PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. LEONARDO LLARENA Y LAGMAN, ACCUSED-APPELLANT.

Appellant Leonardo Llarena y Lagman was convicted of rape committed on the person of Emelyn Jasarena by the Regional
Trial Court of
Pasay City
and sentenced to suffer the penalty of reclusion perpetua, to indemnify the complainant in the
amount of P12,000.00 and to pay the costs.1

Llarena having manifested his intention
to appeal when judgment was promulgated on December 11, 1984, the Trial Court ordered the appeal
elevated to this Court on account of the capital penalty imposed.2

As is usual in cases of this kind, conviction or acquittal hinged
on the relative credibility of the appellant, on the one hand, and of the
complainant, on the other, as assessed by the Trial Court which in this
instance lodged its credence in the version offered by the prosecution and
resting chiefly on said complainant’s testimony.

Briefly, the prosecution’s version is as follows:  At about 2:00
o’clock in the afternoon of April
24, 1978 Emelyn Jasarena
was picked up by Leonardo Llarena from her place of
work in the factory of
Continental Chua Philippines
in Cabuyao, San Pedro, Laguna.  Llarena, who drove
for Emelyn’s uncle, Atty. Jose Alvarez, was at the
wheel of her uncle’s car; and he told her that Atty. Alvarez had sent for her
to talk to her about certain important matters. 
From Cabuyao, Llarena
drove with Emelyn to the Quad complex in Makati, where they had some
refreshments following which he prevailed upon her to watch with him a movie
then showing at one of the Quad cinema houses, telling her that it was still
too early to reach her uncle at his office. 
After the movie, Llarena brought Emelyn to the Monaco Hotel in Pasay City
and took her to an upstairs room where, overpowering all her attempts to resist
his advances and threatening her with dire consequences if she did not submit
to him, he repeatedly raped her over the next couple of nights and days.

After two days, Emelyn’s uncle, Atty.
Alvarez, showed up at their hotel room and to him she confided what Llarena had done to her, telling Alvarez that she had been
forced against her will to submit to Llarena.  From the hotel, Atty. Alvarez brought her,
first, to the municipal hall of San Pedro, Laguna and then to the residence of the town’s vice mayor where
they were joined by Emelyn’s mother, to whom Emelyn repeated what she had earlier told Atty.
Alvarez.  Later that same day, because
the San Pedro police authorities claimed that they could not take cognizance of
a possible charge for rape committed in another jurisdiction, she was taken to Pasay City,
where she gave a written
statement to Patrolman Llorando of the Southern
Police District.  She was then brought to the residence of Pasay City Fiscal Ernesto A. Bernabe
to swear to the truth of her statement. 
On the following day, she underwent a general physical and genital
examination at the National Bureau of Investigation which reported findings
“compatible with sexual intercourse with man on or about the (sic) alleged
dates of commission.”1

Concerning what transpired after the appellant and Emelyn were found by her uncle at the Monaco Hotel, Emelyn’s testimony is corroborated by other witnesses.  She is, however, the sole witness to what had
occurred earlier, except to the extent confirmed by the appellant as
hereinafter stated.2

The appellant’s version tallies with that of the prosecution in
almost every particular aspect except for those supporting or detailing the
crucial claims of, first, deceit and later, intimidation and force, having been
practiced on the complainant in order to carry out and consummate his lewd
designs.  In essence, his defense is that everything that had
transpired had been with the consent and willing cooperation of the
complainant, who had freely yielded herself to him because they were
sweethearts.1
He suggests that the charge of rape was filed because the complainant found out
that he was already married and could not therefore wed her.

The brief for the appellant2 assigns four (4) errors to the
appealed decision, all of which take issue with the credibility of one or
another aspect of the story told by the complainant on the stand.  The “Manifestation and Motion”3
submitted in lieu of a brief for the People by the Solicitor General makes
virtually the same negative evaluation and seconds the appellant’s plea for a
reversal.  And a review of the record
persuasively shows that, indeed, the prosecution’s evidence strikes, as it
were, too many false notes to have the ring of truth rendering it plainly
insufficient to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.  Thus:

1.  For a girl already 20
at the time and a high school graduate by her own account, the complainant demonstrated
an incredible naivete in taking the appellant’s word
that her uncle wanted to talk to her and going with  him to Makati for
that purpose, given the fact that she and her uncle lived in the same place
(San Vicente, Laguna) and she could more easily and conveniently have reached
him by simply going home, and that she also professed not knowing whether her
uncle had  maintained an office in Makati;4

2.  Incredibly, too, her
suspicions about appellant’s sincerity and real intentions were not aroused when,
they having arrived in Makati, he put off taking her
to her uncle on the pretext that it was still too early, and she accepted his
invitation to refreshments and later a movie which they watched for one full showing;5

3.  After the movie,
instead of insisting that she be taken to her uncle or returned to her home,
she docilely permitted the appellant to drive her to a hotel in Pasay, and his true intentions finally dawned upon her only
when he dragged her from the car and to an upstairs room where he was to keep
her captive and ravish her at will for the next two days;6

4.  During all the time
that she and the appellant were sequestered in the hotel, beyond offering
futile resistance to the latter’s sexual assaults, she made no outcry, no
attempt to flee or attract attention to her plight; she claims she could not
escape because the appellant stripped her naked and kept her clothing, but this
could hardly have deterred one bent on fleeing his clutches since she also
stated that she had a blanket to cover herself;1

5. The complainant’s testimony suggests that no one disturbed
their seclusion during those two days and nights, hence there was no one whose
attention she could attract or whose help she could enlist; this is, however,
also difficult to believe because she also claimed that while she refused food
and took only water throughout her stay in the hotel, the appellant did in fact
regularly order and partake of food; it, therefore, being presumable that the
two were not left entirely alone but that someone must have been admitted into
the room from time to time, if only to bring in and serve the food and drink
ordered by the appellant;2

6. The complainant had no reason whatsoever to trust the
appellant as it appeared she did, if it is true as she testified that she
barely knew him and had met him for the first time only on April 14, 1978, only
twelve (12) days before the incident;3

7. It is also significant that for all that the evidence shows,
Atty. Alvarez took quite matter-of-factly his finding of the complainant and
the appellant in a hotel room in a situation indicating that dalliance had
occurred between the two; by the complainant’s own account, he acted as if it
was the most ordinary thing in the world for them to be at such a place and in
such circumstances; he evinced no hostility to the appellant, did not threaten
him in any way, and uttered nothing beyond a mild reproof (“hindi ka naman gusto ng bata“), though she told
him (Alvarez) that she had been brought there and had submitted to the appellant
against her will;4 indeed, the appellant testified
without contradiction that it was he who had called Atty. Alvarez to inform the
latter that he and the complainant were at the Monaco Hotel — an indication
that he believed himself innocent of any crime;5 moreover, Atty. Alvarez was never
called to testify for the prosecution, an omission suggesting that what he had
to say would not support the story of the complainant, his own niece.

As this Court has time and again ruled, while in view of the
character of the offense of rape and the circumstances usually attending its
commission, it is entirely proper — also often unavoidable — to convict on
the sole testimony of the offended party, such testimony must, however, be on
the whole consistent and convincing enough to preclude all reasonable doubts,
because an accusation of rape is easy to make and difficult to disprove.  It is all-too-evident that that criterion is
not satisfied here.  The grave
deficiencies just noted in the proofs of the prosecution, give an aura of total
unreality to an already hardly credible story of being held captive for two
days and repeatedly violated by an unarmed man — there being no suggestion
whatsoever that the appellant carried or used any weapon — ­without there
having been any opportunity at all to flee or seek succour.  Upon what the record shows about the state of
the proof, the Court sees no just alternative to an acquittal, even without
giving ear to the appellant’s disclaimers and his defense that the accusation had
been trumped up by the complainant to avenge herself for the shame and ignominy
of having loved, not wisely but too well.

WHEREFORE, the appealed judgment is REVERSED and the
appellant is ACQUITTED upon reasonable doubt, with costs de officio.

SO ORDERED.

Cruz, Gancayco, Griño-Aquino,
and Medialdea,
JJ., concur.

1
In Criminal Case No. 6253-P; appealed
Decision, Original Record, pp. 183­-186

2
Original Record, p. 188

1
Appealed Decision, supra,; testimony of Emelyn Jasarena, Original TSN,
pp. 1-36; People’s Exhibit A, Original TSN, pp. 190-191

2
Original TSN, pp. 2-8, 59-66

1
Original TSN, pp. 73-154, 179-183

2
Rollo pp. 56-97

3
Rollo, pp. 111-140

4
Original TSN, pp. 10, 19, 40

5
Original TSN, pp. 14-15

6 Original TSN,
pp. 16-30

1 Original TSN,
p. 161

2 Original TSN,
pp. 50-52

3 Original TSN,
p. 162

4 Original TSN,
p. 32

5 Original TSN,
p. 137