PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. ROLANDO CORPUZ Y MINA, BAYANI SANTOS Y VIDAD, PETER DOE, RICHARD DOE AND JOHN DOE, ACCUSED, ROLANDO CORPUZ Y MINA AND BAYANI S…

This is an appeal from the decision of the Regional Trial Court,
Branch 52, Tayug, Pangasinan, finding Rolando Corpuz y Mina and Bayani Santos y
Vidad guilty of Robbery with Homicide in Criminal Case No. T-1036.

I

The Provincial Prosecutor of Pangasinan filed in Criminal Case
No. T-1036 an information accusing appellants and three other accused, Peter
Doe, Richard Doe and John Doe, of Robbery with Homicide and averring:

“That on or about the early dawn of October 15, 1989 at
barangay Bolintaguan, Municipality of San Quintin, Province of Pangasinan, New
Republic of the Philippines and within the jurisdiction of this Honorable
Court, the above-named accused conspiring, confederating and actually helping
one another, with intent to gain and by means of violence and intimidation,
armed with firearms, entered the house of Eustaquio P. Bautista, Sr. and once
inside the house, did, then and there willfully, unlawfully and feloniously
take, steal and carry away T.V. set (Sony), Betamax machine, Sansui Stereo
Component, Seiko wrist watch, assorted clothes, jewelries, shoes, food-stuffs
and other valuable personal belongings, cash money of undetermined amount and
Yamaha 100 CC motorcycle, all belonging to Eustaquio P. Bautista, Sr. and are
worth with (sic) a total approximate value of P150,000.00; and on the occasion
of such robbery, they took with them Arsenio Bautista, and with intent to kill,
did, then and there willfully, unlawfully and feloniously attack, assault and
stab several times Arsenio Bautista with bladed instrument/s that resulted to
his immediate death, to the prejudice of Eustaquio P. Bautista, Sr. and the
heirs of his son Arsenio Bautista. Contrary to Article 294, par. 1, of the Revised Penal Code” (Rollo,
pp. 18­-19).

At their arraignment, appellants pleaded not guilty to the crime
charged and waived their right to a pre-trial.

Thereafter, trial ensued.

On April 18, 1991, the trial court rendered judgment finding
appellants guilty of the offense charged.

II

Like the trial court, we accept the version of the prosecution,
which was summarized in the brief of the Solicitor General, as follows:

“At about 1:00 A.M. on October 15, 1989, Eustaquio Bautista,
Jr. and his friend, Alberto Nacion, were on board Bautista’s tricycle on their
way home to Barangay Bolintaguen, San Quintin, Pangasinan, after attending a
funeral wake (sic) in Lumayao, a neighboring barangay. Near the boundary of Lumayao and
Bolintaguen, they were blocked by armed men, some of whom were masked with
bonnets. Eustaquio, Jr. was pulled out
from the driver’s seat and pushed inside the sidecar. Nacion was tied and left behind covered with hay and guarded by
two men. One man without a mask drove
the tricycle while another, also barefaced, sat beside Eustaquio. A masked man rode behind the driver and they
proceeded to the Bautista’s house which was less than a kilometer away (TSN,
pp. 18­-21, September 4, 1990).

They reached the house at about 1:30 A.M. and Eustaquio Bautista,
Jr. was ordered to call for his parents. Eustaquio Bautista, Sr. was inside the house waiting for his son,
together with his other son, Arsenio, who was asleep in another room, and
granddaughter Daisy, who was sleeping in his room. Several lights in the house were on, including the lights in the
kitchen, in his room and outside his room. When his son Eustaquio Jr. knocked on the door and called him, informing
him that he has companions, he went to the door. As soon as Eustaquio, Sr. opened the door, two persons holding
firearms, whom Eustaquio, Jr. later identified as appellants, rushed inside and
warned him not to talk. His son and a
masked person guarding him followed inside. Father and son were made to sit in the sala while the three intruders
looted the house of valuables including a Sony T.V. with Betamax, Sansui Stereo
Component, Camera, Seiko wristwatch, jewelry and an undetermined amount of
money and they ordered Eustaquio, Jr. to help them load these items in the
tricycle owned by the Bautistas (TSN, pp. 3-4, 7-12, July 10, 1990).

In the course of the looting, something dropped on the floor which
awakened Arsenio. As he opened the
door, the three robbers rushed to him and tied him with electric wire and
pushed him inside the room. Eustaquio,
Sr. and Jr. were also brought inside the room and tied. The robbers stayed in the house for about
forty (40) minutes. When they left,
they brought with them Arsenio. Eustaquio, Sr. pleaded with them not to take his son but they told him
to get him and the tricycle in Lagua (Supra at pp. 19-23).

As soon as the robbers left, Eustaquio, Jr. told his father to come
near so that he could bite the wires off his hands. After he was untied, Eustaquio, Sr. in turn untied his son and
they sought help. Eustaquio Jr. went to
the Barangay Captain while his father immediately began searching for Arsenio
with the help of their neighbors. They
found him in Lumayao, dead, covered with hay, with his face toward the ground
and his hands tied at the back (Supra at pp. 24­-26). The Autopsy Report of Dr. Rosalinda O. Victorio reveals that
Arsenio suffered a total of 24 stab wounds, two of them most fatal for possibly
perforating the heart and lungs. The
cause of death was listed as “acute hemorrhage due to stab wounds possibly
traversing the heart and lungs” (TSN, pp. 2-3, 6, September 19, 1990;
Autopsy Report, Exhibit “D”).

In the afternoon of the same day, the sidecar of the tricycle was
recovered in Laoag upon information of one Jaime Aboy who noticed the sidecar
abandoned along the road near the creek (TSN, p. 3, September 18, 1990, pp.
3-4, August 14, 1990).

About two weeks after the incident, Eustaquio, Jr. learned about
two people who were arrested and jailed in Manaoag, Pangasinan. He and his father, together with some San
Quintin policemen, proceeded to Manaoag to look at the prisoners. Eustaquio Sr. went inside first and he
recognized the two appellants among the five people in the line-up inside the
jail as the two unmasked robbers who looted his house. Next followed his son who also went inside
and identified the two appellants as among those who accosted him and robbed
their house. A complaint was thereafter
filed by Eustaquio, Sr. against the appellants (TSN, pp. 6-10, 13-14, August
14, 1990, pp. 31-32, September 4, 1990)” (Rollo, pp. 107-­110).

III

Appellants interposed the defense of alibi. They claimed that they were in Quezon City on October 15, 1989, the day
Arsenio Bautista was killed, and that they went to Manaoag, Pangasinan, only on
October 24, 1989.

The defense of alibi merits rejection where it is uncorroborated
and where there is a positive identification of the accused as the culprit
(People v. Carpio, 191 SCRA 108 [1990]; People v. Heriro, 192 SCRA 655 [1990]).

Appellants did not present any witness to testify that they were
in Quezon City on October 15, 1989. They could have presented the time records of their employment to show
that they reported to work on that day. They did not even present Eddie Mariano, who allegedly invited them to
go to Manaoag on October 24, 1989 or Joe Ilagan, the owner of the house where
they stayed on said date.

Appellants’ failure to present evidence which is vital to their
defense of alibi is tantamount to a suppression thereof and which if presented
would be adverse to said defense.

With regard to the testimony of Eustaquio Bautista, Sr. that the
robbers conversed in the Ilocano dialect and that one of them did not speak the
said dialect fluently, appellants claimed that being natives of Misamis
Oriental, they did not know how to speak that dialect. As there were three robbers who entered the
Bautista residence, it was probable that the masked companion of appellants was
the one who spoke fluent Ilocano. When
appellant Corpus admitted in cross-examination that he could understand
Ilocano, he was in effect admitting that he can speak a few words of Ilocano.

Appellants were apprehended while they were about to commit
another housebreaking. They also
admitted during their investigation that they were the ones who ransacked the
house of Ex-Mayor Artemio Saldivar in Laoac, Pangasinan (TSN, Oct. 9, 1990, pp.
23-24).

Settled is the rule that the findings of fact of the trial court
are accorded great respect and are generally sustained by the appellate courts,
unless some material facts have been overlooked or misconstrued (People v.
Malonzo, 212 SCRA 85 [1992]). The rationale
for the rule is that the trial court had all the opportunity to observe the
demeanor of the witnesses when testifying (People v. Diaz, 212 SCRA 147
[1992]). We do not find any attendant
circumstances that would justify a departure from said rule.

The trial court, after sentencing appellants to suffer the
penalty of reclusion perpetua credited them the entire duration
of their preventive imprisonment from November 14, 1989.

Under Article 29 of the Revised Penal Code, “offenders who
have undergone preventive imprisonment shall be credited in the service of
their sentence consisting of deprivation of liberty, with the full time during
which they have undergone preventive imprisonment, if the detention prisoner
agrees voluntarily in writing to abide by the same disciplinary rules imposed
upon convicted prisoners” Otherwise, he shall only be credited in the
service of his sentence with four-fifths of the time during which he has
undergone preventive imprisonment (As amended by R.A. 6127 and B.P. Blg. 85).

This allowance should be made even in the case where the penalty
imposed is reclusion perpetua because it does not make any
distinction between temporal and perpetual penalties. Moreover, under Article 27 of the Revised Penal Code, the
duration of reclusion perpetua is to be computed at 30 years (I
Reyes, The Revised Penal Code, 1981 ed., p. 590; U.S. v. Ortencio, 38 Phil. 341
[1918]).

WHEREFORE, the decision appealed from is AFFIRMED.

SO ORDERED.

Cruz, (Chairman), Davide, Jr., Bellosillo, and Kapunan, JJ., concur.