351 Phil. 411
ROMERO, J.:
This case
affirms the constant stance of this Court regarding the ascendancy of an
eyewitness account over a bare denial. Such an account gains more credence when, as in the case at bar, the
witness is himself a victim.
On the night of
March 6, 1987, a police officer who had been pursuing a suspected felon was
shot right in front of the heavily guarded Lopa Compound at No. 2300 Robert
St., Pasay City. Lt. Franklin Garfin
was slain in the shooting incident but his companion, Cpl. Cesar Garcia escaped
unharmed. The man they were supposed to
arrest, a certain Joseph Williamson Dizon, was also shot and sustained back and
arm injuries. Three criminal
informations were filed against the man who was allegedly responsible for all
of these. Thus, on March 7, 1987, petitioner
Cornelio Bautista, the security guard on duty at the Lopa Compound the previous
night, was charged with murder, attempted murder and frustrated murder. At the joint trial of these three cases,
which were consolidated upon order of the court, the prosecution relied on the
eyewitness testimony of Cpl. Garcia, as well as on the physical evidence.
According to
Cpl. Garcia, on March 6, 1987, while responding to a report that a “pot
session” was in progress at the Pasay Sports Complex, he and several operatives
of the Pasay City Police heard somebody shout “hold-up,” then saw a man, later
identified as Dizon, fleeing from the site. Pat. Isidro Ramasamy and Lt. Garfin ran after Dizon, while Cpl. Garcia
commandeered a taxicab to intercept him. Just when they had cornered him at Robert St. near Libertad St., a man
holding a shotgun suddenly emerged from the Lopa Compound and aimed his firearm
at them. Lt. Garfin immediately
informed the man, herein petitioner, that they were policemen, to which
petitioner allegedly retorted, “E, ano kung pulis ka!” From a distance of about twenty meters,
petitioner fired once and hit Lt. Garfin who fell to the ground. Cpl. Garcia tried to aid his fallen
superior but petitioner trained the gun at him and fired two more shots. He managed to duck and hide behind Dizon,
using the latter as a shield. Amid the confusion, Dizon was able to escape Cpl.
Garcia’s clutches and even told petitioner that his captors were holdup men. The taxi driver who had conveyed Cpl. Garcia
to, and had lingered at, the crime scene yelled at petitioner, telling him that
he was firing at police officers and that the real holdup man was the one
beside him. Dizon ran and he, too, was
shot by petitioner, hitting him in the back and left arm. The diversion allowed Cpl. Garcia to jump
into the taxicab and call for help. When he returned, another police officer, Cpl. Ricardo Santos, was
already talking to the men at the Lopa Compound. He immediately pointed to petitioner as the assailant. Petitioner
was arrested and his service firearm was confiscated by the apprehending
officers. Later, Lt. Garfin was brought
to the Manila Sanitarium Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival.[1]
Autopsy
conducted by National Bureau of Investigation Medico-Legal Officer Alberto M.
Reyes attributed Lt. Garfin’s death to severe hemorrhage secondary to shotgun
wounds.[2] Ballistics
examination by the NBI further showed that the pellets recovered from Lt.
Garfin’s body matched the markings on the test shells fired from petitioner’s
shotgun.[3] The NBI also subjected petitioner,
the victim, two other guards at the Lopa Compound, and a civilian agent to
paraffin tests, but only petitioner tested positive for nitrates.[4]
Petitioner
denied all the charges against him and claimed that he never left the Lopa
Compound during the shooting. He
apparently heard somebody being chased outside so, as the guard on duty, he
grabbed his shotgun and went to the Vito Cruz side of the compound’s fence to
investigate, while the other guards, who were also armed, proceeded to the gate
facing Robert St. When he heard shots
being fired in the direction of his companions, he immediately took cover. Responding policemen arrested him and his
fellow guards and confiscated their service firearms. Explaining the positive results of the paraffin test on him, he
said that it was because he cleaned all their firearms on March 6, 1987.[5]
The defense also
presented the testimony of another security guard, Anastacio Mangrubang, to
corroborate petitioner’s tale of innocence.[6]
After trial on
the merits, Judge Sergio I. Amonoy of the Regional Trial Court of Pasay City,
Branch 115, rendered judgment, the decretal portion of which reads thus:
“All the premises considered, the Court finds the accused CORNELIO BAUTISTA Y BAGALAYOS guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the crime of Murder defined and penalized under Article 248 of the Revised Penal Code absent any modifying circumstance and applying the indeterminate sentence law, penalized (sic) him as principal to suffer the penalty of prision mayor maximum to reclusion temporal medium or 10 years and 1 day to 17 years and 4 months, to reimburse the heirs of Franklin Garfin P25,000.00, (for) funeral expense(s,) and P15,000.00, miscellaneous, (for) for food and drinks during (the) wake, and others, to indemnify them P30,000.00 for his death, and to pay the cost of the proceedings.
For insufficiency of the evidence the Court acquits the accused of the charges of Frustrated Murder (2 counts).
SO ORDERED.”
Aggrieved by his
conviction for murder, petitioner elevated his case to the Court of Appeals,
which affirmed the same with modification in its assailed decision promulgated
on April 5, 1995. Thus:
“WHEREFORE, in view of the foregoing, the decision appealed herefrom is hereby AFFIRMED subject to the sole modification that the P25,000.00, P15,000.00 and P30,000.00 damages awarded to the heirs of the deceased are all hereby deleted.
SO ORDERED.”
Petitioner’s
motion for reconsideration of said decision was denied by the appellate court
in its Resolution of August 22, 1995.
He is now before
this Court still proclaiming his innocence and insisting that the trial court’s
factual findings were contrary to the People’s evidence. He also claims that the affidavit of
desistance of Lt. Garfin’s widow should have been considered in his favor.
The petition
must be denied.
Before
proceeding any further, the Court reiterates its deference to the factual
findings of the trial court, especially when, as in this case, there appears no
cogent reason why its conclusions should not be upheld.
Petitioner
maintains that he never went out of the Lopa Compound on the night in
question. Yet, he did not offer any
reason why, among the guards in the compound, he was the one resolutely
pinpointed by Cpl. Garcia as the man who shot them and killed Lt. Garfin. The
fact that Cpl. Garcia changed his statement when he was recalled to the witness
stand does not affect the credibility of his earlier assertions,[7] considering that he positively
identified petitioner as the culprit in no less than three occasions.[8] “Positive identification, where
categorical and consistent and without any showing of ill motive on the part of
the eyewitness testifying on the matter, prevails over alibi and denial which
if not substantiated by clear and convincing evidence are negative and
self-serving evidence undeserving of weight in law.”[9] Neither did he convincingly explain
why he was the only one who tested positive for nitrates. His excuse - that he cleaned their firearms
that day - is too much of a coincidence to be believed. Moreover, he had absolutely no answer for
the State’s evidence matching the deformed shotgun pellets recovered from Lt.
Garfin’s body to his service firearm.
The failure of
the prosecution to present other witnesses is not fatal to the People’s
case. Cpl. Garcia’s testimony
sufficiently enlightened the court on the circumstances surrounding the death
of Lt. Garfin. The physical evidence
corroborated the material points of his eyewitness account; hence, no other
proof was necessary to convince the court that petitioner, indeed, committed
the crime of which he was charged. Certainly, the prosecution cannot be faulted for not presenting more
witnesses; criminals are convicted, not on the number of witnesses against
them, but on the credibility of the testimony of even one witness who is able
to convince the court of the guilt of the accused beyond a shadow of a doubt;
in other words, not quantitatively but qualitatively. It has the freedom of strategy and exclusive choice of witnesses,
whose testimony may either be relevant or merely corroborative. Its failure to present witnesses whom the
defense believes should be questioned in court is no failure at all but a
matter of prosecutorial discretion.
Petitioner
further claims that the charges against him should have been dropped when, on
March 16, 1989, Lt. Garfin’s widow executed an affidavit of desistance,
withdrawing “all proceedings had and all documentary evidence presented by the
private prosecution.” This likewise
deserves scant consideration. It must
be remembered that murder is a public crime, a crime committed as much on the
victim as on the State. Although a
private prosecutor is at times allowed by the fiscal or public prosecutor to
handle a trial, it must not be forgotten that the latter retains control of the
criminal proceedings.
In the case at
bar, nothing on record asserts that the public prosecutor assented to the
withdrawal by the private offended party. Mrs. Garfin’s desistance did not extinguish the crime imputed to
petitioner, for this is not one of the accepted modes of stifling criminal
liability enumerated in Article 89 of the Revised Penal Code.[10] If at all, such desistance had the
effect of, to use respondent court’s language, “voluntarily releasing”
petitioner from the civil liability arising from his commission of the crime.
The Court is
convinced that petitioner was correctly convicted of the crime of murder. As alleged in the information, the shooting
of Lt. Garfin was attended by treachery, for, without any provocation on his
part, he was suddenly shot while in the
lawful performance of his official duties. The attack came even when he had already identified himself as a police
officer. Lt. Garfin absolutely had no
opportunity to put up a defense against petitioner, and the physical evidence
shows that only the latter’s firearm was discharged. At no time was petitioner’s life ever put in peril. As we held in
Dinglasan, “(a)n unexpected and sudden attack under circumstances
which render the victim unable and unprepared to defend himself by reason of
the suddenness and severity of the attack constitutes alevosia, and the
fact that the attack was frontal does not preclude the presence of treachery.”[11]
WHEREFORE, the instant petition for review is
DENIED. The assailed decision of
the Court of Appeals in CA-G.R. CR No. 08780 dated April 5, 1995, as well as
its resolution dated August 22, 1995, are hereby AFFIRMED with the
modification that the P30,000.00 indemnity imposed by the lower court for the
death of the victim, as well as the cost of the proceedings, are restored.
SO ORDERED.
[1] T.S.N., April
26, 1988, pp. 4-12; May 18, 1988, pp. 3-4; July 8, 1988, p. 7; November 25,
1988, pp. 3-7, 11-16.
[2] Autopsy
Report No. N-87-633, Exhibit “L,” Records, pp. 329-330.
[3]
Ballistics Report No. B-171-11-387, Exhibit “M,” Records, pp. 331-332; T.S.N.,
March 14, 1989, p. 6.
[4] Chemistry Report No.
C-87-295, Exhibit “R,” Records, p. 334.
[5] T.S.N., April 20,
1989, pp. 20-25.
[6] Ibid., pp. 12-13.
[7] Lopez v.
Court of Appeals, 239 SCRA 562 (1994).
[8] At the
trial on April 26, 1988, and on November 25, 1988, and in his Sworn Statement
dated March 7, 1988.
[9] People v.
Dinglasan, 267 SCRA 26 (1997), citing People v. Amania, 248 SCRA 286
(1995).
[10] “ART. 89. How criminal liability is totally extinguished. -- Criminal liability is
totally extinguished:
1. By the death of the convict, as to the personal penalties; and as to
pecuniary penalties, liability therefor is extinguished only when the death of
the offender occurs before final judgment;
2. By service of the sentence;
3. By amnesty, which completely extinguishes the penalty and all its
effects;
4. By absolute pardon;
5. By prescription of the crime;
6. By prescription of the penalty;
7. By the marriage of the offended woman, as provided in Article 344 of
this Code.”
[11] Supra.