THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. EMETERIO VELASCO AND JUANITO COMEL, ACCUSED-APPELLANTS.

It was nine o’clock in
the evening of July 17, 1977,
and the members of the Puri family were inside their
house in the town of San Antonio in
Quezon Province.  Outside it was windy and rainy.  Suddenly, several shots rang out from under
the house and Sergio Puri moaned in pain, evidently
hit.  Moments later, he was dead with
wounds in his neck, chest, arms and knee.

The sound of the shots and Gloria Puri’s
shouts for help drew neighbors to the house. 
The matter was immediately reported to the authorities and that same
night three policemen came to investigate. 
They found six empty carbine
shells under the house.  They also went
in search of the two persons claimed to have been seen walking away from the
scene of the crime after its commission.

On August 29, 1977,
an information for murder was filed against Emeterio
Velasco, Juanito Comel and
Rodrigo Comel. 
Upon reinvestigation on their motion, Rodrigo Comel
was dropped from the charge for insufficiency of evidence.  After arraignment and trial, the two remaining
accused were found guilty.  They were
sentenced to reclusion perpetua plus
payment of indemnity to the victim’s heirs in the sum of P20,000.00.^[1]

In this appeal, both Velasco and Comel
claim that they were invalidly convicted on insufficient circumstantial
evidence in disregard of their constitutional right to the presumption of
innocence.

The principal witnesses for the prosecution were Clarita Puri and Domingo Puri, who both
pointed to the two accused-appellants as their brother’s killers.  In their separate testimonies, they said that
when they heard the shots, they went to the window and saw the two accused
walking away.  Velasco had a
shotgun.  Clarita was at the time carrying
an oil lamp and Domingo a flashlight. 
They heard Sergio moaning and it was then they realized he had been
shot.  It was too late to help him.^[2]

Pat. Demetrio
Andaya, also testifying for the prosecution, said
that he had investigated the killing that same night, together with
three other policemen.  They found six used carbine shells under the Puri house.  Clarita
reported to him that she saw the two accused walking away from under their
house minutes after she heard the shots. 
He told her to go to the municipal building and make a formal statement.^[3]

He was corroborated by Pat. Nemesio Alcantara, who was also in the investigating team.  This witness said they found footprints under
the house that led to the house of Juanito Comel.^[4]

Another investigator, Pat. Manuel Vasquez, had a slightly
different story.  While confirming their
discovery of the spent carbine shells, he testified that when Clarita was
interviewed by Andaya and Alcantara,
she could not tell who her brother’s assailants were.^[5]

Emeterio Velasco, testifying for
himself, denied killing Sergio Puri and said he was
residing in Tagkawayan, another town in Quezon, at the time of the killing.^[6]
As for Juanito Comel, who
also took the stand, he said he was in his house with his family the whole
night of July 17, 1977, and
could not have committed the killing. 
Moreover, he was already 69 years old and had poor eyesight, which was
the reason he had stopped working in his farm the year before.^[7]
Dr. Cornelio Maninang confirmed Comel’s
defective vision, saying the accused was suffering from presbyopia
and cataract.^[8]

Another witness was Capt. Valentino Gaerlan
of the PC Crime Laboratory, who testified that he paraffin-tested Anselmo Comel, Casiano Comel and Armando Mercado
on July 19, 1977, and found
them negative for powder burns.^[9]
He did not say he had also tested the two accused-appellants.

It was disclosed at the trial that the Puri
family used to be employed in Juanito Comel’s farm as their harvesters but he had dismissed them
several years earlier.  Emeterio Velasco replaced them and became a close friend of Juanito Comel.  Sergio Puri was charged with having killed Filemon
Comel, Juanito’s brother,
but the case was dismissed in the fiscal’s office
after Sergio made a cash settlement with the family of the victim.^[10]

These circumstances were regarded by the trial judge as the basis
for the motive in the killing of Sergio Puri.  Judge Palattao said
the motive was revenge.  This revenge was carried
out by the two accused, with Velasco as the actual gunman in conspiracy with
his close friend and employer, Juanito Comel, who had accompanied him that night.  The fact that they were both not at home when
the policemen went looking for them that same night indicated that they were
hiding.  Velasco was even seen crossing
the river on the way to Tiaong, presumably to escape.

It bears noting at this juncture that the house where the victim
was shot, like many houses in the province, was a one-story structure raised on
pillars and with an empty space underneath. 
The elevation of the floor was about two-and-one half meters.  Any person in this area could look up and see
the occupants inside the house through its bamboo flooring.  As the room where Sergio Puri
was standing and mending a fish net (or sitting, according to Domingo) was lit
with three oil lamps, it was easy for the killer or killers to identify and
shoot him from below.

The Court does find it strange that the killing should have been
done under these circumstances but the fact is that it did happen.  It is not disputed that Sergio Puri died from the shots fired from under him.  The only question is whether the killers were
Emeterio Velasco and Juanito
Comel, as the trial judge held.

Although the offense was committed on July 17, 1977, the record shows that it took one
month before the accused-appellants were formally indicted.  Moreover, although three persons were
originally charged, one of them was dismissed after a reinvestigation.  It is also noted that two days after the
killing three persons were paraffin-tested by the police but not either of the
two accused-appellants.  This was a
curious omission in light of the
report made by Clarita Puri to Pat. Andaya on the very night of the killing that she saw
Velasco and Comel leaving the scene of the crime
immediately after she heard the shots.

The explanation given by the prosecution is that the Puri family was afraid to press charges, especially so
since the former station commander was partial to the accused and was
protecting them.  It was only when he was
replaced that the complainants dared to come forward and accuse Velasco and Comel.^[11]

There are inconsistencies in the separate narrations made by
Clarita and Domingo Puri but only on minor points
that do not detract from their essential credibility.  Whether Sergio Puri
was standing or sitting shortly before he was shot or whether Clarita stayed by
the window for thirty seconds or three minutes is not really that important as
long as the testimony of the witness is on the whole credible.  What is important is that, although Clarita
and Domingo may have differed on some of the details, their common declaration
was that they saw the two accused-appellants walking away from under the house
minutes after the shots were fired.

The defense theorizes that Clarita and Domingo could not have
failed to see that Sergio had been shot and that their first reaction would
have been to go to him instead of to the window.  Sergio was in fact talking with Domingo,
according to Clarita, when the shots were fired.  Moreover, the room where they were all in at
the time was after all not big and all the occupants were within sight of each
other.

We can also only conjecture like the defense but the other
plausible view is that Clarita’s and Domingo’s first impulse was to go to the
window to see where the shots had come from, not yet realizing that one of them
had been shot.  It was Clarita who said
Sergio and Domingo were conversing when Sergio was shot.  Domingo never said that; what he said was
that he was behind his brother shortly before he heard the shots.^[12]

One may well wonder why a 69-year old man would go out on that
windy and rainy night to accompany the killer and, stranger still, why they
would simply walk away after the shooting.  But the fact is that Emeterio
Velasco and Juanito Comel
were actually seen together that night under the house of the slain Sergio Puri and they were not running but simply walking away.  It would have been more believable for
Clarita and Domingo, if they wanted to be more convincing, to say that the two
men they saw were running, for this was the natural thing to do.  The fact that these witnesses did not do so
is perhaps an index itself of their truthfulness.

The testimony of Alcantara that they
found footprints in the mud leading from the Puri
house to Juanito Comel’s
house must be taken with a grain of salt. 
It is doubtful how the footprints could have been preserved on that
rainy night, let alone the fact that there were allegedly many such footprints
and none was identified as belonging to either of the accused-appellants.  On the other hand, the muddy soil might have
been the reason why the
accused-appellants were not running but carefully treading their way so as not
to slip.

It is also noteworthy that when the investigators reached Juanito Comel’s house and asked
for him they were told he was not there.^[13] Comel himself did not deny this particular statement of
Pat. Alcantara although he insisted that he was at
home all night on July 17, 1977.  If he was really there and had nothing to
hide, Comel would have come out and talked to the
investigators.  Velasco was also nowhere
to be found that night after the killing and did not deny that he was seen
crossing the river on the way to Tiaong.

The Court has carefully analyzed the evidence against the
accused-appellants and finds that, although only circumstantial, it is
sufficient to convict them.  The various
circumstances pointing to them as the killers have successfully overcome the
constitutional presumption of their
innocence and established their guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

They were seen immediately after Sergio Puri
was shot and killed from under his house. 
Velasco was carrying a shotgun, later identified at the trial as a
carbine.  That same night six spent carbine shells were found at
the scene of the crime.  Juanito Comel was not in his
house on the night of the killing when the policemen went to see him, and
Velasco for his part was also missing. 
And there was also motive:  the
alleged killing by Sergio Puri of Filemon
Comel, Juanito’s brother,
and Juanito’s dismissal of the Puris
as harvesters in his farm, as a result of which they and his family ceased to
be on speaking terms.

Given these circumstances, it was inevitable that the accusing
finger should point to Juanito Comel
and his friend and employee, Velasco. 
And more so since there does not seem to be any other plausible
explanation for the killing of Sergio Puri, who was
an ordinary fisherman.  Definitely, the
killers did not come to rob, for they left immediately after the slaying.  The only target was Sergio Puri although there were other occupants in the house who
were equally exposed and defenseless.  It
has not been shown either that there were other persons who had a grudge
against the victim and could themselves have committed the killing.

The trial court was correct in finding that there was a
conspiracy between Velasco and Comel as they
evidently acted in concert in pursuit of a
common design.  They were properly
found equally guilty of the crime of murder, qualified by treachery, but
without the aggravating circumstances of evident premeditation and night-time,
which were not established.  There is no
reason why these factual findings should be reversed or modified, absent a
showing that they were reached without basis or with grave abuse of discretion.

WHEREFORE, the appealed judgment is AFFIRMED except for
the civil indemnity, which is increased to P30,000.00.  Costs against the accused-appellants.

SO ORDERED.

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

^[1] Rollo, p. 28, Decision penned by Judge Rodolfo G. Palattao, Regional Trial Court, Branch LIII, Lucena City.

^[2]
TSN, June 25, 1980, pp. 23,
25 and 34; TSN, July 7, 1980,
p. 17.

^[3]
Decision, p. 6; rollo, p. 33.

^[4]
TSN, December 3, 1980, p.
36.

^[5]
Decision, p. 9; rollo, p. 36.

^[6] Ibid., p. 12; rollo,
p. 39.

^[7]
Decision, supra.

^[8] Ibid., p. 11; rollo, p. 38.

^[9] Id.

^[10] id., pp. 16 and 19; rollo, pp. 43 and
46.

^[11] id., p. 17; rollo, p. 44.

^[12] TSN, August 15, 1980, p. 2.

^[13] TSN, December 3, 1980, p. 12.