PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. BERNABE MACASINAG, ALIAS “BOTOY,” ACCUSED-APPELLANT.

It is a basic principle of constitutional law that the accused shall
be presumed innocent until the contrary is proved, and this by the most
convincing evidence constituting proof beyond reasonable ground.  Lacking such certainty, the trial court has
the duty to render a verdict of acquittal – indeed even if the prisoner on the
dock utters not a word on his behalf – on the equally well-known precept that
the strength of the prosecution lies not in the weakness of the defense.  The prosecution must rely on its own evidence
to prove its case and stand on its own two feet, so to speak, to sustain a
conviction.  If it cannot, the charge
must be dismissed and the defendant released.

In the case at bar, the defense offered by the accused-appellant
is alibi, one of the least persuasive of excuses known in law.  We feel, however, that the evidence of the
prosecution is even less believable and has in fact even bolstered the cause of the defense.  The defense must be sustained.

Bernabe Macasinag,
the herein accused-appellant, was charged with the murder of Jesus Matienzo, Sr., allegedly committed in the early morning of April 20, 1985, at the Masbate abattoir in Kinamaligan,
Masbate.^[1] After trial, he was found guilty by
Judge Zosimo Z. Angeles of the Regional Trial Court of Masbate
and sentenced to death, besides being subjected to certain pecuniary
liabilities.^[2]
His case was elevated to the Court for automatic
review because of the penalty, which, however, is no longer imposable under the
present Constitution.  This case is now
treated as an ordinary appeal.

Also settled is the rule that the factual findings of the trial court should be accorded the highest
respect by the appellate court because of the opportunity enjoyed by the former
to observe the demeanor of the witnesses on the stand and assess their
testimony.  Nevertheless, the higher
court is not entirely precluded from reviewing and reversing these findings if
it is not convinced that they are conformable to the evidence of record and to
its own impressions of the credibility of the witnesses.

As found by the trial court on the basis of the evidence of the
prosecution, the accused-appellant met Arturo Deocariza
at about two o’clock of the morning in question on the way to the Masbate abattoir and decided to accompany him.  Before entering the slaughterhouse, Macasinag noticed a person lying near the wall of the building and asked Deocariza to find out who it was.  Deocariza did so
and informed Macasinag that the sleeping man was
Jesus Matienzo, Sr. 
On the spur of the moment, it would seem Macasinag
then pulled a .45 caliber pistol from his waist,
approached Matienzo and shot him in the
forehead.  Deocariza
fled in fear into the slaughterhouse.^[3]

Inside the slaughterhouse, Jesus Matienzo,
Jr. heard the shot and went outside to investigate.  He came out in time to see a fat man scaling
the wire fence and wearing a red striped black T-shirt, denim trousers and white rubber shoes.  The witness later identified the man as Macasinag, the herein accused-appellant.^[4]
Meanwhile, near a cafeteria some two hundred meters away, PC Sergeant Cesar
Ramirez also heard the shot and rushed toward the direction of the sound with
drawn service pistol.  On the way, he met
the accused-appellant who was running
fast.  Ramirez did not detain Macasinag even when he asked him why he was running and the
latter did not answer.^[5]

On arrival at the
abattoir, Ramirez inquired about the shot he had heard but no one gave any
explanation.  Informed that Jesus Matienzo, Sr. had not yet butchered his carabao,
Ramirez asked Ompoy Dinglasan
to wake him up, but the latter returned a few minutes later to report that Matienzo could not be roused.  The two of them went to the cafeteria to
drink coffee and, after an hour,
Ramirez again asked Dinglasan to wake up Matienzo.  This time,
Dinglasan came back with the shouted report that Matienzo was dead with a bullet in his head.^[6]

On April 23, 1985,
the accused-appellant was apprehended
and investigated for the offense, and on July 18, 1985, an information was
filed against him for the murder of Jesus Matienzo,
Sr.

In his defense, Macasinag claimed that
he was in Bulan, Sorsogon,
at the time of the commission of the offense and was accompanied by Federico
Chua,^[7]
who corroborated his testimony.^[8]

It has already been remarked that alibi is a rather weak defense;
but as also earlier observed, the verdict on the accused must depend on the
strength not of the defense but of the prosecution.  This is to say that even if the defense may
be weak (which is not so declared in the
present case), the prosecution must still fail if it is even weaker, or at
least not strong enough to support a conviction. 
And that is precisely what it is in the case at bar.

The trial court described Deocariza’s
testimony as “straightforward, clear, sincere and convincing,” but
that is probably true insofar as
its delivery in court was concerned.  The
intrinsic credibility of the testimony itself
is another matter.  One finds it
difficult to accept that the offense was committed only because of the
happenstance that Macasinag chanced upon Matienzo while the latter was asleep that morning of April 20, 1985.  Then and there it occurred to the
accused-appellant to murder the victim, which he did without much ado.  No less remarkably, Macasinag
was apparently not bothered that there was a witness to the deed – Deocariza was ignored
completely as if he never existed at all. 
And to make matters less credible, Deocariza
said absolutely nothing when Ramirez arrived on the scene and started asking
questions; and even later, after his initial shock and fear had dissipated, this
alleged eyewitness persisted on keeping silent. 
It was only thirteen days later that he supposedly revealed all to the
fiscal,^[9]
who prepared an affidavit for him
to sign.  He did not do this right
away.  In fact, it took another
twenty-five days before he decided to affix his signature to the statement,^[10]
which, to compound the confusion, he later retracted.^[11]

Ramirez is no less convincing. 
He says he rushed with gun drawn toward the direction of the shot when
he heard it but made no move to stop the accused-appellant when he saw Macasinag running away from such direction.  The running man should have excited the
suspicion of Ramirez, who was a peace officer trained in the apprehension of
criminals and fugitives.  But he did nothing
to intercept or detain Macasinag.  Ramirez said he stopped but the other man
continued running fast.  Ramirez says he
recognized Macasinag “because of his
attire” (as if to suggest
that the man had a distinctive manner of clothing), and when having passed him,
Macasinag turned back.  Ramirez said he could recognize Macasinag because of the light from the Shell station which
presumably illuminated the latter’s face.^[12]

However, the defense established through Perlita
Lustacio, that the Masbate
Electric Cooperative turns off all electric power at 11 o’clock in the evening,^[13]
(another witness, Rolando Mangubat, said it was at
midnight^[14]).  In either case, this would mean that the
Shell station could not have been lit at 1:30
a.m. when Ramirez claimed to have met and identified the running Macasinag.

As for Jesus Matienzo, Jr., he says
that there were about fifteen persons in the abattoir when the shot was heard,^[15]
but only he was curious enough to go out and find out what it was all about.  No one else accompanied him although the shot
was an unusual occurrence during that quiet morning, alarming enough to make
Sergeant Ramirez immediately start running fast toward the abattoir.  Jesus says he came out just in time to see Macasinag clambering up the wire fence and could recognize
the man despite the poor light and
the further fact that what he could have seen was the man’s back and not
his face as he was escaping away from the enclosure of the
abattoir.  And why was the man scaling
the wire fence when there was an open gate not less than eight meters
away?^[16]
Jesus says Macasinag
probably did not want to be seen, but that was hardly a necessary precaution, considering that Macasinag,
if the prosecution theory is to be accepted, did not mind being seen at all by Deocariza when he actually shot Matienzo
to death.  Moreover, Jesus says that only
he went out of the abattoir when they heard the shot, which would mean that
there were at the time no witnesses to fear who would see Macasinag
fleeing by the gate.

It is no less
remarkable that upon his return to the slaughterhouse, Jesus made no mention of
the fleeing person nor did any one of the fourteen people inside ask him what
he had seen outside.  And most important
of all, it never occurred to Jesus – considering the shot and the fleeing man –
to see if his father, who was supposed to be sleeping nearby, was all right.

The physical evidence against the accused-appellant is also
deficient and unconvincing.  The gun
supposedly used by the accused-appellant was never produced in evidence nor is
there any showing that Macasinag had fired a gun at
all.^[17]
The prosecution made much of the rubber shoes the gunman was supposed to have
been wearing, but there were no footprints to connect Macasinag’s
own shoes to the killing.  The
prosecution simply said that the footprints had been obliterated.^[18]
The shoes themselves are not distinctive – they are just like any ordinary pair
of rubber shoes worn by any number of persons. 
So too are the rest of Macasinag’s attire.  The red striped black T-shirt and the denim
pants could have been used by any other man and cannot be related exclusively
to Macasinag. 
Unless this was Macasinag’s customary costume
– and we find no proof of this – there is no reason to believe Ramirez’s
statement that he also recognized Macasinag by his
attire.

The trial court might have been influenced by the killing of a
prospective witness for the prosecution and the suspicion that the
accused-appellant was responsible therefor.  But he does not stand accused here of that
offense.  It is entirely irrelevant to
this case no matter what sinister conjectures may be conjured against Macasinag.

It is possible that Macasinag did
really kill Matienzo but the evidence of the
prosecution is simply inadequate to warrant a conviction.  Such conviction must be supported by proof beyond reasonable doubt, which is absent in this
case.  Even if it be supposed that the
accused-appellant’s alibi is not worthy of credence, the fact is that the
evidence of the prosecution is much less so, with all its improbabilities and
inconsistencies.  This Court will not
deprive a person of his liberty and stigmatize him as a killer as long as it is
not morally certain he has indeed committed the crime.

The guilty must be
punished, to be sure, but only if it is shown that they are guilty.  There is no such showing here.

WHEREFORE, the decision of the trial court is REVERSED
and the accused-appellant is ACQUITTED on reasonable doubt.  No costs.

SO ORDERED.

Narvasa, (Chairman), Griño-Aquino, and Medialdea, JJ., concur.

Gancayco, J., on leave.

^[1]
Rollo, p. 2.

^[2]
Decision, Rollo, p. 30.

^[3]
Rollo, p. 16.

^[4]
TSN, August 28, 1985, pp.
11-13; Rollo, p. 16.

^[5]
TSN, August 23, 1985, pp.
57-59.

^[6]
Ibid., pp. 60-65.

^[7]
TSN, September 11, 1985, pp.
26-27.

^[8]
Ibid., pp. 11-12.

^[9]
TSN, August 21, 1985, p.
22.

^[10]
Ibid., p. 25.

^[11]
TSN, August 29, 1985, pp. 4-5.

^[12]
TSN, August 23, 1985, p.
60.

^[13]
TSN, August 28, 1985, p.
52.

^[14]
TSN, September 11, 1985, pp.
1-2.

^[15]
TSN, August 28, 1985, p.
28.

^[16]
TSN, August 28, 1985, p.
36.

^[17]
TSN, August 28, 1985, pp. 45-46.

^[18]
TSN, August 26, 1985, pp. 43-45.