PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. VIRGILIO SANTOS Y CONCEPCION, ACCUSED-APPELLANT.

FOR DELIVERING to another 75.1 kilograms of dried marijuana flowering
tops, Virgilio Santos y Concepcion was charged and subsequently convicted of
violating Sec. 4, Art. II, of The
Dangerous Drugs Act of 1972.^[1] Sentenced
to life imprisonment, Virgilio Santos appeals his conviction and prays for
acquittal.

On 27 September 1987, a team composed of Pfc. Danilo Cruz, Pfc.
Celestino de la Cruz, Pfc. Pedro Hernandez, Pfc. Edgar Arimbuyutan and a
certain Pfc. Maliwat conducted a surveillance at Sadie Street, Angeles City,
following reports of a huge delivery of marijuana at the house of a certain Tatang
Biliong by individuals coming from the Mountain Province. The surveillance, which started in the
evening, continued until eleven o’clock the following morning when the team
caught accused-appellant, who is also known as Tatang Biliong, transferring
three boxes and two pieces of luggage from his house to that of his next-door
neighbor Marciana Karganilla. When
accused-appellant finished with the delivery, the team tried to apprehend him
but the latter successfully evaded arrest. However, the team seized the boxes and luggage from Karganilla’s house
and found them stuffed with dried marijuana flowering tops the total weight of
which was confirmed to be 75.1 kilograms.^[2]

Accused-appellant denied the foregoing account. Instead, he claimed that he saw the boxes
and pieces of luggage for the first time when he went to work in his motor shop
(located in front of his house at Sadie Street) in the early morning of 28
September 1987. When he inquired about
the boxes, his welder Vicente Camat told him that five persons came the
previous day and left the boxes and luggage but promised to return for them the
following morning when they would come back to have their Fiera fixed. They never did. Seeing a “kuwitis” through an opening in one of the boxes, accused-appellant
instructed Vicente Camat to move them away from the welding equipment and
transfer them to a safer location. Camat obeyed and transferred the boxes and luggage to the house of Marciana
Karganilla with the help of Renato Villanueva, another welder. Accused-appellant then went to see Major
Dizon, Chief of the City Fire Department, to solicit his help in verifying
whether the boxes really contained firecrackers. However, by the time they arrived at the motorshop, the police
had already seized the boxes and luggage and brought them to the precinct.

On 23 April 1990, the Regional Trial Court of Angeles City, Br.
58, declared accused-appellant guilty as charged^[3] and
sentenced him to life imprisonment and to pay a fine of P20,000.00.^[4]
In rejecting the defense offered, the
trial judge opined that five individuals would not just leave 75.1 kilograms of
sought-after marijuana at a motorshop unless they knew the owner thereof
(accused-appellant herein) and were in cahoots with him. Thus, he found the version narrated by the
arresting team more credible especially when no improper motive for implicating
accused-appellant was alluded to, much less attributed to the team.^[5]

Hence this appeal where accused-appellant moves for his acquittal
on three grounds, which we shall discuss separately hereunder.

First. Accused-appellant
contends that he cannot be held liable for unlawfully delivering marijuana
since he was not the one who delivered the boxes and luggage at the house of
Marciana Karganilla as the latter herself had testified. Although the surveillance team claimed to
have seen him making the delivery, Marciana Karganilla’s testimony (for the
prosecution) that it was some other person who did so ought to have been given
more weight by the court a quo because
when a witness gives testimony favorable to both plaintiff and defendant, that
testimony favorable to the plaintiff shall be deemed to have been given on
direct examination which cannot prevail over that given on cross-examination,
as his testimony favorable to the defendant shall be presumed.

The argument lacks merit. Aside from the fact that nowhere in the case cited by accused-appellant^[6]
is the statement being offered by him mentioned as a veritable principle of
evidence, it would not matter at all whether it was indeed he who delivered the
boxes and luggage (as claimed by the surveillance team)^[7] or
some other person at his behest (as allegedly testified by Marciana
Karganilla). The act of “delivering”
prohibited drugs penalized by Sec. 4, Art. II, of R. A. No. 6425, and defined
in Sec. 2 thereof,^[8]
is not limited to deliveries made personally by the accused but covers those
effected through other means as well. Therefore, assuming that it was indeed another person, not accused-appellant,
who delivered the marijuana, such fact will not make the latter less liable
since the delivery was at his behest. What is material is that the giving of the prohibited drug was pursuant
to the instruction of the accused even if he did not himself personally deliver
the same.^[9]
Besides, while accused-appellant claims that he did not know that his helper
would transfer the boxes and luggage to Marciana Karganilla’s house, we find
such pretension unbelievable because Vicente Camat, on his own, had no reason
to consider Karganilla’s house as an ideal location for the transfer. Aside from the fact that his employer’s
house is nearer to the motor shop where the boxes and luggage were placed,
accused-appellant had no special relationship with Karganilla, apart from being
her neighbor, for Camat to suppose that accused-appellant would want him to
transfer the boxes and luggage to that house. Moreover, Marciana Karganilla did not state that it was not
accused-appellant who delivered the boxes and luggage, as claimed by the
surveillance team. Instead, she only
testified that a woman living in the house of accused-appellant approached her
in the early morning of 28 September 1987 with a message from Tatang Biliong requesting that several packages containing firecrackers be
stored in her house for safekeeping.^[10] She
did not see who actually delivered the boxes and luggage since after acceding
to the request she went on with her household chore, i.e., washing clothes.^[11]

Second. Accused-appellant
further contends that even if he did in fact personally deliver the boxes and
luggage, he did so merely for safekeeping as Marciana Karganilla herself
testified. Hence, since he did not
“deliver” nor “give away” but merely entrusted the marijuana, he cannot be
convicted of violating Sec. 4, Art. II of The Dangerous Drugs Act of 1972 as charged.

As the Solicitor General correctly points out, whether the boxes
and luggage were really entrusted to Marciana Karganilla for safekeeping will
not make a difference. Section 4, Art.
II, of The Dangerous Drugs Act of 1972 makes the delivery of prohibited
drugs an offense regardless of the reason therefor. Mere delivery is enough to constitute the offense.^[12]
And we should not distinguish where the law does not.^[13]

Third. Accused-appellant
denies knowledge of the contents of the boxes and pieces of luggage claiming
that he mistakenly thought that they contained firecrackers, not
marijuana. He argues that if he really
knew that the packages left in his motorshop contained marijuana as insisted by
the prosecution, he would not have been so stupid as to make the delivery at
eleven o’clock in the morning, as claimed by the surveillance team, since a
person planning a heinous offense would not reveal his criminal plans publicly and
in broad daylight.

Accused-appellant cannot successfully claim the foregoing in his
favor since both nocturnity and daylight can be sought to camouflage illegal
activities. While crimes are usually
committed at night when the possibility of detection is minimal, it does not
discount the fact that criminals may, with the same degree of success,
alternately choose daylight as an ideal time to transform their evil designs
into concrete reality by merely hiding behind the mass of humanity, or even if
there are not that many people around, by just taking advantage of the lowered
defenses often induced by the false feeling of security that no crime can
possibly be committed at daytime. In
the case at bench, the scheme would have worked in favor of appellant and he
would have succeeded in delivering the marijuana undetected had it not been for
the fact that prior information had already been received by Capt. Eden Reyes
of the NARCOM.

Thus, finding the arguments presented by the accused to be
without merit, affirmance of his conviction must follow. Aside from being a mere rehash of the
defenses put up before the trial court, well-settled is the rule that findings
of the trial court on matters of credibility are conclusive upon this Court in
the absence of any showing that some fact or circumstance of weight and
substance have been overlooked, misunderstood or misapplied by the trial court
that would have affected the result of the case.^[14] As
already discussed, we find nothing in the records to justify the application of
the exception to the general rule on the conclusiveness of factual findings of
the trial court.

A word on the penalty imposed. On 28 September 1987 when the offense was committed, violation of Sec.4,
Art II of The Dangerous Drugs Act of 1972 was punished with life imprisonment
and a fine of P20,000.00. Accordingly,
the accused-appellant was so sentenced. However, the law has since been amended by R. A. 7659 making the offense
punishable with reclusion perpetua and a fine ranging from P500,000.00 to
P10,000,000.00.^[15]
Nonetheless, finding that a retroactive application of the new penalties would
be clearly unfavorable to accused-appellant, we can only affirm and adopt the
penalty imposed by the court a quo. Obviously,
the increased fine of P500,000.00 to P10,000,000.00 cannot be imposed since the accused was ordered to pay a fine of
only P20,000.00. A similar retroactive
application of the penalty of reclusion perpetua is not likewise warranted. Although the duration of reclusion
perpetua is fixed at twenty years and one day to forty years,^[16]
unlike life imprisonment which has no definite duration,^[17]
reclusion
perpetua is nevertheless attended with certain accessory penalties,
namely, civil interdiction and perpetual absolute disqualification,^[18]
which under the circumstances
the accused-appellant cannot justifiably be made to suffer, for no crime can be
punishable with a penalty not prescribed by law prior to its commission unless
favorable to him who is not a habitual delinquent.^[19]

WHEREFORE, the Decision of the court a quo finding accused-appellant VIRGILIO
SANTOS Y CONCEPCION guilty beyond reasonable doubt of violating Sec. 4, Art.
II, of The Dangerous Drugs Act of 1972 and sentencing him to life
imprisonment, and to pay a fine of P20,000.00 is AFFIRMED. Costs against accused-appellant.

SO ORDERED.

Padilla, (Chairman), Davide, Jr., Quiason, and Kapunan, JJ., concur.

^[1]
Sec. 4. Sale, Administration, Delivery, Distribution and Transportation of Prohibited Drugs. – The penalty of x x x shall be
imposed upon any person who, unless authorized by law, shall sell, administer,
deliver, give away to another, distribute, dispatch in transit or transport any
prohibited drug, or shall act as a broker in any of such transaction.

^[2]
Exh. “G,” Technical Report No. NB-529-87, Original Records, pp. 206-207.

^[3]
“The information alleged that ‘on or about the 28th day of September 1987, in
the City of Angeles x x x the above-named accused, conspiring and confederating
together and mutually aiding and abetting one another, did then and there
willfully, unlawfully and feloniously deliver or give away to another, dried
marijuana flowering tops x x x”

^[4]
Decision penned by Judge Reynaldo B. Daway, Regional Trial Court, Angeles City,
Br. 58, Rollo, pp. 7-12; Original Records, pp. 189-194.

^[5] Id., p. 10; Id., p. 192.

^[6]
Castillo v. Court of Appeals, No.
L-48290, 29 September 1983, 124 SCRA 808.

^[7]
TSN, 28
February 1989, p. 4; 24 May 1989, pp. 4-5.

^[8]
The word “deliver” refers to a person’s act of knowingly passing a dangerous
drug to another personally or otherwise, and by any means, with or without
consideration (par. [f]).

^[9]
People v. Querrer, G.R. No. 97147, 15 July 1992, 211 SCRA 502,
508.

^[10]
TSN, 9 October 1990, pp. 4-6.

^[11]
Id., p.5

^[12]
People v. Hoble, G.R. No. 96091, 22 July 1992, 211
SCRA 675, 683, citing People v. de la Cruz, G. R. No. 83260, 18 April 1990, 184
SCRA 416.

^[13]
Philippine British Assurance, Co., Inc. v. Intermediate Appellate Court, G.R. No. 72005, 29 May 1987,
150 SCRA 520, 527 citing Colgate-Palmolive Phil., Inc. v.
Gimenez, No. L-14787, 28 January 1961, 1 SCRA 267; Guevarra v.
Inocentes, No. L-25577, 15 March 1966, 16 SCRA
379; Libudan v. Gil, No. L-21163, 17 May 1972, 45 SCRA
17; Alfato v. Commission on Elections, G.R. No. 52749, 31 March 1981, 103
SCRA 741 and Agpalo, Ruben E., Statutory Construction, 1986 Ed., pp. 143-144.

^[14]
People v. Yap, G.R. No. 103517, 9 February 1994,
229 SCRA 787, 792-793; People v. Sencil, G.R. Nos. 105959-60, 12 October
1993, 227 SCRA 180, 185; People v. Nimo, G.R. No. 92533, 5 October 1993, 227
SCRA 69, 83; People v. Domingo, G.R. No. 97921, 8 September 1993, 226 SCRA 156, 165-166; People v. Tidong, G.R. No. 101583, 13 August 1993, 225 SCRA 324, 332; People v. Arnan, G.R. No. 72608, 30 June 1993, 224 SCRA 37, 40-41.

^[15]
See Sec. 13, R. A. 7659.

^[16]
See Sec. 21, id.

^[17]
People v.
Baguio, G.R. No. 76585, 30
April 1991, 196 SCRA 459, 469.

^[18]
Art. 41, The Revised Penal Code.

^[19]
Art. 21, in relation to Art. 22, id.