PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. SIMPLICIO SABANAL, DIONISIO SABANAL, BENIDO SABANAL, PERFECTO SABANAL, ALEJANDRO ARCOY, AND FRANCISCO SABANAL, ACCUSED, BIENVE…

The accused-appellant was convicted of murder and sentenced to reclusion perpetua.  He
asks us to reverse the trial court on the ground that he was not at the scene
of the crime when it was committed.  If
we do not choose to believe his alibi, he says he should at least be found
guilty of homicide and not murder.  His reason is that the offense was not
attended with treachery.

The killing occurred at about six-thirty o’clock in the evening
of 5 January 1977, at Pamplona,
Negros Oriental. 
As found by the trial court, seven men, including Bienvenido
Sabanal, the herein accused-appellant, went to the
house of Benito Salas, a 70-year old man, who was then in his yard. 
Approaching him, Bienvenido said, “Tio, where is your son? Because an officer of the law is
here looking for him.” Benito coldly replied, “He is not here”
and then turned his back in dismissal to go into his house.  As he did, Bienvenido
suddenly drew his bolo and hacked the old man from behind, hitting him in the
back of the neck.  Benito died instantly.^[1]

(Another crime was
committed immediately thereafter, to wit, the attack on Jesusa
Salas, Benito’s daughter, who was hacked by Benido Sabanal, Bienvenido’s brother,
and was hospitalized for twenty-three days. 
That case is not involved in this decision.  Although it was tried jointly with the case
at bar, it does not appear from the records that Benido
has appealed his conviction.)

Despite his denials,
there is definitely no question that Bienvenido Sabanal was the person who boloed
Benito Salas to death.  He was positively
identified by Jesusa Salas, Macario
Salas, and Purita Acedo
Salas as their father’s killer.^[2]
More impressively, two of his co-accused, Francisco Sabanal
and Alejandro Arcoy, also testified that they
actually saw Bienvenido kill Benito with a bolo.^[3] Significantly, Francisco Sabanal
is a cousin of Bienvenido.^[4] No evidence has been offered by the defense
to impeach the testimony of this witness or to show why he should lie on the
stand against his close relative.

It is unnecessary to prove motive where the culprit has been
positively identified, as in the
present case.  Nonetheless, it is also
worth considering that there was bad blood between the Sabanals
and the family of the deceased because of a
boundary dispute between them. 
The record shows that only five days before the killing, Bienvenido and his brothers had pursued Macario
Salas into his house and threatened to kill him, prompting the latter to shoot Bienvenido in the chest with an air rifle.^[5]
Bienvenido then filed a complaint for physical
injuries against.  Macario,
who retaliated by suing Bienvenido for grave threats.^[6]
It was Macario Salas whom Bienvenido
Sabanal was looking for when Benito Salas was killed
on that tragic night.

The only way to deal with Bienvenido’s
alibi is to reject it.  It is
ridiculous.  He is in effect telling the
court that on the date and time in question he was not actually killing Benito
Salas but praying seven hundred meters away! For corroboration, he invokes the testimony only of Dionisio Sabanal, his own brother
and one of his co-accused.

There is much to say though about the accused-appellant’s
contention that no treachery attended the commission of the offense, (assuming,
he says, that he committed it).  The
trial court held that there was treachery because Bienvenido
suddenly and unexpectedly attacked the defenseless old man from behind.  By this finding, the judge concluded,
following the language of the law, that the accused-appellant had employed a
method which tended directly to insure the accomplishment of his objective
without risk to himself from any defense that the victim might have been able
to make.  This Court does not think so.

It is important to remember that Bienvenido
and his companions had gone to the victim’s house in search not of Benito but
of his son Macario. 
By some unfortunate twist of fate, it was Benito and not Macario they found. 
The trial court correctly held that as far as the killing of Benito
Salas was concerned, no evident premeditation could be imputed to Bienvenido and his group. 
Benito was an old man.  The real
and direct object of Bienvenido’s ire was not Benito
but Macario, who had shot him five days earlier.  There is no evidence that Bienvenido
had intended to kill Benito or that he had taken steps to insure the
accomplishment of his purpose without risk to himself.

It does not always follow that because the attack is sudden and
unexpected, it is tainted with treachery.^[7]
Indeed, it could have been done on impulse, as a reaction to an actual or imagined provocation offered by the
victim.  In the case before us, there was
already an open hostility between the Salas and Sabanal
families when Bienvenido inquired from Benito as to
the whereabouts of Macario.  Benito’s curt answer and his turning away in
dismissal of Bienvenido must have so infuriated Bienvenido that he drew his bolo and impulsively hacked in
anger.  As we held in the earlier case of
People v. Manlapaz,^[8]
provocation of the accused by the victim negates the presence of treachery even
if the attack may have been sudden and unexpected.

In the present case, however, we find that although there was
indeed provocation, it was not grave enough to constitute a mitigating
circumstance.

The trial court^[9]
finding only the qualifying circumstance of treachery and no generic
aggravating or mitigating circumstance, imposed the sentence of reclusion perpetua as the applicable
penalty.  But as the offense committed is
not murder but homicide, and there being no modifying circumstances, the
penalty prescribed under the Revised Penal Code is reclusion temporal
in its medium period.  Applying the
Indeterminate Sentence Law, we hereby sentence the accused-appellant to suffer
the penalty of 12 years of prision mayor,
as minimum, to 17 years and 4 months of reclusion temporal, as
maximum.  All the monetary awards are
sustained except the civil indemnity
which is increased to P30,000.00.

WHEREFORE, the challenged judgment is modified and the accused-appellant is declared guilty of homicide,
with corresponding adjustment of his penalty as determined in the immediately
preceding paragraph.  Costs against the
accused-appellant.

SO ORDERED.

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

^[1]
Rollo, pp. 75-77.

^[2]
Ibid., pp. 82-83.

^[3]
Id., p. 83; TSN, August 24, 1981, p. 34; TSN, May 9, 1983; pp. 61, 63.

^[4]
Id.

^[5]
Id., p. 84.

^[6]
TSN, March 16, 1984; pp.
31-33; Appellee’s Brief, p. 7.

^[7]
People v. Malazzab, 160 SCRA 123; People v.
Aniñon, 158 SCRA 701; People v. Macaso, 64 SCRA 659; People v. Ardiza,
55 SCRA 245; People v. Macalisang, 22 SCRA
699; People v. Tumaob, 83 Phil. 738.

^[8]
55 SCRA 598.

^[9]
Decision penned by RTC Judge Eleuterio E. Chiu, 7^th
Judicial Region, Branch XXXII, Dumaguete
City.