to it that when an accused pleads
guilty he understands clearly and fully the meaning of his plea and/or the
effects of an affirmative plea thereto, especially considering that he changed
his plea four times;
II
x x x failing
to appreciate the nature of the accused’s final plea
of ‘guilty’ which was not unequivocal as he attempted to qualify it, through
counsel, by saying ‘there is a little bit frustration which tended to be the
killing of the victim,’ and that he
denied he did it ‘with evident premeditation’ and ‘with treachery’.
III
x x x not
ascertaining the age, occupation and education of the accused, and other facts
which would guide this Honorable Supreme Court in determining whether he acted
with discernment in pleading guilty.
IV
x x x failing
to consider that no sufficient evidence was presented in support of the
material allegations of the information, including the circumstances of
treachery and evident premeditation,
for the purpose of establishing beyond reasonable doubt the guilt of the
accused and the nature and extent of the penalty to be imposed,
considering that the accused was charged with capital offense.”[3]
The
foregoing assigned errors may be compressed into two (2):
(1) Whether or not
the trial court had erred in accepting appellant’s allegedly improvident plea
of guilty; and
(2) Whether or not
the trial court had erred in finding that appellant had committed the crime of
murder and in finding the presence of qualifying circumstances of treachery and
evident premeditation.
I
It is vigorously claimed
by defense counsel that the trial court had failed to apprise the accused fully
of the meaning and consequences of a plea of guilty to a charge of murder, with
treachery and evident premeditation being alleged as qualifying circumstances.
The record shows that
accused-appellant was arraigned
four (4) times and entered four (4) different pleas:
(1) 7 September 1981 – Accused, assisted
by his original counsel de oficio Atty.
Roberto Ferrer, initially pleaded “not guilty“;
(2) 17 September 1981 – Accused, assisted
by the same counsel, pleaded “guilty“;
(3) 8 November 1981 – Accused, still
assisted by the same counsel, pleaded “not
guilty“; and
(4) 11 January 1982 – Accused, assisted
by a new counsel de oficio Atty. Dionisio D. Dizon, once more
changed his plea to “guilty“.
1. First Change of Plea:
from “not
guilty” to “guilty“
When
first arraigned, on 7 September 1981, appellant pleaded not guilty to the
offense charged in the information.
However, when trial commenced ten (10) days later, i.e., on 17 September
1981, and the first witness for the prosecution, Noel Montefalcon,
had just stated his personal circumstance and had just identified the accused
in open court, appellant’s de oficio
counsel Atty. Ferrer manifested to the trial court
that his client had acknowledged to him (Atty. Ferrer)
his guilt and his desire to enter a plea of guilty. The trial court warned Atty. Ferrer that the plea of guilty would no longer be considered as a mitigating circumstance
since the prosecution had already started presenting its evidence. Atty. Ferrer
nonetheless asked for re-arraignment.
Accordingly, the information was, for the second time, read to the
accused?appellant by the court interpreter who translated the same into Zambal, a language understood by the
accused-appellant. Thus —
“x x
x x x x x x x
ATTY. FERRER:
Your
Honor, I have confronted with the accused in this case and he intimated to me that
he really killed the victim in this case and he is entering a plea of guilty.
COURT:
But
Atty. Ferrer, take note that the prosecution has
already started presenting his evidence and so there will be no mitigating
circumstance of a plea of guilty here.
ATTY. FERRER:
Well, if your Honor
please, anyway that is just the personal circumstances.
x x
x x
x x x x x
COURT:
Let the accused be
re-arraigned on condition that he will enter a plea of guilty.
The accused is being
re-arraigned and the Court Interpreter is reading the information and
translating in the Zambal dialect, the dialect understood by the accused.
To be sure of the
plea of the accused; in this information, you are charged with having
willfully, unlawfully and feloniously attack, hack and wound one Narciso Gonzales thereby inflicting on him injuries which
are mentioned to you by the Court Interpreter, do you admit that accusation of
the provincial Fiscal in this information?
The Court Interpreter is
now translating the question propounded by the Court to the accused in Zambal.
A: Ya po.
COURT:
And the accused
answered, ‘yes, sir‘.
x x
x x
x x x x x“[4]
In
addition to clarifying its position that the new plea of guilty would not be
considered a mitigating circumstance, the trial court
propounded additional questions to the accused relating to the assault
and killing of the deceased Narciso Gonzales with
treachery and evident premeditation, as follows:
“Q: And
you did that act of
attacking, hacking and wounding Narciso Gonzales wilfully and voluntarily with intent to kill?
A: Yes,
sir.
Q: And
that you did the act of attacking and hacking Narciso
Gonzales with evident premeditation and treachery? Make it on record that the defense counsel
is explaining in Zambal the meaning of evident
premeditation and treachery. Make it on
record that the counsel even asked in Tagalog if the
accused understands evident premeditation.
The accused answered
‘yes, sir’.
And treachery?
Make it on record that
the defense counsel is explaining the word treachery with the client.
The accused answered ‘yes,
sir‘.
And that this incident
happened on the 21st day of July, 1981 in Barangay
San Agustin, Iba, this province?
The question is being
translated in Zambal by the defense counsel.
Yes, sir.
Q: And
that the injuries that you have inflicted caused the death of Narciso Gonzales, do you admit that fact also?
A: Yes,
sir.
COURT:
What is your
recommendation, Fiscal?
FISCAL NACIN:
We are recommending
if your Honor please the maximum period which is death, under Article
248 of the Revised Penal Code, considering that the accused changed his plea of
not guilty to that of ‘guilty’ only after the prosecution had began to present
its evidence.
COURT:
No mitigating
circumstance.”[5]
We note in this connection that while the trial court, with some
ostentation, made of record that the information was read to the accused-appellant in the Zambal dialect, and that
counsel de oficio explained in Zambal to the accused?appellant “the meaning of
evident premeditation and treachery” and that defense counsel asked in Tagalog as well whether accused-appellant understood
“evident premeditation,” the trial judge himself did not undertake to
explain to accused-appellant the meaning and consequences of a change of his
plea to one of guilty. The trial judge
appeared concerned solely with the technical question of whether the entry of a
plea of guilty would, under the circumstances
here, make available a mitigating circumstance to the accused. More specifically, the trial judge made no
effort to explain to the accused in ordinary day-to-day language the meaning of
“treachery” and “evident premeditation” which are, of
course, terms of legal art.
2. Second Change of Plea:
from “guilty” to
“not guilty“
Notwithstanding the change of the original plea of not guilty to
one of guilty, the prosecution continued to present evidence. Trial was resumed on 21 September 1981 with
Emma M. Valdez, the Medical
Records Clerk at the President Ramon Magsaysay
Memorial Hospital where the victim had expired, presenting the death
certificate and a medico legal certificate of the victim. At this point, defense counsel moved for
suspension of the hearing upon the ground that the accused-appellant “was
suffering from mental illness” and asked for re-arraignment.[6]
The trial court required defense counsel to submit evidence concerning the
claimed mental illness of accused-appellant.
Such evidence was, however, never presented. Nonetheless, the trial court, because of the
appellant’s claim to the exempting circumstance of insanity, arraigned the
accused-appellant for the third time. On
9 November 1981, appellant
with the assistance of Atty. Ferrer pleaded not
guilty to the offense charged in the information. On 13
November 1981, the prosecution continued presenting the testimony
of Noel Montefalcon.
3. Third Change of Plea:
from “not guilty” to
“guilty”
On 8 January
1982, a scheduled date for hearing, Atty. Ferrer failed to appear and was promptly held in contempt
by the trial court. The trial court just
as promptly appointed Atty. Dionisio D. Dizon as new counsel de oficio for appellant. Atty. Dizon then
moved for deferment of the hearing.
Three days later, on 11
January 1982, Atty. Dizon moved for
another change of plea from not guilty to guilty. The trial court granted the motion in open
court and the accused was arraigned for the fourth and last time:
“COURT:
There was a
manifestation last Friday that you are going to study of what transpired.
ATTY. DIZON:
May I be heard, your Honor. Considering the gravity of the offense
charged against the accused, your Honor, I have a conference with him in the
Provincial jail this morning and I advised him to change his former plea of not guilty to guilty and the accused is willing to enter a plea of
guilty, your Honor, but I have to present the accused why he killed Narciso Gonzales, the victim in this case.
COURT:
That will be qualified.
ATTY. DIZON:
We will prove the mitigating circumstance,
your Honor.
COURT:
So that will not be a plea of guilty already because he is going to
interpose a mitigating circumstance.
ATTY. DIZON:
The accused is willing to withdraw the former
plea of not guilty, your Honor, and enter a plea of guilty.
COURT:
Re-arraign the accused. Please inform him that he will not be
entitled to any mitigating circumstances.
The plea of guilty will no longer be a mitigating circumstance because
the prosecution had started presenting the evidence here.
The warning is being
explained by the counsel of the accused.
Make it on record that
the information is being read to the accused in the Zambal
dialect by the trial fiscal.
FISCAL NACIN:
The
accused, after reading to him and translating to him in the Zambal
dialect the information and which he understands entered a plea of guilty of
the crime of murder, appearing on page 46 of the Record.
COURT TO ACCUSED:
Q: You are charged in the information with
having attacked, hacked, and wounded Narciso Gonzales
with intent to kill and with evident premeditation and treachery and as a result
of your action, injuries were inflicted on said person. Do you admit having done these acts of
attacking, hacking and wounding and killing Narciso
Gonzales?
A. Yes, sir. I admit that.
Q. You admit that you did the killing of Narciso Gonzales with evident premeditation?
A. No, sir.
COURT:
That
would be inconsistent that he is entering a plea of not guilty.
ATTY. DIZON:
Yes,
sir. Because of the charge of evident
premeditation. Your Honor please, as we
have stated earlier, the aggravating circumstances mentioned in the
information, one of these aggravating circumstances will qualify the same to
murder. So I have to present the
accused in the witness stand not necessarily to prove in fact but as I
have interviewed him this morning, he intimated to me that there is a little
bit frustration which tended to be the killing of the victim.
COURT:
So
that is contrary because of his plea he is going to admit.
Q. About treachery, did you do it with
treachery?
A. No, sir.
COURT:
So what will qualify now? The accused said ‘no’.
Make it on record that the counsel is
conferring with the client considering the inconsistency in his plea denying
particularly premeditation and treachery.
Q. Now,
will you please ask the accused if he did the act of killing Narciso Gonzales with evident premeditation?
A. Yes, I planned the killing.
Q. Did you do it with treachery?
A. Yes,
sir.
COURT:
Make it on record that everything was
answered by the accused voluntarily without anyone forcing him.”[7]
Once again, the trial
court’s concern appeared to be limited to the narrow question of the
availability or non-availability of the mitigating circumstance (of plea of
guilty). The trial judge did not himself
try to inform or advise the accused as to the consequences of pleading guilty
to having killed the deceased Narciso Gonzales with
both premeditation and treachery. More
particularly, the trial court judge did not himself try to convey to appellant,
in popular language that the appellant might be
supposed to have understood, the meaning of evident premeditation and treachery
as circumstances that would qualify the killing to murder and so aggravate
the penalty as to attract the maximum penalty of death. There is nothing on the record, that would
indicate that Atty. Dizon was able to explain the
implications of admitting the presence of the circumstances of treachery and
evident premeditation. The probability
that the accused-appellant did not understand the technical consequences
of admitting evident premeditation and treachery is underscored by the fact
that the appellant when first asked by the trial court whether he admitted
having killed Narciso
Gonzales “with evident premeditation,” denied having
done so. Again, when the judge asked
appellant whether he had killed Gonzales “with treachery”, appellant denied that he did so. Indeed,
appellant changed his tune, as it were, only after his counsel, Atty. Dizon, upon suggestion of the court, conferred with his
client concerning the
“inconsistency of his plea.” Apparently, the trial court was not
prepared to accept a plea of guilty to an offense not involving an
admission of evident premeditation and treachery. Clearly, Atty. Dizon
wanted to claim and prove the presence of a mitigating circumstance. But, the trial court apparently believed that
that would result in a qualified
or conditional plea of guilty which he would have been required to consider as
a plea of not guilty.[8]
This Court has in the past earnestly enjoined trial judges to be
“extra-solicitous” in seeing to it that when an accused pleads
guilty, he understands fully the meaning of his plea and the import of an
inevitable conviction.[9]
In People v. Alamada,[10] this Court found that the trial court
had failed to observe that quantum of care that the Court had consistently prescribed
for the valid admission of a plea of guilty by an accused, and set aside the
judgments of conviction and remanded the cases back to the trial court for new
arraignment. The Court said:
“First, the trial court did not at all explain to the defendant
the nature of the charges against
him, especially the
allegations regarding conspiracy, treachery, evident
premeditation and abuse of superior strength, which are terms so technical that the laymen,
especially an unschooled one like the accused, cannot possibly understand
without proper elucidation. Neither did the trial court inform the
defendant of the gravity of the
consequences of his plea of guilty. And, more
significantly, the trial court
neglected to ask him his reasons for withdrawing his former plea of not guilty and
substituting in its place that of guilty. That
the defendant was aided by counsel de oficio is of no moment, especially where
such counsel wanted the hearing of the two criminal cases postponed due to
their ‘gravity’ (an admission that he was not ready to proceed), and expressed
his preference to continue instead with the hearing of another case in which he
was obviously a counsel de parte.” (Citations
omitted; underscoring supplied)
We agree with the defense counsel that the trial court and the
previous de oficio counsel of accused-appellant had not
exercised enough solicitous care to insure that the accused here had fully
understood the nature and consequences of his final plea of guilty. More specifically, we believe and so hold
that whether the accused-appellant fully comprehended the meaning and effects
of “evident premeditation” and “treachery” and the impact
upon the characterization of the crime committed and the penalty properly
entailed by such crime, is open to reasonable doubt. If many members of the Bar are unable
promptly to call into mind the technical requisites of “treachery”
and “evident premeditation” as qualifying and aggravating
circumstances, there is no reason for supposing that the accused-appellant, a
farmer by occupation, understood such elements and requisites upon the basis of
a few minutes of whispered advice from counsel de oficio
in open court. We cannot, in other
words, regard the plea of guilty as an admission of the presence of treachery
and evident premeditation as alleged in the information.
II
It is true that the prosecution did not rely wholly upon the
initial change of plea by the accused-appellant from “not guilty” to
“guilty”. Thus Noel Montefalcon, who was with the deceased Narciso
Gonzales when the latter was attacked and assaulted with a bolo, continued his
testimony in the course of which he explicitly identified accused-appellant as
having hacked and slashed Narciso Gonzales with a sharp bolo. Eudias Abrigo, the third witness presented by the prosecution,
also testified that Narciso Gonzales was hacked to
death by accused-appellant.[11]
But the testimony of Abrigo was obviously hearsay on
this point and should not have been admitted by the trial court. Even so, the testimony of Noel Montefalcon, an eyewitness, is quite enough evidence, independently of the
admission by accused-appellant made in open court, to show beyond reasonable
doubt that accused had indeed hacked to death Narciso
Gonzales. There is not,
however, enough evidence, in our belief, to show also beyond reasonable doubt
that the killing of Narciso Gonzales had indeed been
attended by the circumstances of evident premeditation and treachery. The admissions in open court by the accused
made in the course of improvidently twice changing his plea from not guilty to
guilty, cannot make up for such deficiency.
For treachery or alevosia to be
considered as either a qualifying circumstance that would change the nature of
the crime or as a generic
aggravating circumstance that would augment the proper penalty, the following
requisites must be shown to concur:
(1) The accused
employed means, methods, or forms of execution which tended directly and
specially to insure the offender’s safety from any defensive or retaliatory act
on the part of the offended party, that, in other words, the offended party was
given no opportunity to defend himself or to retaliate or to respond to the
attack upon him; and
(2) That such means,
method or manner of execution was deliberately chosen by the offender.[12]
In the light of these requisites, it will
be seen that the suddenness of the attack might not in and of itself be
sufficient to show the presence of treachery.
In the instant case, Noel Montefalcon
testified that accused-appellant had entered the kitchen of Nena
Abrigo, where the witness and Narciso
Gonzales stood before a stove or cooking pot cleaning fish when accused-appellant entered the kitchen “from
behind”. Montefalcon
went on to say as follows:
“Q: What
part or parts of Narciso’s body that was or were
hacked?
A: Here,
sir (witness touching his left
face). (tsn,
p. 6, Nov. 13, 1981)
Q: And
how many times was Narciso Gonzales hacked by accused
Diosdado de Guia?
A: He was hacked here (witness touching his left
face) and another here, sir (witness touching the back of his head) and here,
sir (witness touching his middle part of his back) and he was hacked several
times (tsn, p. 7; Brief, p. 41).”[13]
There is, in other words, no
testimony that the first hacking blow by the accused-appellant was
delivered from behind and directed at the back of Narciso
Gonzales. There were, of course,
wounds sustained on the back of Narciso Gonzales
including the back of his head,
but there is no showing which wound or wounds were first inflicted. The wounds on the back of Narciso
Gonzales and on the back of his head could well have been caused after the
hacking had already commenced as
the deceased Gonzales turned to avoid and run away from his attacker. Noel Montefalcon
himself fled the instant he realized that the accused was hacking at Narciso Gonzales and would quite possibly attack him also.
Turning to the circumstance of
evident premeditation, the only evidence submitted by the prosecution
tending to show that accused had conceived of the attack some time before
actual execution thereof, was the testimony of Noel Montefalcon
that he and Narciso Gonzales on their way from the
field they had been plowing to the Abrigo house,
encountered and passed by accused Diosdado de Guia and that the latter had at some distance after passing
them, shouted at them and brandished his bolo at them. Approximately an hour later, accused attacked
Narciso Gonzales in the Abrigo
kitchen. We believe that this evidence,
standing alone, is inadequate to show the presence of evident
premeditation: there was no showing of
the time when the accused had determined to commit the crime; there was no
proof of an overt act manifesting that the accused had clung to his
determination; and there was, finally, no demonstration that enough time had
lapsed between conception and execution to allow accused to reflect upon the consequences of his acts.[14]
As is well-known, it is not only the central fact of a killing that must be
shown beyond reasonable doubt; every qualifying or aggravating circumstance
alleged to have been present and to have been attended such killing, must
similarly be shown by proof beyond reasonable doubt. We do not find such proof here. Indeed, the very savageness of the attack
upon Narciso Gonzales suggests that the attack was
preceded not by cold calculation and design but rather by powerful emotions.
Finally, the Court would commend defense counsel de oficio Atty. Reynaldo T. Mempin
for the high dedication he has shown in this case to the cause of justice and
the protection of the rights of his client and for the care and diligence with
which he discharged his duties to this Court and to his client.
WHEREFORE, the Decision rendered by the trial court on 5 April 1982 is hereby VACATED and a new
decision is hereby ENTERED finding the accused-appellant Diosdado
de Guia guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the crime
of homicide, there being no aggravating nor mitigating circumstance
present. Accused-appellant is hereby
SENTENCED to an indeterminate term of imprisonment the minimum of which shall
be ten (10) years of prision mayor and
the maximum of which shall be seventeen (17) years and four (4) months of reclusion
temporal. In addition,
accused-appellant shall indemnify the heirs of Narciso
Gonzales in the amount of P30,000.00, and pay compensatory damages incurred by Eudias Abrigo in the amount of
P2,800.00. No pronouncement as to costs.
SO ORDERED.
Fernan, C.J., (Chairman), Gutierrez,
Jr., Bidin, and
Cortes, JJ., concur.
[1]
Record on Appeal, p. 41; Rollo, pp. 129-130.
[2]
Decision, Trial Court; Rollo, pp. 131-133.
[3]
Brief for the Appellant, pp.12-13; Rollo, pp. 84-85.
[4]
TSN, 17 September 1981, pp. 3-4; underscoring supplied.
[5]
Id., pp. 4-6; underscoring supplied.
[6]
TSN, p. 5, September 21, 1981.
[7]
TSN, 11 January 1982, pp. 2-4.
[8]
The trial court would be in error here: People v. Yturriaga,
86 Phil. 534 (1978); People v. Ong, 62 SCRA
174 (1975).
[9]
People v. Solacito, 29 SCRA 61 at 61-62
(1969).
[10]
52 SCRA 103 (1973). See also People v.
Ybañez, et al.,
61 SCRA 468 (1974); People
v. Estabia, 40 SCRA 90 (1971); People v.
Aguilar, 37 SCRA 115 (1971); People
v. Englatera, 34 SCRA 245 (1970); People v. Tilos, 30 SCRA 734 (1969);
Longao v. Fakat, 30
SCRA 866 (1969); People v.
Arpa, 27 SCRA 747 (1969); People v. Villas, 27 SCRA 947 (1969); People v. Apduhan, 24 SCRA 798
(1968).
[11]
TSN, 11 January 1982, p. 1.
[12]
Art. 14. par.6, Revised Penal Code.
People v. Estillore, 141 SCRA 456
(1986); People v Regular, 108 SCRA 23 (1981); People v. Samonte, 68 SCRA 70 (1975); People v. Leal, 40 SCRA
550 (1971); U.S.
v. Balagtas, 19 Phil. 114 (1911).
[13]
Rollo, pp. 120-121.
[14]
People v. Lim, 71 SCRA 249 (1976); People v. Boduso,
60 SCRA 61 (1974).