PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. PAQUITO MANZON AND JOHN DOE, ACCUSED, VIRGILIO MANZON ALIAS “ANGEL”, ACCUSED-APPELLANT.

Imagine a rustic scene, with
a farmer wending his way home in a bullcart after a
hard day’s work.  He is standing in
front, guiding the cow pulling the creaking cart.  Behind, perched on top of the hay they had
gathered earlier are his son and two grandsons, lazing in the quiet of the
approaching dusk.  Everything is serene;
there are probably even songbirds twittering in the trees, to make the idyll
complete.  It is a moment one can
cherish, when all the turmoil in the world seems to have ceased and an
ineffable peace has calmed the land.

Then, suddenly, the
violence.  Two angry men appeared as
if from nowhere, with intent to kill, even as a third companion lurked by
the post of a nearby wall.  Their acts
were deadly swift.  Without much ado, the
first man shot the farmer three times with a rifle, hitting
him in the chest and arms.  The second,
using a knife attached to his shotgun, stabbed the stricken man in the chin and
breast as he toppled heavily to the ground.  Horrified, the son and
the older grandson jumped off the cart and fled for their lives even as they heard a fourth shot as if in pursuit.  The second grandson remained in the cart,
petrified with fear under the hay and awaiting his own imminent slaughter.  Mercifully, he was not hurt.

The slain man was Pablo Manzon, late of Barrio Mestizo, San Carlos, Pangasinan.  The killing occurred on November
4, 1982, at about six o’clock in the evening.  The following month, an information for
murder was filed against Virgilio Manzon,
Paquito Manzon, and a still
then (as now) unidentified person.  Paquito died after the trial but before a decision could be
rendered in which the charge against him was dismissed.  That decision also convicted his brother Virgilio Manzon and sentenced him
to reclusion perpetua plus civil indemnity of P30,000.00, actual damages in the sum of
P19,031.00, and the costs.^[1] He is now before us on appeal.

The killing of Pablo Manzon as above narrated was testified to by his two
grandsons, Larry and Marcial Tamondong,^[2] twelve and nine years old,
respectively, when they took the stand. 
Both positively identified their grandfather’s assailants as Virgilio and Paquito Manzon, who were their own uncles.  From where they sat on top of the hay, they could clearly see the surprise attack.  It was still light enough at the time.  Paquito was the one
who fired the shots, and it was Virgilio who followed
with the knife thrusts on the helpless victim. 
The boys were quite categorical in their identification of the two
co-accused.  Despite long and rigorous
cross-examination, they remained unfazed and stuck stubbornly to their
declaration.  They insisted it was Paquito and Virgilio Manzon who had attacked and killed their
grandfather.

Maria Manzon,
the victim’s wife, testified that, upon being informed by her son of the attack on his father, she
immediately rushed to her husband’s side, reaching him a few minutes before he
died.  (Their house was only 300 meters
away from where he had fallen, according to Larry Tamondong.)
She swore that the dying man identified his killers as Virgilio
and Paquito Manzon.  Questioned as to their possible motive, she suggested it was a land dispute between her
husband and his brother Sisenando, the father of the
two co-accused.^[3]

Sgt. Eduardo Mandapat, who
headed the team that conducted
an investigation at about eight o’clock the same evening, said he was informed by
the three children that the killers were Paquito and Virgilio Manzon.^[4] He sought them out first at their house in Mestizo but, not finding them there, proceeded to Angalatan, about four or five kilometers away, accompanied
by Sisenando. 
The brothers acceded when invited to police headquarters for questioning
but refused to give any statement.  They
were detained and formally charged with the murder of Pablo Manzon.

Dr. Juan A. Pizarro,
testifying on the autopsy performed on the cadaver of Pablo Manzon,
reported that it had sustained four gunshot wounds, two stab wounds and a
fractured arm, causing “cardio-respiratory arrest, secondary to massive
hemorrhage.” Except for one of the stab wounds, all the wounds inflicted
on the victim were fatal.^[5]

The accused brothers denied the charge and claimed alibi. 
They swore they were never even near the scene of the crime at the time
of its commission, being then at Angalatan, where
they had been working all day with two other brothers and some hired
help.  Sisenando
Manzon, their father, corroborated their testimony
and said he and his wife had brought them supper that afternoon, starting for Angalatan at about four o’clock in the afternoon and arriving there after
hiking for one hour.  Paquito
and Virgilio remained in the place while he and his wife returned to Mestizo, also on foot, arriving there about 8:30 p.m. to
find the police looking for their sons.  Remedios Manzon, the wife,
testified to substantially the same effect.

The accused faulted the
prosecution evidence, claiming that the testimonies of the principal witnesses were fabricated
and incredible.  They presented Francisco
Manzon, a brother of the victim, who declared that he
was the first to reach Pablo Manzon after the attack
and that at that time the victim was already dead.^[6] This belied Maria Manzon’s
testimony that her husband gasped out the names of his killers shortly before
he died.  As for the two boys who
allegedly saw the killing, the accused suggested that they had been coached by
their grandmother to testify falsely because of her hatred for Sisenando’s family.

The defense also
presented Pedro Posadas, who, like Francisco Manzon, testified that when shortly after the incident the
two boys were asked who had killed their grandfather, both of them said they did not know.^[7] Another witness, Jose Mendoza, declared that the killers were not
the accused but two other persons not known to him, who were shorter than Paquito and Virgilio Manzon.  The brothers were 5’11” and 5’9″, respectively.^[8]

It
is also the contention of the
defense that Larry Tamondong could not have possibly
seen the stabbing if, as he testified, he jumped
off the cart immediately after he saw the shooting of his
grandfather.  He was also suspiciously inconsistent on whether the
stabbing preceded or followed the shooting. 
The defense likewise maintained that if the boys were really not lying,
the bullets would have had an upward trajectory as Pablo Manzon
was allegedly shot while
standing on the front part of the cart.

As to this last
contention, it appears from the testimonies of both Dr. Pizarro, a prosecution
witness, and Dr. Ernesto Brion, who was called by the
defense, that no finding had been made regarding the trajectory of the bullets,
which had caused three entry wounds and only one exit wound.

When it comes to
questions of fact and the assessment of the testimonial evidence, we accord
much weight to the findings of the trial judge who tried the case and observed
the demeanor of the witnesses.  Absent a
showing that these findings are tainted with arbitrariness, the appellate court
must rely heavily on the determinations of the court a quo, which has the advantage of direct access to the evidence of the parties
that is not enjoyed by the reviewing court. 
As this Court observed in one case:^[9]

The appellate court can go only by the records, without the
opportunity of seeing for itself how the persons testifying react to questions
put to them and noting those little gestures and telltale signs that can limn
the line between fact and fabrication. 
These are not found in the transcript and so may not be fully
appreciated on appeal.  But the trial
judge can see all these.  Hence, the rule
that his findings on this matter are accorded much respect, if not indeed conclusive effect, save only in those
exceptional instances where they are clearly shown to be arbitrary.

We
do not disbelieve the two young
witnesses because of their minor inconsistencies as the boys were
understandably jolted by the traumatic incident and cannot be expected to
remember every one of its ugly details with perfect accuracy.  And neither can we believe that they were coached into “framing”
the accused because the record shows that they immediately revealed the killers
and identified them to Sgt. Mandapat when he
questioned them only two hours after the killing.  Even if it be conceded that Francisco Manzon and Posadas were not lying, the two children might have
had their reasons for not telling the truth then, considering that the accused were also their close relatives.  What matters is that at the proper time and
place, they came out categorically and pointed to Virgilio
and Paquito Manzon as the killers of their grandfather.

The defense imputes baleful motives to Maria Manzon
and charges her with suborning her grandchildren inducing them to lie under
oath to condemn two innocent persons.  We
are not convinced.  There is no
satisfactory explanation for such malevolent attitude.  Neither she nor the two accused were directly involved in the
land dispute between her husband and his brother Sisenando.  In any event, we do not believe that a grandmother would corrupt her
minor grandchildren, for the
reason suggested here, into sending
their own uncles to jail, perhaps for the rest of their lives.

As for Pablo’s
dying declaration, Dr. Pizarro testified that the wounds, although fatal, did
not cause instantaneous death and prevent the victim from pointing to his
killers.  It was possible for Pablo to
speak to his wife before he expired although he might have been unwilling or
unable to talk earlier to his brother Francisco, who had arrived before
her.  It is not unnatural for a dying man
to save his ebbing strength so he can share the last moments of his life with
his wife.

We
probably no longer have to rule on the question of conspiracy because Virgilio Manzon remains the lone
accused in this case after the death of his brother Paquito.  It has been established that one of the stab
wounds inflicted by Virgilio was as fatal as the
gunshot wounds caused by Paquito, thus making both of
them co-principals in the killing of Pablo Manzon.  In any event, we find that the conspiracy has
been established, it appearing that the brothers lay in wait for their victim
with the same objective, attacked him almost simultaneously and in concert with
each other, and subsequently fled together. 
These are clear marks of their conspiracy.

A conspiracy exists when two or more persons come to an agreement
concerning the commission of a crime and decide to commit it.^[10]
It has been held that for conspiracy to be appreciated, it is enough
to show that at the time the offense was committed, the participants had the
same purpose and were united in their
execution, as may be inferred from the attendant circumstances.^[11]

The crime committed was murder, with the qualifying circumstance
of treachery.  There was treachery
because of the sudden attack on the
surprised victim, who was in no position to defend himself as he stood in the front of the cart
holding on to the ropes guiding the cow. 
He was ambushed to death. 
There being no mitigating or aggravating circumstances, the
accused-appellant was properly sentenced to reclusion perpetua.

The defense presented a
number of witnesses who sought to deflate the evidence of the
prosecution, but as earlier observed this Court will place great reliance on
the findings of the court below on the basis of the facts directly available to
it as disclosed by the parties during the trial.  Especially in criminal cases where the
identity of the culprit is the pivotal issue, the conclusions of the trial judge, who had the opportunity to
observe and examine the witnesses and to determine whether or not they were honoring
their oaths, are generally accepted on appeal.

WHEREFORE, the appealed judgment is AFFIRMED, except
only as to the civil indemnity which is increased to P50,000.00, with costs
against the accused-appellant.  It is so
ordered.

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

^[1]
Rollo, p. 40. 
Decision penned by Judge Ludovico Ma. Ipac.

^[2]
TSN, June 3, 1983, pp. 3-19;
June 23, 1983, pp. 7-23.

^[3]
TSN, October 4, 1983, pp.
6-13.

^[4]
TSN, August 18, 1983, pp.
11-23.

^[5]
TSN, June 2, 1983, pp.
10-17.

^[6]
TSN, September 5, 1984, pp. 5-12.

^[7]
TSN, September 6, 1984, p. 12.

^[8]
TSN, November 7, 1984, pp.
25-26.

^[9]
People v. Liston, G.R. No. 63396, November 15, 1989.

^[10]
Art. 8, Revised Penal Code.

^[11]
People v. Masangkay,
157 SCRA 320.