THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. TITO DATAHAN, LEONCIO DATAHAN, CENEN COSCOS, NARCISO LUSICA AND RUFO LUSICA, ACCUSED-APPELLANTS.

People versus Datahan

The Case

This is a criminal case in which the People of the Philippines prosecuted Tito Datahan, Leoncio Datahan, Cenen Coscos, Narciso Lusica, and Rufo Lusica for robbery with homicide, frustrated homicide, and arson arising from a violent night in Barangay Bayong, Guindulman, Bohol, in July 1984, when an elderly man was attacked and his house was burned with his wife inside it. The case matters to a reviewee for three reasons: it shows how alibi collapses against positive identification, it shows how arson may be proved by circumstantial evidence and conspiracy inferred from a concert of action, and it records the reduction of a death sentence to reclusion perpetua in light of the new Constitution.

Procedural History

Separate informations for robbery with homicide, frustrated homicide, and arson were filed against five persons, one of whom remained at large. A joint trial of all three cases was held before the trial court, presided over by Judge Mercedes Gozo-Dadole. Two of those tried were acquitted of all charges for insufficiency of the evidence. The remaining accused were likewise cleared of robbery with homicide but were convicted of frustrated homicide and arson. Because the penalty imposed for arson was death, the decision of the trial court was elevated to the Supreme Court on automatic review. The accused-appellants challenged their conviction, questioning the credence given to the alibis and the admission of the testimony of the prosecution witnesses.

Facts

On the evening of July 15, 1984, Vedasto Piscos and his wife Librada, who lived alone in Barangay Bayong, Guindulman, Bohol, took their supper together. Librada then went down to the kitchen to wash the dishes while Vedasto relaxed in a hammock upstairs. Hearing his dog bark, Vedasto went down and was accosted by two men, one of whom suddenly struck him in the body and head. He ran some twenty meters before falling unconscious.

When he regained consciousness at the Bohol Provincial Hospital, his house had been burned to the ground and his wife, sixty-five years old, was dead, burned with the house. In his statement he recounted the events and identified his assailants. He testified that the man who struck him was Tito Datahan, accompanied by Cenen Coscos, both of whom he had known for twenty years, Datahan living in the same barangay and Coscos in the neighboring barangay of Biabas.

Rolando Betonio testified that as he approached the burning house that night, he saw Datahan and Coscos, together with their other co-accused, hiding behind a nearby dike and watching the fire. Led to him by Rufo Lusica, Betonio found the unconscious Vedasto some twenty meters from the house. The barangay captain, Alfredo Datahan, took Vedasto to the emergency hospital in Jagna before his transfer to the provincial hospital, and on returning the following morning with the municipal mayor, discovered the charred remains of Librada Piscos. For their part, Tito Datahan pleaded alibi, claiming he was home with his family from five in the afternoon until the following morning, and that he was manhandled by the police after his arrest to coerce a confession. Coscos claimed he was in Biabas watching basketball and later sheltering from the rain in a store. In rebuttal, two policemen denied the manhandling, and a witness testified that it did not rain in Biabas that night.

Issues

• Whether or not the trial court erred in not giving credence to the alibis of the accused-appellants.
• Whether or not the trial court erred in admitting the testimony of Vedasto Piscos despite its inconsistencies, and the testimony of Rolando Betonio despite the claim of bias and incredibility.
• Whether or not the accused-appellants may be convicted of arson despite the absence of direct evidence linking them to it.
• Whether or not conspiracy was established between Datahan and Coscos.
• Whether or not the penalty of death was correctly imposed.

Applicable Provisions

The decision does not quote any statutory text; it applies the penal law on frustrated homicide and arson and the constitutional provision on the death penalty, which it describes as follows:

The death sentence must now be reduced to reclusion perpetua in accordance with the new Constitution.

This bears on the case because it fixes the penalty ultimately imposed for arson, the offense for which the trial court had imposed death.

Ruling

On the first issue, the Court held that alibi is an inherently weak defense and will be rejected in the face of positive identification of the accused pleading it. It failed here because Vedasto Piscos, the very victim of the attack by Datahan and Coscos, and Rolando Betonio, who saw the appellants hiding behind the dike while the fire raged, positively identified them.

On the second issue, the Court held that the inconsistencies in the declarations of Vedasto Piscos did not detract from the credibility of his testimony in its totality. He was already seventy-two years old when he testified in 1985 about events that had transpired almost a year earlier; although he could not accurately remember every detail of that harrowing night, there was no fuzziness about the most important part of his testimony, the identity of the persons who attacked him. As for Betonio, the claim of suspect motive arising from a previous altercation did not destroy his testimony, because his declaration that he saw Tito Datahan and Coscos hiding behind the dike jibed with the testimony of Vedasto Piscos that the two were together that same night when he was struck unconscious.

On the third issue, the Court held that although there was no direct evidence linking the appellants to the arson, the several revealing circumstances established by the prosecution pointed unmistakably to their perpetration of it: Vedasto was assaulted by Datahan and Coscos and fell unconscious after running away; while his house was burning he was found still unconscious; on that same occasion Betonio saw the appellants hiding behind the dike and watching the fire; and after the house was burned the charred body of Librada Piscos was found in the burned area. The Court reasoned that it was unlikely that after having attacked Vedasto and rendered him unconscious, the two assailants would have voluntarily desisted and done nothing more; it was more believable that, having rendered him defenseless, they proceeded with their original plan that ultimately led to the burning of the house and the death of Librada Piscos. The connection between the attack and the burning minutes later was too close and obvious.

On the fourth issue, the Court held that there was conspiracy between Datahan and Coscos as evidenced by their concert of action and community of design. The two were together when Vedasto was attacked and were later seen together when the house was burning. If Coscos was not in conspiracy with Datahan, he should have immediately assisted Vedasto when the latter was hit, instead of simply watching him run away and fall unconscious, or at least left to avoid further involvement; instead he remained with Datahan. Both are therefore guilty of frustrated homicide and arson in equal degree.

On the fifth issue, the Court held that the aggravating circumstances of treachery and nighttime were properly disregarded by the trial court, not having been established by the evidence of record, and that the penalties for frustrated homicide and arson were correctly imposed, except that the death sentence must be reduced to reclusion perpetua in accordance with the new Constitution.

Doctrine

• Alibi is an inherently weak defense and is rejected in the face of positive identification by witnesses who knew the accused, especially where the identifying witness is the victim himself.
• Inconsistencies in the testimony of an aged witness on collateral details do not destroy credibility where the testimony is clear on the identity of the assailants.
• Arson may be established by circumstantial evidence, and conspiracy may be inferred from a concert of action and community of design, including the acts of an accused before, during, and after the crime.
• A co-conspirator is liable in equal degree for the crimes committed in furtherance of the conspiracy.
• Aggravating circumstances must be established by the evidence of record; otherwise they are disregarded.

Disposition

The Supreme Court affirmed the appealed judgment as modified, reducing the death sentence to reclusion perpetua, without any pronouncement as to costs.

Remember This

Memorize the line that alibi is an inherently weak defense and will be rejected in the face of positive identification. Examiners use this case to test circumstantial proof of arson, conspiracy inferred from a concert of action, and the reduction of the death penalty to reclusion perpetua under the new Constitution.