PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. DANILO BADILLA Y ONES ALIAS DODONG, ACCUSED-APPELLANT.

People versus Badilla

The Case

This is a criminal appeal in which the People of the Philippines prosecuted Danilo Badilla y Oñes, known as Dodong, for robbery with homicide under the Revised Penal Code. The case matters to a bar candidate because it shows how the Supreme Court treats a plea of guilty made at arraignment, how it weighs the aggravating circumstances alleged in an information, and how it reviews a death sentence on automatic appeal. It is a study in the difference between what the trial court found and what the record, as summarized in the decision, actually supports.

Procedural History

The accused was charged before the Regional Trial Court of Bohol, Branch 3, with robbery with homicide. At arraignment he pleaded guilty. After trial, the court rendered judgment finding him guilty beyond reasonable doubt of robbery with homicide as penalized under Article 294 of the Revised Penal Code, appreciating three aggravating circumstances offset by one mitigating circumstance, and imposing the penalty of death. It also ordered him to indemnify the heirs of Nestora Horohoro in the amount of 12,000 pesos, ordered the confiscation of the weapons in favor of the government, and ordered the return of the electric fan and the radio cassette to the victim's heirs. From that judgment the accused appealed to the Supreme Court.

Facts

On the morning of July 18, 1984, ten year old Ruth Torrefranca was at home on Calceta Street in Tagbilaran City with her aunt, Nestora Horohoro, in the house owned by Praxedes Quidang. The accused, a relative of the victim, had visited the house three times before. On that day he took lunch with them. After lunch the child left for school, leaving her aunt at the porch sweeping.

Past one o'clock in the afternoon, the neighbor Erica Requina heard the gate open and saw the accused leaving with a radio cassette and a rota air electric fan. When nobody answered her call to Nestora, she entered and found the victim lying dead, bathed in her own blood. Earlier that same morning, the accused had offered the same two items for sale to the businessman Joseph Lim, who became suspicious and called the police. When the accused returned to the store past one o'clock and asked 3,000 pesos for the items, the policemen who had been waiting took him to the station. He had a bandaged, bloodstained little finger.

The physician who examined the body found multiple lacerated wounds, an incised wound, and fifteen stab wounds, four of which penetrated the lungs. Death was caused by hemorrhage and collapse of the lungs. A knife was found underneath the body, and broken pieces of a pestle lay nearby. The accused's defense was that the victim bit his finger when he tried to cover her mouth as she shouted, that he felt obfuscated, and that he then stabbed her without intention to kill. He admitted taking the fan and the radio cassette afterward to raise money for his fare.

Issues

• Whether or not the information sufficiently averred the commission of the offense of robbery with homicide.
• Whether or not the trial court erred in finding the accused guilty beyond reasonable doubt of robbery with homicide.
• Whether or not the aggravating circumstances alleged were properly appreciated, and whether or not the penalty of death was correctly imposed.

Applicable Provisions

Article 294 of the Revised Penal Code, as invoked in the judgment below, penalizes robbery with homicide:

Any person guilty of robbery with the use of violence against or intimidation of any person shall suffer the penalty of reclusion perpetua to death, when by reason or on occasion of the robbery, the crime of homicide shall have been committed.

This is the provision under which the trial court convicted the accused and imposed death, so the entire appeal turns on whether its elements and its penalties were correctly applied.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that the information was sufficient. The information described the manner and circumstances of the offense, and the accused in fact pleaded guilty to it at arraignment. A defect that the accused never raised, and that the record shows he understood, cannot now be the ground for reversal.

On the second issue, the Court sustained the finding of guilt. The evidence was a chain of circumstances: the accused was seen leaving the house with the very items reported lost; he offered those items for sale within hours of the killing; he had a fresh, bloodstained wound on his finger; and he himself admitted stabbing the victim and taking the items. The Court held that the killing and the taking were one transaction, the taking being by reason or on occasion of the homicide, which is the essence of robbery with homicide.

On the third issue, the Court examined the penalty. The trial court had appreciated three aggravating circumstances and one mitigating circumstance and imposed death. The Court reviewed the record and found that the qualifying and aggravating circumstances were not established with the certainty the law demands, and that the accused's plea and his testimony, including his claim of obfuscation arising from the bite, were entitled to weight in the determination of the penalty. Accordingly, the Court reduced the penalty from death to reclusion perpetua, while affirming the conviction and the civil indemnity to the heirs.

Doctrine

Robbery with homicide is a single, indivisible offense. The homicide is not a separate crime but an element that raises the penalty, and it is enough that the homicide was committed by reason or on occasion of the robbery. The taking of the property and the killing form one criminal transaction.

A plea of guilty at arraignment is an admission of the facts alleged in the information and of the offense charged. An accused who pleads guilty cannot later attack the information for insufficiency unless the defect is one that affects the jurisdiction of the court or the very essence of the offense.

The penalty of death is imposed only when the aggravating circumstances are alleged in the information and proved beyond reasonable doubt. Where the record does not establish them with certainty, the Court will reduce the penalty to the lesser penalty prescribed by law, here reclusion perpetua.

Disposition

The Supreme Court affirmed the conviction of Danilo Badilla for robbery with homicide and the award of civil indemnity to the heirs of Nestora Horohoro, but reduced the penalty from death to reclusion perpetua.

Remember This

Robbery with homicide is one crime, not two, and the homicide need only be committed by reason or on occasion of the robbery. Examiners use this case to test the sufficiency of an information, the effect of a plea of guilty, and the rule that death may be imposed only when the aggravating circumstances are both alleged and proved.