PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. PEDRO BARING, DEFENDANT-APPELLANT.

This is a petition for review of the decision dated January 16, 1989 of the Regional
Trial Court of Lanao del Norte, Branch 4, Iligan City,
convicting defendant-appellant Pedro Baring of the crime of murder and
sentencing him to suffer the penalty of reclusion perpetua.

The information which was filed against the appellant on June 5, 1987 by the Provincial Fiscal
of Lanao del Norte reads as follows:

“The undersigned Provincial Prosecutor accuses PEDRO BARING of
the crime of MURDER, committed as follows:

‘That on or about the 17th of October 1985, at more or less 9:00 P.M.
in barangay Lapinig,
Municipality of Kapatagan, province of Lanao del Norte, Philippines and within the jurisdiction of
this Honorable Court, the above-named accused, conspiring, confederating and
mutually helping one another with Nelson Rodriguez, Pedro Gabato
and several John Does, who are still at large and whose case is still pending
in the lower Court and with Romeo Panilagao, whose
case is still pending in the Military Tribunal, armed with assorted firearms,
with evident premeditation, treachery, taking advantage of superior strength,
nighttime and with intent to kill, did then and there wilfully,
unlawfully and feloniously assault, attack and shoot PATROCENIO EYAS,
inflicting upon the latter gunshot wounds at the different parts of his body,
which wounds caused his instantaneous death.

‘That the above-named accused be adjudged to indemnify the heirs of
the deceased the sum of P12,000.00 and to pay them
another sum of P20,000.00 representing moral and exemplary damages.’

“CONTRARY to and in violation of Article 248 of the Revised
Penal Code with qualifying circumstances of treachery, evident premeditation
and the attendance of the aggravating circumstances of taking advantage of
superior strength and nighttime.” (p. 8, Rollo.)

Upon arraignment, Baring pleaded not guilty.

The records show that at about 9:00 o’clock in the evening of
October 17, 1985, in Barangay Lapinig, Kapatagan, Lanao del Norte, the
victim, Patrocinio Eyas,
his wife Sosima, their daughter Maria Fe, and a
younger son were watching television in their next-door neighbor’s house from
the open window of their house when someone called out:  “Good evening.” The person asked Patrocinio to come down from his house because he wanted to
talk with him.  The victim obliged.  As he was going down the stairs, he was
followed by his wife who immediately shouted for help.  Maria Fe looked out and saw at that very
moment her father being “shot by a certain Nelso[n]
Rodriguez.  Another person by the name of
Romeo Panilagao also shot her father with a firearm
that was firing rapidly followed by the accused Pedro Baring who also shot her
father who had already fallen down.  A
certain Pedro Cabato also shot her father with a
firearm which was also firing rapidly. 
After these four persons had shot her father they left going towards the
direction of the national highway.  (p. 54, Rollo.) Maria Fe and her
mother and brother sought help from their neighbors who carried the wounded man
inside the house.  They did not report
the killers to the police, but a certain Dr. Bontilao
arrived the next day.  The deceased was
embalmed for five days but very few people attended the wake because they were
afraid.  There were rumors that those who
would attend the wake would also be killed. 
After the last prayers for the deceased, the victim’s family moved to Bohol and later to Kabgan.  They sold their farmland in Lapinig.

They did not report the murder to the authorities for fear of the
killers.  Besides, they believed it would
have been useless because there had been other unsolved killings in their
place, which the authorities had ignored. 
However, a year later, in August 1986, after a new mayor had been
elected in Kapatagan, they reported the killing to Assistant Provincial Fiscal Cesar Zerna.  Maria Fe
reported that she personally knew the persons who shot her father because they
were also their neighbors in Lapinig.

Sosima Eyas
was presented as a witness but because she was still in shock from having
personally witnessed the killing of her husband at close range, and unable to
answer properly the questions addressed to her, she was withdrawn by the
prosecution (p. 55, Rollo).

The appellant testified that he was a security guard of the San Diego Fishpond in Lapinig, Kapatagan, Lanao del Norte, and also a member
of the CHDF, provided with a homemade shotgun as shown by his memorandum
receipt.  He knew the deceased, Patrocinio Eyas, who was his
neighbor for sometime but he came to know of the latter’s death only on October 18, 1985.  He denied
any participation in the killing of Eyas.  He alleged that on October 17, 1985, at
around nine o’clock in the evening when the shooting occurred, he was in the
house of Alfredo Aleviado, conversing with him and
eating iguana starting from 8:00 o’clock in the evening; that the distance between
Aleviado’s house and the house of Patrocinio
Eyas was half a kilometer and could be negotiated by
walking; and that he knew Nelson Rodriguez who was a security guard of Don
Federico Santos’ fishpond, also in Lapinig, Kapatagan, Lanao del Norte, and who
is now dead.  He also knew Pedro Gabato who was a member of the CHDF and who was a security
guard in one of the fishponds, and Romeo Panilagao, a
PC soldier who is now in Cotabato; that although he
was a neighbor of the deceased, he did not pay his respects to the family, nor
attend the funeral procession.  He opined
that Maria Fe Eyas could
not have known the identities of the killers of her father because she
allegedly approached him during the hearing in Tubod,
Lanao del Norte, in December
1986 and asked him to identify the killers for if he would not do so, she would
finger him as the killer.

The other defense witness was Aleviado
who corroborated Baring’s alibi.

On January 16, 1989,
the trial court rendered judgment finding the appellant guilty beyond
reasonable doubt of the crime of murder and sentenced him to suffer the penalty
of reclusion perpetua.  The dispositive
portion of the decision reads:

“WHEREFORE, judgment is hereby rendered:

“1. Finding the accused guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the crime
of Murder and sentencing him to suffer the penalty of reclusion perpetua;

”2. Ordering him to pay Sosima Eyas the sum of P20,000.00 as moral damages plus the sum of
P30,000.00 as indemnification for the death of Patrocinio
Eyas.” (p. 60, Rollo.)

Hence, this appeal wherein the appellant
alleges that the court a quo erred:

1.  in believing the
testimony of prosecution witness Maria Fe Eyas
without giving credit to the evidence of the defense;

2.  in
finding the appellant guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the crime of murder;
and

3.  in
appreciating the generic aggravating circumstance of nighttime against the
accused.

The first assignment of error is devoid of merit.  In attempting to discredit the testimony of
Maria Fe Eyas, that she saw the appellant and others
shoot her father, appellant relies heavily on the circumstance that Maria Fe
did not denounce the killers to the Mayor and the Barangay
Captain who went to the victim’s house after the incident, but reported the
perpetrators of the crime only ten (10) months later.

However, Maria Fe Eyas explained that
her silence immediately after the killing of her father was due to the fact
that previous killings in the barrio had not been given proper attention by the
authorities.  The appellant himself, as
pointed out by the Solicitor General in his brief, admitted that “there
were people who died where the killer is unknown (t.s.n.,
Nov. 15, 1988).  Maria Fe’s silence for a
period of ten months after her father’s death was, therefore, understandable.

Besides, at the time of the killing, Maria Fe was only sixteen
years old.  Neither her mother who was in
a state of shock, nor her grandparents who were terrified of her father’s
killers, could provide her with guidance and encouragement in seeking redress
for her father’s murder.  It was only
when her mother had partially recovered
from shock that both of them decided to report the incident to Assistant
Provincial Fiscal Zerna and to the new mayor of Kapatagan.

The court a quo correctly rejected the appellant’s
defense of alibi in view of the clear and positive identification by Maria Fe
of the accused-appellant as one of her father’s killers.  It held thus:

“The defense is alibi, the accused denying having participated
in killing, alleging that he was in another place at the time of the
incident.  However, be was positively
identified by the daughter of the deceased, Maria Fe Eyas,
whose testimony appeared to be credible and devoid of any falsehood.  Accused and his witness even admitted that
they could not think of any motive at all by Maria Fe and her mother to
implicate the accused in the killing. 
The identification of the accused by the prosecution witness appears to
be indubitable considering that she knows him quite well being a neighbor for
some period of time and as already stated, there appears to be no reason for
Maria Fe Eyas to point to the accused as one of the
killers if he was not guilty.

“Our Supreme Court has ruled that:

“xxx                  xxx                   xxx

“An alibi in order to be given full faith and credit must be
clearly established and must not leave any room for doubt as to its
plausibility and verity.  – People vs. Sagario, L-18659, June 29, 1965, 14 SCRA 468; People vs. Pasilan, L-18770, July 30, 1965, 14 SCRA 694; People vs. Dayday, L­-20806-07, August 14, 1965, 14 SCRA 935.

“xxx                  xxx                   xxx

“Considering that the admission of the accused and his witness
that the accused was only half a kilometer away from the scene of the crime
which can even be negotiated just by walking, his defense of alibi fails.”
(pp. 57-59, Rollo.)

Courts always receive with caution, if not suspicion, evidence of
alibi, “not only because it is inherently weak and unreliable, but also
because of its easy fabrication.  To
overcome the evidence of the prosecution, an alibi must satisfy the test of
‘full, clear, and satisfactory evidence.’ This test requires not only proof
that the accused was somewhere else other than the scene of the crime, but
clear and convincing proof of physical impossibility for the accused to have
been at the place of the commission of the crime.” (People vs. Gaddi y Catubay, 170 SCRA 649).

Appellant’s second and third assignments of error are not well
taken.  The trial court correctly found
the accused guilty of murder aggravated by the generic aggravating circumstance
of nighttime.  Said the trial court:

“The accused is charged of murder and as alleged in the
information the crime was committed with evident premeditation, treachery,
taking advantage of superior strength and nighttime.  However, the prosecution failed to prove the
qualifying circumstances of evident premeditation and treachery.  But, the qualifying circumstance of taking
advantage of superior strength was duly proven since it was shown that the
deceased was killed by four armed men. 
It was proven that the crime was committed at nighttime, obviously to
facilitate the killing of the deceased.

“The crime committed therefor and proven is murder aggravated by the
circumstance of nighttime.  x x x.”
(p. 59, Rollo.)

Maria Fe Eyas clearly and positively testified
that she saw the accused shoot her father even after the latter had fallen to
the ground.  She saw her father gunned
down by Pedro Baring and his armed companions, namely, the team leader Nelson
Rodriguez, Romeo Panilagao, and Pedro Gabato.

The trial court was perplexed that the accused, admittedly
“never paid his respects to the dead nor join the funeral procession
despite the fact that they were neighbors.” It rejected his alibi as well
as his “incredible claim” that the daughter of the deceased Maria Fe Eyas approached him during the hearing of the criminal case
in the sala of Judge Salazar at Tubod,
Lanao del Norte and asked him to identify the killers
otherwise he would be pointed to as the killer, “since the records will
show (page 5 of the records) that long before the hearing Maria Fe Eyas had already executed an affidavit pointing to him and
several others as the killers.” (pp. 58-59, Rollo.)

The aggravating circumstance of nighttime was correctly
appreciated against the accused.  The
accused-appellant, who was living only 150 meters away from the victim’s house,
evidently waited for nightfall to hide his identity and facilitate his escape,
knowing that most barrio folks are already asleep, or getting ready to sleep,
at 9:00 p.m.  “Nocturnity
is an aggravating circumstance when it is deliberately sought to prevent the
accused from being recognized or to ensure his unmolested escape.” (U.S. vs. Billedo,
32 Phil. 575; People vs. Perez & De Leon, 32 Phil. 163; People vs. Apduhan, 24 SCRA 789, 816; People vs. Ancheta,
148 SCRA 178).

WHEREFORE, finding no merit in the appeal, the decision of
the trial court is affirmed in toto.

SO ORDERED.

Narvasa, (Chairman), Cruz, Gancayco, and Medialdea, JJ., concur.