G.R. No. 182555. September 7, 2010.

*
LENIDO LUMANOG and AUGUSTO SANTOS,
petitioners, vs. PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, respondent.
G.R. No. 185123. September 7, 2010.*
CESAR FORTUNA, petitioner, vs. PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES,
respondent.
G.R. No. 187745. September 7, 2010.*
PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, plaintiff-appellee, vs. SPO2 CESAR
FORTUNA y ABUDO, RAMESES DE JESUS yCALMA, LENIDO
LUMANOG yLUISTRO, JOEL DE JESUS yVALDEZ and
AUGUSTO SANTOS y GALANG, accused,
RAMESES DE JESUS y CALMA and JOEL DE JESUS y VALDEZ,
accused-appellants.
Constitutional Law; Remedial Law; Judgments; Judges are expected to
make complete findings of fact in their decisions and scrutinize closely the legal
aspects of the case in the light of the evidence presented.—The Constitution
commands that “[n]o decision shall be rendered by any court without expressing
therein clearly and distinctly the facts and the law on which it is based.” Judges
are expected to make complete findings of fact in their decisions and scrutinize
closely the legal aspects of the case in the light of the evidence presented. They
should avoid the tendency to generalize and form conclusions without detailing
the facts from which such conclusions are deduced.
Same; Same; Same; Memorandum Decisions; Though it is not a good
practice, Court sees nothing illegal in the act of the trial court completely
copying the memorandum submitted by a party, provided that the decision
clearly and distinctly states sufficient findings of fact and the law on which they
are based.—In Bank of the Philippine
_______________

* EN BANC.
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Lumanog vs. People
Islands v. Leobrera, 375 SCRA 81 (2002), we held that though it is not a
good practice, we see nothing illegal in the act of the trial court completely
copying the memorandum submitted by a party, provided that the decision
clearly and distinctly states sufficient findings of fact and the law on which they
are based. In another case where we upheld the validity of memorandum
decisions, we nevertheless took occasion to remind judges that it is still
desirable for an appellate judge to endeavor to make the issues clearer and use
his own perceptiveness in unraveling the rollo and his own discernment in
discovering the law. No less importantly, he must use his own language in
laying down his judgment.
Same; Right to Counsel; Custodial Investigations; Custodial investigation
refers to the critical pre-trial stage when the investigation is no longer a general
inquiry into an unsolved crime, but has begun to focus on a particular person as
a suspect.—Custodial investigation refers to the critical pre-trial stage when the
investigation is no longer a general inquiry into an unsolved crime, but has
begun to focus on a particular person as a suspect. Police officers claimed that
appellants were apprehended as a result of “hot pursuit” activities on the days
following the ambush-slay of Abadilla. There is no question, however, that
when appellants were arrested they were already considered suspects: Joel was
pinpointed by security guard Alejo who went along with the PARAC squad to
Fairview on June 19, 1996, while the rest of appellants were taken by the same
operatives in follow-up operations after Joel provided them with the identities of
his conspirators and where they could be found.
Same; Same; Same; Extrajudicial Confession; Settled is the rule that the
moment a police officer tries to elicit admissions, or confessions or even plain
information from a suspect, the latter should, at that juncture, be assisted by
counsel, unless he waives this right in writing and in the presence of counsel.—
P/Insp. Castillo admitted that the initial questioning of Joel began in the morning
of June 20, 1996, the first time said suspect was presented to him at the CPDC
station, even before he was brought to the IBP Office for the taking of his formal
statement. Thus, the possibility of appellant Joel having been subjected to
intimidation or violence in the hands of police investigators as he claims, cannot
be discounted. The constitutional requirement obviously had not been observed.
Settled is the rule that the moment a police officer tries to elicit admissions or
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 confessions or even plain information from a suspect, the latter should, at
that juncture, be assisted by counsel, unless he waives this right in writing and in
the presence of counsel. The purpose of providing counsel to a person under
custodial investigation is to curb the police-state practice of extracting a
confession that leads appellant to make self-incriminating statements.
Same; Same; Same; Same; A confession is not valid and not admissible in
evidence when it is obtained in violation of any of the rights of persons under
custodial investigation.—Even assuming that custodial investigation started only
during Joel’s execution of his statement before Atty. Sansano on June 20, 1996,
still the said confession must be invalidated. To be acceptable, extrajudicial
confessions must conform to constitutional requirements. A confession is not
valid and not admissible in evidence when it is obtained in violation of any of
the rights of persons under custodial investigation.
Same; Same; Same; Same; The phrase “preferably of his own choice” does
not convey the message that the choice of a lawyer by a person under
investigation is exclusive as to preclude other equally competent and
independent attorneys from handling the defense; A lawyer provided by the
investigators is deemed engaged by the accused when he does not raise any
objection against the counsel’s appointment during the course of the
investigation, and the accused thereafter subscribes to the veracity of the
statement before the swearing officer.—The phrase “preferably of his own
choice” does not convey the message that the choice of a lawyer by a person
under investigation is exclusive as to preclude other equally competent and
independent attorneys from handling the defense; otherwise the tempo of
custodial investigation would be solely in the hands of the accused who can
impede, nay, obstruct the progress of the interrogation by simply selecting a
lawyer who, for one reason or another, is not available to protect his interest.
Thus, while the choice of a lawyer in cases where the person under custodial
interrogation cannot afford the services of counsel—or where the preferred
lawyer is not available—is naturally lodged in the police investigators, the
suspect has the final choice, as he may reject the counsel chosen for him and ask
for another one. A lawyer provided by the investigators is deemed engaged by
the accused when he does not raise any objection against the counsel’s
appointment during the course of the investiga-
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 Lumanog vs. People
tion, and the accused thereafter subscribes to the veracity of the statement
before the swearing officer.
Same; Same; Same; Same; An effective and vigilant counsel necessarily and
logically requires that the lawyer be present and able to advise and assist his
client from the time the confessant answers the first question asked by the
investigating officer until the signing of the extrajudicial confession.—We held
that the modifier competent and independent in the 1987 Constitution is not an
empty rhetoric. It stresses the need to accord the accused, under the uniquely
stressful conditions of a custodial investigation, an informed judgment on the
choices explained to him by a diligent and capable lawyer. An effective and
vigilant counsel necessarily and logically requires that the lawyer be present and
able to advise and assist his client from the time the confessant answers the first
question asked by the investigating officer until the signing of the extrajudicial
confession. Moreover, the lawyer should ascertain that the confession is made
voluntarily and that the person under investigation fully understands the nature
and the consequence of his extrajudicial confession in relation to his
constitutional rights. A contrary rule would undoubtedly be antagonistic to the
constitutional rights to remain silent, to counsel and to be presumed innocent.
Remedial Law; Evidence; Witnesses; Credibility of Witnesses; When it
comes to credibility of witnesses, the court accords the highest respect, even
finality, to the evaluation made by the lower court of the testimonies of the
witnesses presented before it; The fact alone that the judge who heard the
evidence was not the one who rendered the judgment, but merely relied on the
record of the case, does not render his judgment erroneous or irregular.—Time
and again, we have held that the testimony of a sole eyewitness is sufficient to
support a conviction so long as it is clear, straightforward and worthy of
credence by the trial court. Indeed, when it comes to credibility of witnesses,
this Court accords the highest respect, even finality, to the evaluation made by
the lower court of the testimonies of the witnesses presented before it. This
holds true notwithstanding that it was another judge who presided at the trial and
Judge Jaime N. Salazar, Jr. who penned the decision in this case heard only
some witnesses for the defense. It is axiomatic that the fact alone that the judge
who heard the evidence was not the one who rendered the judgment, but merely
relied on the record of the case, does not ren-
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der his judgment erroneous or irregular. This is so even if the judge did not
have the fullest opportunity to weigh the testimonies, not having heard all the
witnesses speak or observed their deportment and manner of testifying.
Same; Same; Affidavits; The discrepancies between a sworn statement and
testimony in court do not outrightly justify the acquittal of an accused, as
testimonial evidence carries more weight than an affidavit.—Appellants make
much of a few inconsistencies in his statement and testimony, with respect to the
number of assailants and his reaction when he was ordered to get down in his
guard post. But such inconsistencies have already been explained by Alejo
during cross-examination by correcting his earlier statement in using number
four (4) to refer to those persons actually standing around the car and two (2)
more persons as lookouts, and that he got nervous only when the second lookout
shouted at him to get down, because the latter actually poked a gun at him. It is
settled that affidavits, being ex-parte, are almost always incomplete and often
inaccurate, but do not really detract from the credibility of witnesses. The
discrepancies between a sworn statement and testimony in court do not
outrightly justify the acquittal of an accused, as testimonial evidence carries
more weight than an affidavit.
Same; Same; Out-of-court Identification; Procedure for out-of-court
identification and the test to determine the admissibility of such identification
explained in People v. Teehankee, Jr., 249 SCRA 54 (1995).—In People v.
Teehankee, Jr., 249 SCRA 54 (1995), we explained the procedure for out-of-
court identification and the test to determine the admissibility of such
identification, thus: Out-of-court identification is conducted by the police in
various ways. It is done thru show-ups where the suspect alone is brought face to
face with the witness for identification. It is done thru mug shots where
photographs are shown to the witness to identify the suspect. It is also done
thru line-ups where a witness identifies the suspect from a group of persons
lined up for the purpose. . . In resolving the admissibility of and relying on out-
of-court identification of suspects, courts have adopted the totality of
circumstances testwhere they consider the following factors, viz.: (1) the
witness’ opportunity to view the criminalat the time of the crime; (2) the
witness’ degree of attention at that time; (3) the accuracy of anyprior
description given by the witness; (4) the level of certaintydemonstrated
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Lumanog vs. People
by the witness at the identification; (5) the length of time between the
crime and the identification; and, (6) the suggestiveness of the identification
procedure.
Criminal Law; Evidence; Out-of-Court Identification; The inadmissibility of
a police line-up identification should not necessarily foreclose the admissibility
of an independent in-court identification.—In any case, the trial court did not
rely solely on said out-of-court identification considering that Alejo also
positively identified appellants during the trial. Thus, even
assuming arguendo that Alejo’s out-of-court identification was tainted with
irregularity, his subsequent identification in court cured any flaw that may have
attended it. We have held that the inadmissibility of a police line-up
identification should not necessarily foreclose the admissibility of an
independent in-court identification.
Same; Same; Same; The presentation of weapons or the slugs and bullets
used and ballistic examination are not prerequisites for conviction.—As this
Court held in Velasco v. People, 483 SCRA 649 (2006)—As regards the failure
of the police to present a ballistic report on the seven spent shells recovered
from the crime scene, the same does not constitute suppression of evidence. A
ballistic report serves only as a guide for the courts in considering the ultimate
facts of the case. It would be indispensable if there are no credible eyewitnesses
to the crime inasmuch as it is corroborative in nature. The presentation of
weapons or the slugs and bullets used and ballistic examination are not
prerequisites for conviction. The corpus delicti and the positive identification
of accused-appellant as the perpetrator of the crime are more than enough to
sustain his conviction. Even without a ballistic report, the positive identification
by prosecution witnesses is more than sufficient to prove accused’s guilt beyond
reasonable doubt. In the instant case, since the identity of the assailant has
been sufficiently established, a ballistic report on the slugs can be dispensed
with in proving petitioner’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
Alibi; To be valid for purposes of exoneration from a criminal charge, the
defense of alibi must be such that it would have been physically impossible for
the person charged with the crime to be at the locus criminis at the time of its
commission, the reason being that no person can be in two places at the same
time.—Alibi is the weakest of all defenses, for it is easy to fabricate and difficult
to disprove,
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and it is for this reason that it cannot prevail over the positive identification
of the accused by the witnesses. To be valid for purposes of exoneration from a
criminal charge, the defense of alibi must be such that it would have been
physically impossible for the person charged with the crime to be at the locus
criminis at the time of its commission, the reason being that no person can be in
two places at the same time. The excuse must be so airtight that it would admit
of no exception. Where there is the least possibility of accused’s presence at the
crime scene, the alibi will not hold water.
Criminal Law; Murder; Treachery; The essence of treachery is the sudden
and unexpected attack on an unsuspecting victim by the perpetrator of the
crime, depriving the victim of any chance to defend himself or to repel the
aggression, thus insuring its commission without risk to the aggressor and
without any provocation on the part of the victim.—As regards the presence of
treachery as a qualifying circumstance, the evidence clearly showed that the
attack on the unsuspecting victim—who was inside his car on a stop position in
the middle of early morning traffic when he was suddenly fired upon by the
appellants—was deliberate, sudden and unexpected. There was simply no
chance for Abadilla to survive the ambush-slay, with successive shots quickly
fired at close range by two (2) armed men on both sides of his car; and much
less to retaliate by using his own gun, as no less than 23 gunshot wounds on his
head and chest caused his instantaneous death. As we have consistently ruled,
the essence of treachery is the sudden and unexpected attack on an unsuspecting
victim by the perpetrator of the crime, depriving the victim of any chance to
defend himself or to repel the aggression, thus insuring its commission without
risk to the aggressor and without any provocation on the part of the victim.
Same; Same; Evident Premeditation; The essence of evident premeditation
is that the execution of the criminal act is preceded by cool thought and
reflection upon the resolution to carry out criminal intent within a span of time
sufficient to arrive at a calm judgment.—Evident premeditation was likewise
properly appreciated by the trial court, notwithstanding the inadmissibility of
Joel de Jesus’s extrajudicial confession disclosing in detail the pre-planned
ambush of Abadilla, apparently a contract killing in which the perpetrators were
paid or expected to receive payment for the job. As correctly pointed out by the
CA, Alejo had stressed that as early as 7:30 in the morning of June 13, 1996, he
already noticed something unusual
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Lumanog vs. People
going on upon seeing the two (2) lookouts (appellants Joel de Jesus and
Lorenzo delos Santos) walking to and fro along Katipunan Avenue infront of the
building he was guarding. True enough, they were expecting somebody to pass
that way, who was no other than Abadilla driving his Honda Accord. After the
lapse of more or less one (1) hour, he already heard successive gunshots, while
in his guard post, from the direction of the middle lane where Abadilla’s car was
surrounded by four (4) men carrying short firearms. All the foregoing disclosed
the execution of a pre-conceived plan to kill Abadilla. The essence of evident
premeditation is that the execution of the criminal act is preceded by cool
thought and reflection upon the resolution to carry out criminal intent within a
span of time sufficient to arrive at a calm judgment.
Same; Same; Death of a Party; Damages; Damages that may be awarded
when death occurs due to a crime.—When death occurs due to a crime, the
following damages may be awarded: (1) civil indemnity ex delicto for the death
of the victim; (2) actual or compensatory damages; (3) moral damages; (4)
exemplary damages; and (5) temperate damages.
BERSAMIN,  J., Concurring Opinion:
Constitutional Law; Remedial Law; The records of the present case show
that impermissible suggestion did not precede Alego’s out-of-court
identification of De Jesus as one of the perpetrators of the crime; The procedure
outlined in People v. Pineda, 429 SCRA 478 (2004) and People v. Teehankee,
249 SCRA 54 (1995), for a proper out-of-court identification was neither
disregarded nor violated.—In contrast, the records of the present case show that
impermissible suggestion did not precede Alejo’s out-of-court positive
identification of De Jesus as one of the perpetrators of the crime. Alejo’s
testimony on September 3, 1996 reveals, on the contrary, that Alejo
even categorically declined to identify any suspect by mere looking at a
photograph. Verily, the procedure outlined in People v. Pineda, 429 SCRA 478
(2004) and People v. Teehankee, 249 SCRA 54 (1995), for a proper out-of-court
identification was neither disregarded nor violated.
Same; Same; In any criminal prosecution there are more and better
circumstances to consider other than the initial sketch of a police artist for
determining the reliability of an identification.—At any rate, a discrepancy
between a police artist’s sketch of a perpetra-
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Lumanog vs. People
tor of a crime based on descriptions of witnesses at the scene of the crime,
on one hand, and an actual identification of the perpetrator by an eyewitness
given in court, on the other hand, is a very minimal factor of doubt on the
reliability of the identification. In any criminal prosecution there are more and
better circumstances to consider other than the initial sketch of a police artist for
determining the reliability of an identification. We have to remember that a
police artist’s sketch of a perpetrator of a crime is initially for purposes of
pursuing an investigation, and has seldom any impact on the case after that.
Same; Same; The validity of a decision is not impaired when its writer only
took over from another judge who had earlier presided at the trial, unless there
is a clear showing of grave abuse of discretion in the appreciation of the facts.
—The validity of a decision is not impaired when its writer only took over from
another judge who had earlier presided at the trial, unless there is a clear
showing of grave abuse of discretion in the appreciation of the facts. No such
grave abuse of discretion was shown herein. The trial records demonstrate, on
the contrary, that the factual findings of the trial court and the assessment of the
credibility of Alejo as an eyewitness rested on a most careful and thorough study
of the evidence adduced by both parties. Indeed, although he did not observe the
demeanor of Alejo as a witness, the writing judge (Judge Jaime N. Salazar) was
not entirely deprived of a proper sense of Alejo’s demeanor considering that the
TSNs were replete with the detailed manifestations on Alejo’s appearance,
behavior, deportment, disposition, and mien during the many days of his
testimony that the various counsel of both parties zealously put on record for
memorialization.
Same; Same; The mere imputation of ill-motive without proof was
speculative at best.—The mere imputation of ill-motive without
proof was speculative at best. To start with, that the family of the victim might
have extended economic or financial support to Alejo did not necessarily
warrant the presumption of bias on the part of Alejo as a witness. There was no
evidence showing that any such support was for the purpose of unduly
influencing his testimony. Likelier than not, the support was only an expression
of the family’s appreciation for his cooperation in the public prosecution of the
culprits, or for his resolve to ensure the successful prosecution of the
perpetrators.
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Lumanog vs. People
CARPIO, J., Dissenting Opinion:
Constitutional Law; Remedial Law; Presumption of Innocence; The
“presumption of innocence” serves to emphasize that the prosecution has the
obligation to prove not only each element of the offense beyond reasonable
doubt but also the identity of the accused as the perpetrator.—The “presumption
of innocence” serves to emphasize that the prosecution has the obligation to
prove not only each element of the offense beyond reasonable doubt but also the
identity of the accused as the perpetrator. The accused, on the other hand,
bears no burden of proof. The prosecution evidence must stand or fall on its own
weight and cannot draw strength from the weakness of the defense.
Same; Same; Out-of-Court Identification; Guidelines to determine the
admissibility and reliability of an out-of-court identification laid down in People
v. Teehankee, 249 SCRA 54 (1995).—In People v. Teehankee, 249 SCRA 54
(1995), the Court laid down the guidelines to determine the admissibility and
reliability of an out-of-court identification, thus: “In resolving the admissibility
of and relying on out-of-court identification of suspects, courts have adopted the
totality of circumstances testwhere they consider the following factors, viz.: (1)
the witness’ opportunity to view the criminal at the time of the crime; (2) the
witness’ degree of attention at the time; (3) the accuracy of any prior description
given by the witness; (4) the level of certainty demonstrated by the witness at
the identification; (5) the length of time between the crime and the
identification; and (6) the suggestiveness of the identification procedure.”
Same; Same; Same; Rules in proper photographic identification procedure
explained in People v. Pineda, 429 SCRA 478 (2004).—In People v. Pineda,
429 SCRA 478 (2004), the Court explained the rules in proper photographic
identification procedure, to wit: Although showing mug shots of suspects is one
of the established methods of identifying criminals, the procedure used in this
case is unacceptable. The first rule in proper photographic identification
procedure is that a series of photographs must be shown, and not merely
that of the suspect. The second rule directs that when a witness is shown a
group of pictures, their arrangement and display should in no way suggest
which one of the pictures pertains to the suspect.
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Same; Same; Same; The clear import of Rodrigo is that an out-of-court
identification, made by lone witness, who was subjected to impermissible
photographic suggestion, fatally tainted the subsequent in-court identification
made by the same witness.—The clear import of Rodrigo is that an out-of-court
identification, made by the lone witness, who was subjected to impermissible
photographic suggestion, fatally tainted the subsequent in-court identification
made by the same witness. Accordingly, the testimony of such witness on the
identification of the accused, by itself, cannot be considered as proof beyond
reasonable doubt of the identity of the perpetrator of the crime. Without proof
beyond reasonable doubt of the identity of the perpetrator, the accused deserves
an acquittal.
Same; Same; Same; Due process dictates that the photographic
identification must be devoid of any impermissible suggestions in order to
prevent a miscarriage of justice.—Due process dictates that the photographic
identification must be devoid of any impermissible suggestions in order to
prevent a miscarriage of justice. In People v. Alcantara, 240 SCRA 122 (1995),
the Court declared: Due process demands that identification procedure of
criminal suspects must be free from impermissible suggestions. As appropriately
held in US vs. Wade, “the influence of improper suggestion upon identifying
witness probably accounts for more miscarriages of justice than any other
single factor.”
Same; Same; Right to Counsel; Generally, an accused is not entitled to the
assistance of counsel in a police line-up considering that such is usually not a
part of custodial investigation; An exception to this rule is when the accused
had been the focus of police attention at the start of the investigation.—As
stated in Escordial, generally, an accused is not entitled to the assistance of
counsel in a police line-up considering that such is usually not a part of custodial
investigation. An exception to this rule is when the accused had been the
focus of police attention at the start of the investigation. The line-up in this
case squarely falls under this exception. It was established that Joel was already
a suspect prior to the police line-up. In fact, even before Joel’s apprehension, the
police had already zeroed in on Joel as one of Abadilla’s killers. As such, Joel
was entitled to counsel during the police line-up.53
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Same; Same; Hot Pursuit; Warrantless Arrest; The warrantless arrest of
Joel, made six days after the murder, does not fall within the ambit of “hot
pursuit”; In law enforcement,  “hot pursuit” can refer to an immediate pursuit
by the police.—The police arrested Joel, without any warrant, on 19 June 1996
or six days after the killing. Six days is definitely more than enough to secure
an arrest warrant, and yet the police opted to arrest Joel and the other
accused, without any warrant, claiming that it was conducted in “hot
pursuit.” In law enforcement, “hot pursuit” can refer to an immediate pursuit by
the police such as a car chase. Certainly, the warrantless arrest of Joel, made six
days after the murder, does not fall within the ambit of “hot pursuit.”
Same; Same; Same; Same; Torturing the accused to extract incriminating
confessions is repugnant to the Constitution.—Torturing the accused to extract
incriminating confessions is repugnant to the Constitution. Section 12(2), Article
III of the Constitution expressly provides “[n]o torture, force, violence, threat,
intimidation, or any other means which vitiate the free will shall be used against
[an accused].” The blatant and unacceptable transgression of the accused’s
constitutional rights, for the sake of delivering speedy, but false, justice to the
aggrieved, can never be countenanced. This Court can never tolerate official
abuses and perpetuate the gross violation of these rights. The presumption that a
public officer had regularly performed his official duty can at no instance prevail
over the presumption of innocence.
PETITIONS for review on certiorari of a decision of the Court of
Appeals.
   The facts are stated in the opinion of the Court.
  Vicente Dante P. Adan for petitioners in G.R. No. 182555.
   Gimenez Law Office for petitioners in G.R. No. 185123.
  The Law Office of Dante S. David for accused Joel de Jesus.
  Hector P. Corpus for the family of the late Col. Rolando N.
Abadilla.54
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Lumanog vs. People
  Public Attorney’s Office and Analyn V. Virtusio for accused-
appellant Rameses De Jesus.
  Leandro M. Azarcon for appellant Augusto Santos.
  Arlene G. Lapuz-Ureta for appellant Fortuna.
VILLARAMA,  JR., J.:
For review is the Decision dated April 1, 2008 of the Court of
1

Appeals (CA) in CA-G.R. CR-HC No. 00667 which affirmed with

modification the Joint Decision  dated July 30, 1999 of the Regional
2

Trial Court of Quezon City, Branch 103 in Criminal Case Nos. Q-96-
66679, Q-96-66680, Q-96-66682, Q-96-66683 and Q-96-66684.
The consolidated cases arose in connection with the killing of former
Chief of the Metropolitan Command Intelligence and Security Group of
the Philippine Constabulary, now the Philippine National Police (PNP),
Colonel Rolando N. Abadilla (“Abadilla”), who was ambushed in
broad daylight while driving his car along Katipunan Avenue, Quezon
City.
The Facts
On June 13, 1996, at around 8:00 o’clock in the morning, Abadilla
left his house at Soliven I, Loyola Grand Villas, Loyola Heights,
Quezon City and drove his car, a black Honda Accord with Plate No.
RNA-777. Soon after he left, his wife Susan Abadilla received a phone
call from him and they briefly talked. Just a few minutes after their
conversation, she received another phone call from Abadilla’s tailor
who was asking about her husband because, according to him, he heard
a radio broadcast report that Abadilla met an accident.  
3
_______________

1 Penned by Associate Justice Agustin S. Dizon and concurred in by Associate Justices Regalado E.
Maambong and Celia C. Librea-Leagogo.
2 Penned by Judge Jaime N. Salazar, Jr.
3 TSN, September 18, 1996, pp. 31-35.
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Meanwhile, at about 8:40 a.m., Senior Police Officer (SPO) 2 Arthur
Ortiz, the desk officer on duty at Station 8 of the Central Police District
Command (CPDC) located at P. Tuazon Blvd., Project 4, Quezon City,
answered a telephone call from a male person who reported a shooting
incident along Katipunan Avenue. Station Commander Police Chief
Inspector (Insp.) Edward Villena, together with his investigators SPO2
Wahab Magundacan, Police Officer (PO) 2 Gerardo Daganta and PO1
Ronald Francisco immediately boarded a PNP marked vehicle and
headed towards Katipunan Avenue. 4

Upon reaching the area at 8:45 a.m., they saw several onlookers
around and near a black Honda Accord with Plate No. RNA-777 on a
stop position in the middle lane of Katipunan Avenue facing south
going to Libis. They found the victim’s bloodied and bullet-riddled
body partly slumped onto the pavement at the car’s left door, which
was open. The front windshield and sliding glass windows on the left
and right side were shattered; a hole was seen on the glass window of
the left rear door, apparently pierced by a bullet. Glass splinters were
scattered inside the car and on the pavement at both sides of the car. On
orders of Chief Insp. Villena, PO2 Daganta and PO1 Francisco assisted
by a certain Cesar Espiritu, immediately brought the victim to the
Quirino Memorial Hospital in Project 4, Quezon City. SPO2
Magundacan was instructed to stay behind to cordon the area for the
start of the investigation while Chief Insp. Villena went to their station
to get his camera.  After ten (10) minutes, Chief Insp. Villena returned
5

and took pictures of the crime scene, and also of the victim at the
hospital.  SPO2 Magundacan was
6
_______________

4 TSN, August 1, 1996, pp. 14-22; TSN, August 6, 1996, pp. 14-19; TSN, August 7, 1996, pp. 11-13.
5  TSN, August 1, 1996, pp. 22-34; TSN, August 6, 1996, pp. 19-23, 35-37; TSN, August 7, 1996, pp.
13-16.
6  TSN, August 7, 1996, pp. 17-26; Exhibits “A” to “A-9”, folder of exhibits, pp. 6-9. Also Exhibits
“29” to “35” for the Defense, pp. 356-362.
56
5 SUPREME COURT
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ANNOTATED
Lumanog vs. People
able to pick up several spent shells and two (2) slugs, apparently fired
from .45 and 9 mm. pistols.  A sketch was prepared by PO2 Daganta
7

who also interviewed some of the witnesses present at the crime

scene.  The spot report and list of recovered items (including a
8

Philippine Military Academy gold ring on which was engraved the

name “Rolando N. Abadilla”) were later prepared by SPO2
Magundacan at the police station. 9

On the same day, witnesses Cesar F. Espiritu (who was driving his
car ahead of the victim), Aurora Urbano (Metro Aide), Ani C. Icot
(house gardener of the Abadilla family, Freddie Alejo (security guard
posted at Eliscon Electrical Supply store located at 211 Katipunan
Avenue) and Minella Alarcon (college professor at Ateneo de Manila
University) gave their respective statements before the Criminal
Investigation Division of the Central Police District Command (CID-
CPDC), PNP-National Capital Region (NCR) at Camp Karingal,
Sikatuna Village, Quezon City, while the statement of Merlito Herbas
(security guard posted at the Blue Ridge Realty Corporation located at
No. 219 Katipunan Avenue, Quezon City) was taken at Station No. 8,
CPDC at P. Tuazon Blvd., Proj. 4, Quezon City. 10

Based on their accounts, the black Honda Accord with Plate Number
RNA-777 was caught in traffic while traversing Katipunan Avenue
going to Santolan at past 8:00 o’clock on the morning of June 13, 1996.
While on a stop position, four (4) men armed with handguns
surrounded the said car and fired several successive shots at the man
inside it. One (1) of the men who were positioned at the left side of the
car opened its door and took something inside. He grabbed the victim
by the neck and dropped his body down towards the pavement at
_______________

7  TSN, August 1, 1996, pp. 41-46.

8  TSN, August 1, 1996, pp. 40-41; TSN, August 6, 1996,  pp. 30-61;  Exhibit “D”, folder of exhibits, p.
13.
9  TSN, August 1, 1996, pp. 55-59; TSN, August 6, 1996, pp. 75-76; Exhibits “B” and “C”, folder of
exhibits, pp. 10-12.
10 Records, Vol. I, pp. 27-40.
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the left door. When there were already several people who had come
out to see what was happening, one of the suspects shouted, “Walang
gagalaw…Dapa!”
Minella Alarcon, who was then with her son-in-law on board her
white KIA Pride, was following the victim’s car (at other side or
diagonal line) at the time of the incident. After the shooting, two (2) of
the armed men who fired at the victim’s car approached their car and
pounded at it saying “Baba…Baba!” Terrified, she and her son-in-law
got off and crawled towards the side of the street. The assailants then
boarded the KIA Pride and went away to the direction of an alley along
Katipunan Avenue. Her car was later recovered, as it was found
abandoned along Aguinaldo Street near the corner of J.P. Rizal Street,
Project 4, Quezon City, still with bloodstains on the car door. 11

The victim was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. The

victim’s identity was confirmed by Susan Abadilla who had rushed to
the hospital. Chief Insp. Villena escorted her in bringing the victim’s
body to the PNP Crime Laboratory in Camp Crame for the autopsy
requested by the CPDC, PNP-NCR, Camp Karingal.  From the 12

testimony and medico-legal report of Dr. Jesusa N. Vergara, it was

disclosed that the victim died of hemorrhage as a result of multiple
gunshot wounds, mostly in the head and chest, and also sustained
abrasions, contusions, lacerated skin, hematoma and incised wounds or
cuts in the skin caused by glass splinters. 13

Records indicate that immediately after the incident, elements of the

CPDC, PNP-NCR at Camp Karingal were already coordinating with
investigators of Station 8-CPDC who
_______________

11 Records, Vol. I, pp. 39-40; See also Exhibits “37” to “45-B-1” for the Defense, folder of exhibits, pp.
363-371.
12 TSN, August 7, 1996, pp. 26-28; TSN, September 18, 1996, pp. 36-37.
13 TSN, September 10, 1996, p. 97; Exhibit “Q”, folder of exhibits, pp. 34-35.
58
5 SUPREME COURT
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ANNOTATED
Lumanog vs. People
had turned over to said office the evidence gathered and referred the
witnesses present at the crime scene.  As a result of follow-up 14

operations, Joel de Jesus, alias “Tabong,” was apprehended on June 19,

1996 at his house at Dahlia St., Fairview, Quezon City. He executed
his Sinumpaang Salaysay dated June 20, 1996 and Karagdagang
Sinumpaang Salaysay dated June 21, 1996. 15

In his first statement, Joel de Jesus narrated that on June 13, 1996 at
6:30 in the morning after parking his tricycle at the corner of Regalado
and Camaro Streets, Fairview, he was fetched by Lorenzo “Larry”
delos Santos who was his neighbor at Ruby St. Larry was accompanied
by his nephew Ogie, and a certain “Tisoy” who drove the owner-type
jeep. Larry told him they were going to kill a big-time personality
(“may titirahin na malaking tao”), whose name was Abadilla, and that
they were going to ambush the latter at Katipunan Avenue. The ambush
would be carried out by Joel, Larry, Tisoy, Ram (de Jesus), Cesar who
was a policeman, and four (4) others. That same morning, they
proceeded to Katipunan Avenue on board Larry’s owner-type jeep
without a plate and a Mitsubishi L-300 van. They carried .45 and 9
mm. pistols; Joel used a .38 caliber revolver. According to Joel, he only
acted as lookout; Lorenzo, Ram and Cesar were the ones who fired
shots, while Tisoy focused on a security guard at a store. After the
shooting, they separated ways: the owner-type jeep he was riding in
headed towards Santolan; Cesar’s group split so that three (3) of them
rode the L-300 van and the three (3) others boarded a car stolen from a
woman driver. Upon reaching Commonwealth Avenue and Tandang
Sora, they stopped at Glori Supermarket where all the firearms used
were returned to the group, including the revolver earlier given to Joel.
It was al-
_______________

14 Testimony of P/Insp. Rogelio Castillo - TSN, August 7, 1996, pp. 54-124.

15 Exhibits “E” and “N”, folder of exhibits, pp. 14-20, 30.
59
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ready dusk when Lorenzo dropped him off at the tricycle parking area
at Camaro St. 16

Joel further stated that the ambush-slay of Abadilla was planned by

the group three (3) days before, when they met at the house of Ram de
Jesus also in Fairview near his house. Although he did not know the
identity of the person who masterminded the ambush-slay of Abadilla,
he described the mastermind as the one (1) who opened Abadilla’s car
and pulled Abadilla from the inside of the car, and he was also the one
(1) who drove the L-300 van. Lorenzo told him he should not worry
because Lorenzo would take care that he would be compensated for his
participation. When they reached Katipunan Avenue, they alighted
from their respective vehicles to wait for Abadilla. The L-300 van
where the mastermind and Cesar rode was just behind Abadilla’s car.
There was no more order given to fire because when traffic stopped the
vehicles on the road, those in the L-300 van just got down, positioned
themselves and fired upon Abadilla. The mastermind not only fired at
Abadilla from outside the latter’s car, he even made sure Abadilla was
dead, as half of his body went inside the car, firing again at Abadilla
before finally dropping him to the ground. Joel added that he just
remained silent after the incident, for which he did not earn anything
and was threatened by one (1) of those who were in the L-300 van
whose name he did not know. 17

In his second statement, Joel pointed to his cohorts in a police line-up

inside the CID-CPDC, PNP-NCR, Camp Karingal, Quezon City where
he positively identified Rameses de Jesus (“Ram”), Cesar Fortuna,
Lenido Lumanog and PO2 Romeo Costibolo as among those who
participated in the ambush-slaying of Abadilla on June 13, 1996. 18

_______________

16 Id., at pp. 15-17.

17 Id., at pp. 18-19.
18 Id., at p. 30.
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6 SUPREME COURT
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Lumanog vs. People
The afore-named suspects identified by Joel were apprehended
during further follow-up operations conducted on June 20, 1996 by
“Task Force Rolly” subsequently formed by the PNP after the lead
initially provided by him. As mentioned in the Joint Affidavit executed
by Police Senior Inspector (P/Sr. Insp.) Ronello N. Navarro, Police
Inspector (P/Insp.) Ferdinand A. Marticio, SPO4 Wilfredo G. Galvan
and SPO1 Allan dela Cruz dated June 21, 1996, as early as June 15,
1996, or two (2) days after the ambush-slay of Abadilla, their
investigation already established the identities of a number of suspects
through photo files and forensic sketches of suspects provided by
eyewitnesses.  Said arresting officers were also able to seize certain
19

firearms and other pieces of evidence, to wit:

4. That after SPO2 Cesar Fortuna revealed the whereabouts of the
slain victim’s stolen cal .45 pistol, we conducted a follow up in a
gunsmith located at Sampaloc, Manila on 21 June 1996, from where we
held for investigation, one–
DANTE MONTEVIRGEN yVILLANUEVA, 37 years old,
married, self-employed/gunsmith, native of Pula, Oriental Mindoro
 and with given address at 1412 Riverside Street, Commonwealth
Avenue, Bgy. Holy Spirit, Quezon City.
5. That upon confrontation said subject person surrendered two (2)
cal .45 pistols whom suspect Cesar Fortuna allegedly brought to him
for repair/tampering of serial numbers, to wit:
(a) 1- COLT MARK IV cal .45 pistol Gov’t Model
  SN-66B5574; and
(b) 1-COLT MARK IV cal .45 pistol Series 70
  SN-647048.
6. On the same day, 21 June 1996, after SPO2 Cesar Fortuna
expressed willingness to surrender the motorcycle allegedly used in
casing and surveillance upon the deceased victim, we took said mo-
_______________

19 Exhibit “1” for the Defense (Fortuna), folder of exhibits, pp. 99-101; Records, Vol. I, pp. 60-62.
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Lumanog vs. People
torcycle at Gate 2 of Camp Crame along Santolan Road (Col Boni
Serrano Avenue), Quezon City, to wit:
1. - Unit, KAWASAKI motorcycle without license plate,
chassis No. C-5121696, Motor No. 658 122951
7. That the aforenamed subject person together with the
property/articles recovered were turned over to the Police Headquarters
for investigation and appropriate action;
x x x” 20

With respect to Lorenzo delos Santos, he also executed a statement

dated June 21, 1996 admitting his participation in the ambush-slay of
Abadilla on June 13, 1996, and pointing to Rameses de Jesus as the
mastermind and also named the following suspects: “POGS” whose
real name was Lenido Lumanog, Joel de Jesus alias “Tabong,” Cesar
Fortuna and four (4) others whom he did not know. He said that he was
just brought along by Rameses de Jesus and was further threatened that
if he would not go with them, they would kill his family. He claimed
that he merely acted as a lookout. As similarly recounted by Joel,
Lorenzo stated that the group used an L-300 van, a car and a jeep in
going to Katipunan Avenue in the morning of June 13, 1996. Joel had a
.45 cal pistol, Cesar a .38 revolver, Lenido a 9 mm., a certain Manuel
dela Rosa who did not get out of the vehicle, carried a .38 cal revolver,
and Lorenzo, also a .38 cal revolver. Rameses, Joel, Cesar and Lenido
were the ones who shot Abadilla. After the shooting, the group left him
behind and he just walked on the street before taking a taxi ride to the
Bureau of Customs. Lorenzo maintained that he was not given any
money. He was just picked up from his house at Ruby St., Fairview
Subdivision by Rameses, Lenido, Cesar and Joel. He was made to
board Rameses’ car with a warning that if he did not join the group,
they would throw a hand grenade at his family. 21

_______________

20 Id., at p. 100.
21 Exhibit “S”, folder of exhibits, pp. 37-38.
62
6 SUPREME COURT
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ANNOTATED
Lumanog vs. People
In his Karagdagang Salaysaydated June 21, 1996, security guard
Freddie Alejo positively identified Joel and Lorenzo during a police
line-up. Alejo confirmed these two (2) as the persons he saw from his
guard post walking to and fro before the shooting incident. They were
also the ones who shouted that no one (1) should interfere at the time
the four (4) armed men were firing shots at Abadilla. 22

SPO2 Cesar Fortuna y Abudo, Rameses de Jesus y Calma, Lorenzo

delos Santos y Dela Cruz, Lenido Lumanog y Luistro, Joel de
Jesus y Valdez and Arturo Napolitano y Caburnay were charged in
Criminal Case No. Q-96-66679 with theft of the alleged gun owned by
the late Abadilla (Colt Mark IV cal .45 pistol SN-66BS574), a gold-
plated Omega wristwatch and a wallet containing an undetermined
amount of cash plus calling cards and other important papers, all of
which were supposedly stolen by them after killing Abadilla. 23
 On the other hand, Lorenzo delos Santos y Dela Cruz, SPO2 Cesar
Fortuna y Abudo and Rameses de Jesus y Calma were respectively
charged with illegal possession of firearms (Presidential Decree No.
1866) in Criminal Case Nos. Q-96-66680, Q-96-66682 and Q-96-
66683. 24

All the seven (7) named accused in Criminal Case No. Q-96-66684
were indicted for Murder under the following Information:
“That on or about the 13th day of June, 1996 in Quezon City, Philippines, the
above-named accused, conspiring together, confederating with several other
persons whose true names, identities, whereabouts have not as yet been
ascertained and mutually helping with one another, did then and there, wilfully,
unlawfully and feloniously with intent to kill, with evident premeditation,
treachery, in consideration of a price, reward or promise, and taking advantage
of superior strength, attack and employ personal violence upon the
_______________

22 Exhibit “M”, folder of exhibits, p. 29.

23 Records, Vol. I, pp. 2-3.
24 Id., at pp. 4-9.
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Lumanog vs. People
person of COL. ROLANDO ABADILLA y NOLASCO by then and there
shooting the latter with the use of different kinds of firearms, hitting him on the
different parts of his body, thereby causing the instant and immediate cause of
his death, to the damage and prejudice of the heirs of the said COL. ROLANDO
ABADILLA y NOLASCO.
Contrary to law.” 25

When arraigned, all the accused pleaded not guilty to the murder
charge.
In view of the dismissal of the criminal cases for illegal possession of
firearms (P.D. No. 1866) and theft (Criminal Case Nos. Q-96-66679,
Q-96-66680, Q-96-66682 and Q-96-66683),  our discussion of the
26

proceedings before the trial court will be confined to the case for
murder against Fortuna, Lumanog, Joel de Jesus, Rameses de Jesus and
Santos.
 Evidence for the Prosecution
The prosecution presented the testimonies of police officers who
conducted the investigation and follow-up operations up to the actual
apprehension of suspects in the killing of Abadilla: SPO2 Wahab
Magundacan, PO2 Gerardo Daganta, Maj. Edward Villena, P/Insp.
Rogelio Castillo, SPO2 Jose Garcia, Jr., SPO3 Romeo De Guzman,
SPO2 Pio Tarala, Atty. Florimond Rous, P/Sr. Insp. Jose B. Macanas
and P/Insp. Ferdinand Marticio.
The testimonies of P/Insp. Castillo, SPO2 Garcia, SPO2 Tarala, Atty.
Rous and P/Sr. Insp. Macanas were given in court in the light of serious
allegations of torture, forced confessions and violations of
constitutional rights raised by the accused, which were widely reported
in the media and brought before the Commission of Human Rights
(CHR) and eventually to Amnesty International-USA.
_______________

25 Id., at pp. 10-12.

26 Records, Vol. 3, pp. 1014-1020 and 1027.
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6 SUPREME COURT
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ANNOTATED
Lumanog vs. People
P/Insp. Castillo, testifying on cross-examination, admitted that
accused Joel de Jesus was apprehended by members of his squad led by
Lt. Rodolfo on June 19, 1996, but said suspect was not presented to
him until noontime of the next day, June 20, 1996. He did not ask his
men if Joel had been subjected to investigation and if he was, whether
he was assisted by counsel. He explained that there were still then
follow-up operations in which they needed Joel. As for the press
conference wherein Joel was presented together with then Secretary
Barbers and General Recaredo Sarmiento, he learned about it only
later. 27

The witness declared that the constitutional mandate and

requirements under Republic Act (R.A.) No. 7438 had been complied
with because he secured the services of a counsel during the
interrogation of then suspect Joel de Jesus when his sworn statement
was taken on June 20, 1996. He had informed the said suspect of his
right to counsel in the presence of CID personnel and when he brought
him to the office of Atty. Confesor R. Sansano of the Integrated Bar of
the Philippines (IBP) located at the second floor of the Hall of Justice,
Quezon City Hall. Asked why it occurred to him to bring the suspect to
the IBP, the witness replied that he believed IBP was a private, not a
government, institution. He also asked Joel—who was allowed to make
a telephone call, although he was not aware if Joel made any such call
—whether he had his own lawyer. He recalled asking Joel if he was
willing to go with them to the City Hall, because he had asked to secure
the services of counsel. There had been instances when the IBP lawyers
assisted some suspects brought by the CPDC. The CPDC provided the
typewriter and papers to be used and in this case, Atty. Sansano
accommodated them in using the facilities of the IBP Chapter office.
Joel executed his statement, with SPO2 Jose L. Garcia, Jr. propounding
the questions. They started taking his statement at 1:10 p.m. of June
_______________

27 TSN, August 15, 1996, pp. 14, 31-39, 57-62.

65
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Lumanog vs. People
20, 1996 at Room 235, IBP Office, Quezon City Hall of Justice in the
presence of Atty. Sansano and a number of people inside said
office.  He was apprised for the first time about a suspect (Joel) who
28

was just apprehended when he called their office upon arriving home
on the night of June 19, 1996. The information was given to him by the
desk sergeant and thereupon he gave instruction to contact the witness
and include that suspect in a line-up. He then informed their Chief
regarding this development. When he asked for the whereabouts of this
suspect, he was given the reply that the suspect was still with their
squad conducting follow-up operations. 29
 P/Insp. Castillo recounted that he reported to the office at 8:00
o’clock in the morning of June 20, 1996 and Joel was actually
presented to him by Lt. Rodolfo at 10:00 o’clock that same morning, in
the presence of CID men. He told Joel he was being implicated in the
case, to which Joel replied “Sir, lookout lang naman ako, sir.” This
initial questioning of Joel took place at the investigation room of the
CID, where there were other private complainants talking to
investigators, and there were a number of policemen around who were
not in uniform. He advised Joel that he was free to use the telephone,
and although Joel had no relatives present at that time, he warned Joel
that his case was serious and he must seek the services of counsel. He
first thought of the legal assistance provided by the City Attorney, then
that by the Public Attorney’s Office (PAO), and lastly by the IBP.
Between 12:30 and 1:00 p.m., he and his men, together with Joel in a
separate vehicle, left the CID to go to the Quezon City Hall. They
scouted for a lawyer and inquired from the IBP chapter office. They
found Atty. Florimond Rous and the lady counsel at a hearing in a
courtroom. Atty. Rous advised them to wait for Atty. Sansano, who
apparently was the head of the IBP chapter office. He was moving in
and out of the office while the statement of Joel was being taken in the
presence of Atty.
_______________

28 Id., at pp. 46, 64-67, 70-83.

29 Id., at pp. 85-99.
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6 SUPREME COURT
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Lumanog vs. People
Sansano. Before that, Atty. Sansano talked to Joel alone, after which
they were called in again for the taking of the statement at 2:00 p.m.
They left City Hall at past 4:00 or 5:00 that afternoon.
30

SPO2 Garcia, Jr. testified that he was a member of the CID-CPDC

at Camp Karingal. On June 20, 1996 when he reported for duty, he was
assigned by P/Insp. Castillo to take down the statement of Joel de
Jesus. While still inside the office of P/Insp. Castillo, he asked Joel if
his statement was voluntary and what kind of statement he was going to
give. Joel answered that his statement was voluntary and he wanted to
be included as state witness in the Abadilla case. Together with Joel,
SPO2 Tarala and SPO1 Edilberto Nicanor, he took lunch at the back of
their office before proceeding to the Quezon City Hall at around 12:00
o’clock noon, with P/Insp. Castillo who said that Joel’s statement
would be taken infront of a counsel. At the Hall of Justice lobby,
P/Insp. Castillo instructed them to guard Joel as he would look for a
counsel. After more or less 25 to 30 minutes, P/Insp. Castillo came
back and they proceeded to the second floor of the office of the IBP
chapter. They were met by a lady secretary, and afterwards he saw
P/Insp. Castillo talking to a lawyer whom he came to know as Atty.
Rous. It seemed Atty. Rous could not decide on what P/Insp. Castillo
told him and said he (Atty. Rous) would first ask the permission of
Atty. Sansano. They waited for Atty. Sansano, who arrived in about
twenty (20) to twenty-five (25) minutes. Atty. Sansano and P/Insp.
Castillo talked for about five (5) minutes and thereafter, Atty. Sansano
requested them to leave, because he would talk personally to Joel. Atty.
Sansano and Joel talked inside the room for five (5) to ten (10) minutes.
Thereafter, he, P/Insp. Castillo, SPO2 Tarala and SPO1 Edilberto
Nicanor went inside the room and that was the time Atty. Sansano
announced that Joel was ready for the taking of his statement. 31

_______________

30 Id., at pp. 99-122, 125-141, 145-154.

31 TSN, September 24, 1996, pp. 5-28.
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Lumanog vs. People
SPO2 Garcia, Jr. further testified that he took down the statement of
Joel using a typewriter in the office of Atty. Sansano. He brought said
typewriter near the table of Atty. Sansano and a chair to sit on beside
Joel. Joel was seated infront of the desk where Atty. Sansano was
sitting. After completing the taking down of the statement, he gave it to
Joel and asked the latter to read it. Joel read the typewritten statement
and when he finished reading, he gave the same to Atty. Sansano. Atty.
Sansano read all the contents of the document and asked Joel if he
understood it, to which he answered “Yes, sir.” Atty. Sansano then
asked Joel if he was willing to sign the statement, to which the latter
again replied in the affirmative. Joel signed the statement in his
presence and also that of Atty. Sansano, who likewise signed it in his
presence. SPO2 Garcia, Jr. also identified his own signature and that of
SPO1 Nicanor who signed the statement in his presence. From the
office of Atty. Sansano, they proceeded to the fourth floor in the office
of Prosecutor Ramon Gerona before whom Joel subscribed his
statement. After reading the statement, Fiscal Gerona explained to Joel
in Tagalog the consequences of the statement he executed. Joel was
calm and said he was only a lookout in the crime. Earlier, before
propounding questions to Joel at the office of Atty. Sansano, the latter
addressed Joel in Tagalog: “Joel naiintindihan mo na ang mga
itinatanong sa iyo ng mga pulis? Ito ba sarili mo o boluntaryo ba
’tong statement mo na ito hindi ka ba nila tinakot, sinaktan o
anupaman?” While Joel was answering his questions, Atty. Sansano
halted him from typing the answer given by Joel to ask the latter if he
could understand the question propounded to him. The witness was
also asked to identify Joel de Jesus inside the courtroom.
32

On cross-examination, SPO2 Garcia, Jr. affirmed that before the

taking down of the statement, he had explained to Joel the
consequences of his being a state witness, in accor-
_______________

32 Id., at pp. 29-71.

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ANNOTATED
Lumanog vs. People
dance with the instruction of P/Insp. Castillo. He specifically explained
to Joel: “Itong statement na ito ay puwedeng gamitin laban o panig sa
‘yo sa alinmang hukuman dito sa Pilipinas. Ikaw ba ay nakahandang
tumestigo sa mga sasabihin ng tao dito sa statement mo na ito na
magiging laban sa kanila.” Joel told him, “Yes, sir.” P/Insp. Castillo
had told him that Joel was to turn state witness before the latter was
brought to the IBP Office. When P/Insp. Castillo had returned to the
lobby of the Hall of Justice, he told them that the only person present
who would act as Joel’s counsel would be located at the IBP Office,
and Joel would be brought there. It was his first time to meet Atty.
Sansano. As to whether Joel was also assisted by Atty. Rous when he
was investigated on June 21, 1996, the witness said he did not
know.  Regarding the portion of the statement dated June 20, 1996
33

wherein he asked Joel about a pending case against him, which Joel
identified as a rape case, he denied having knowledge of any such
pending case before the taking of the statement. He also did not ask
Joel if he already had a counsel, or if Joel already knew Atty. Sansano.
Another lawyer, Atty. Rous, was actually present when he was taking
Joel’s statement at the office of Atty. Sansano, who was also present
throughout the time he was taking down the statement of Joel. He did
not hear Joel mention the name of another lawyer to Atty. Sansano,
specifically that of Atty. David as suggested by defense counsel.
34

SPO2 Tarala testified that as a member of the PNP Station in

Kamuning, Quezon City, assigned at the CID, he came to investigate
accused Lorenzo delos Santos on June 21, 1996. On that day, after
lunch, he was instructed by P/Insp. Castillo to proceed to the Public
Assistance and Reaction Against Crime (PARAC), Dallas Bldg. in
Tomas Morato Avenue, because one (1) of the suspects in the Abadilla
slaying was apprehended by the PARAC follow-up team and was
supposed to give his statement. So he went there together with SPO1
_______________

33 Id., at pp. 78-97.

34 TSN, September 25, 1996, pp. 93-113, 135-137.
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 Lumanog vs. People
Primo Borito and PO3 Ramil Hatchero. Upon arriving at said office, he
met P/Sr. Insp. Macanas, who called a person he introduced as Lorenzo
delos Santos. Before taking down the statement of Lorenzo, he advised
the latter of his rights under the law, warning that any statement he
would make could be used against him in any court of law, so that he
had the right not to answer any question which to his mind would
incriminate him. Lorenzo responded by saying that he wanted to give a
statement and to be a state witness. When Lorenzo asked if he could
use a telephone at the information table, he said yes. Lorenzo then
called his office because he was a customs broker, and also called up a
relative who was a certain Col. Sala (Col. Milagros Sala), a Quezon
City police official. He told Lorenzo that he should have a lawyer of his
choice during the taking down of his statement. He prodded Lorenzo to
call the lawyer, whom Lorenzo knew to be always at the City Hall.
They then proceeded to the Quezon City Hall to look for that lawyer at
the Office of the City Attorney. However, Lorenzo was not able to find
said lawyer; he asked somebody (a woman) who referred them to the
Hall of Justice. After failing to find the person Lorenzo was looking for
to be his counsel, an old man, a vendor suggested to them to go upstairs
at the IBP Office. The lady secretary of the IBP chapter office
introduced them to Atty. Florimond Rous, who then asked him and his
companions to step out of the room so Atty. Rous could talk to
Lorenzo. Atty. Rous and Lorenzo talked for ten (10) to fifteen (15)
minutes, after which they were called again to enter the office. His two
(2) companions were left outside and he was told by Atty. Rous that he
had already apprised Lorenzo of his rights, but Lorenzo still wanted to
give a statement. 35

Upon the instruction of Atty. Rous, he took down the statement of

Lorenzo, the three (3) of them in one (1) corner of the room while over
at the receiving area there were the secretary 
_______________

35 TSN, October 3, 1996, pp. 23-46; TSN, October 8, 1996, pp. 19-20.
70
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and a lady lawyer. The statement of Lorenzo was in Tagalog,
typewritten in question-and-answer form. Each time after he had asked
a question, Atty. Rous would in turn ask Lorenzo if he wanted to
answer it, and Lorenzo would answer yes. He was at the typewriter, and
the two (2) (Atty. Rous and Lorenzo) were infront of him, seated across
each other. The taking of the statement started at about 3:10 in the
afternoon and was finished in more than one (1) hour. He asked
Lorenzo to read first his statement, and then Atty. Rous read it also.
Next, they went up to the office of Fiscal Refuerzo, but was referred by
the secretary to the inquest fiscal on duty, Fiscal Ben dela Cruz. At his
office, Fiscal dela Cruz asked Lorenzo to stand infront of him and
asked if the statement was voluntarily given by him, if what was
contained therein was true, and if he was ready to swear before him.
Lorenzo answered yes, and the subscribing of his statement before
Fiscal dela Cruz was also witnessed by Atty. Rous. Lorenzo had earlier
36

told him and his companions at the PARAC office that his participation
in the ambush-slay of Abadilla was that of a lookout, and that he was
only forced to join the group because of the threat to his family.
37

SPO2 Tarala admitted that the first time he went to the IBP Office at
the Hall of Justice was on June 20, 1996 when SPO2 Garcia, Jr. took
the statement of Joel de Jesus. Since only SPO2 Garcia, Jr. and Joel
stayed inside the room, he and his companion just walked around. 38

Atty. Rous testified that he was one (1) of the free legal aid counsels
of the Free Legal Aid Committee of the IBP-Quezon City Chapter. One
(1) of their primary duties was to assist indigents in their cases, and
aside from this, they were also tasked to assist the various suspects
during custodial investigations in the various investigations of different
agencies,
_______________

36 TSN, October 3, 1996, pp. 47-68.

37 TSN, October 8, 1996, pp. 38-41.
38 TSN, October 9, 1996, pp. 66-67.
71
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such as the CIS and PNP. He recalled handling at least ten (10) to
fifteen (15) of such custodial investigations. On June 21, 1996, he
assisted a person by the name of Lorenzo delos Santos accompanied by
a police investigator (whose name he could no longer remember) from
the Central Police District, who told him that the said suspect was
willing to make a confession and asked if he could assist him during his
custodial investigation. He identified Lorenzo inside the
courtroom. The police investigator had informed him of the charge
39

against Lorenzo, which was the killing of Abadilla.40

Before the start of the investigation of Lorenzo, Atty. Rous related

that he asked the policeman to leave him and Lorenzo. When the
investigators were gone, he asked Lorenzo to remove his shirt so he
could see if there were any tell-tale marks of any harm or specific mark
upon him. Having satisfied himself that there were no such mark on the
suspect’s body, Atty. Rous began interviewing him. He asked Lorenzo
if he was willing to execute a confession, and Lorenzo answered he was
willing to do so. He then asked Lorenzo if he was willing to have him
as his counsel. Evidently, Lorenzo wanted him to be his counsel during
the custodial investigation for the taking of his statement. Convinced
that Lorenzo was giving his statement without any pressure or force,
they started the investigation proper. The police investigator who
accompanied Lorenzo to their office was the one (1) who had
propounded questions in Tagalog and typed the answers given by
Lorenzo also in Tagalog. He was just within hearing distance and was
present during the entire time of the taking of Lorenzo’s statement.
Afterwards, he let Lorenzo read the typewritten statement, and he asked
Lorenzo if those were the questions given to him and the answers he
had given, to which he replied in the affirmative. He further asked
Lorenzo if he was willing to sign the statement without pressure, and
Lorenzo said he was willing to sign the same. He asked Lorenzo to 
_______________

39 TSN, October 15, 1996, pp. 10-17.

40 Id., at pp. 45-48.
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sign his statement before the office of Prosecutor Ben dela Cruz.
Prosecutor dela Cruz first read the statement and then asked Lorenzo if
he was willing to sign the same, and he answered in the affirmative.
Lorenzo signed the statement in their presence; he and Prosecutor dela
Cruz also signed it. 41

Atty. Rous further testified on cross-examination, that after the police

investigator and Lorenzo had left, a few minutes later, some other
investigators arrived at their office, bringing along Joel de Jesus. This
Joel de Jesus had given a statement the previous day, June 20, 1996,
and he was told that Joel would be giving this time a supplemental
statement. The investigators apprised Joel of his constitutional rights
before the taking down of his statement. He was not sure if Lorenzo
and the police investigator had actually left already, and he could not
remember exactly what transpired at this point. The defense counsel
noted the absence of the word “competent” to qualify the word
“counsel” in the preliminary portion of Lorenzo’s statement. Atty. Rous
described the answers given by Lorenzo as spontaneous, and he did not
recall any hesitancy on the part of the latter. He maintained that he
found no contusions or abrasions on Lorenzo’s body. 42

P/Sr. Insp. Macanas testified that he was then assigned at the

PARAC as its operations officer. They were closely coordinating with
and sharing evidence for case build-up operations with the CPDC in the
investigation of the killing of Abadilla. On June 19, 1996, at around
3:00 o’clock in the afternoon, they were directed to proceed to the
CPDC headquarters in view of an information that a certain suspect
alias “Tabong” was already located while repairing his tricycle
somewhere in Fairview, during which he was identified by an
eyewitness, security guard Alejo who went there with CPDC
operatives. At the time this radio message was received, they were
within the vicinity of Fairview, and the CPDC gave the 
_______________

41 Id., at pp. 17-39.

42 Id., at pp. 100-164.
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signal for them to accost said suspect. He was present when “Tabong,”
who was later identified as Joel de Jesus, was arrested by the joint
elements of the CPDC and PARAC. Joel was turned over to the CID-
CPDC at about past 4:00 p.m. Subsequently, their superior, P/Sr. Supt.
Bartolome Baluyot, informed them of revelations given by Joel, for
which they were called in again for joint follow-up operations. They
brought Joel to Fairview along Ruby St. where Joel’s supposed
companions, namely: one alias “Ram,” Lorenzo delos Santos, Ogie and
one (1) alias “Cesar,” could be found. Joel first pointed to the house of
Ram (Rameses de Jesus), but they did not find him there; instead they
found a man named Cesar Fortuna, whom Joel pointed to infront of
said house. They immediately apprehended Fortuna and identified
themselves. He informed Fortuna that he was being implicated by Joel
in the killing of Col. Abadilla. Fortuna introduced himself as a
policeman assigned with the Traffic Management Command (TMC).
As a standard procedure, they informed Fortuna of his constitutional
rights and then brought him to the CPDC for investigation. At the time,
Fortuna had a gun (caliber .38) tucked in his waist, which they
confiscated. 43

P/Sr. Insp. Macanas further testified that in the course of their follow-
up operations, with information being provided by Joel, they were also
able to arrest another suspect alias “Larry,” whom they met at a dark
alley. Upon being pointed to by Joel, they apprehended Larry who was
later identified as Lorenzo delos Santos, frisked him and found in his
possession a cal .38 Smith and Wesson, for which he could not present
any license or document. They brought Lorenzo to the CID-CPDC. He
identified both Lorenzo and Fortuna inside the courtroom.  On cross-
44

examination, the witness admitted they had no warrant of arrest when

they went to Fairview to locate the suspects, as it was a “hot person”
case ordered by their superior and requiring the immediate arrest of
suspects iden-
_______________

43 TSN, November 12, 1996, pp. 12-45.

44 TSN, November 28, 1996, pp. 3-13.
74
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Lumanog vs. People
tified by witnesses like, in this case, Joel. Joel had admitted to the CID-
CPDC investigators his participation in the Abadilla killing. After
accosting Joel at Camaro St., whom they identified through a
photograph, and before taking him to the CID-CPDC, he informed Joel
that he was identified as one (1) of the suspects in the killing of Col.
Abadilla; that he had a right to remain silent; that anything he will say
could be used against him; he had the right to counsel of his own
choice, and if he could not afford one, the government would provide
him. As to Lorenzo, he was arrested past midnight of June 20, 1996;
they had brought Joel along while moving to locate Lorenzo.  He was 45

just at the back of those operatives who actually arrested Lorenzo. 46

The principal witness for the prosecution was Freddie Alejo, who

testified that as a security guard employed by Provider Security
Agency, he was then assigned at 211 Katipunan Avenue, Blue Ridge,
Quezon City. On June 13, 1996, he reported for duty at 7:00 o’clock in
the morning. By 7:30 a.m., he noticed two (2) men walking back and
forth infront of his post. He was shown by the prosecutor some
photographs taken of the parking area he was then guarding, his guard
post beside the building and the street infront of said building (Exhibits
“G”, “H”, “I” and “J” ). 47
 Alejo recounted that there was a man riding in a black car who was
shot by four (4) persons infront of the building he was guarding. The
car was in the middle lane of the road, and the car’s specific location
was found in one (1) of the photographs (Exhibit “H-4” ). One (1) of
48

the two (2) persons he earlier saw walking back and forth in front of
him pointed a gun at him (the position of said man was marked as
Exhibit “H-5” ). That man was holding a short gun and he told Alejo
49

_______________

45 Id., at pp. 14-36.

46 TSN, December 10, 1996, pp. 25-43.
47 Folder of exhibits, pp. 22-25.
48 Id., at p. 23.
49 Id.
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Lumanog vs. People
to come down (“Baba!”), but he did not budge. He then saw one (1)
of the assailants (No. 1 in Exhibit “H” ), the one (1) standing on the left
50

side of the car (left front door), grab the victim by the neck, get the
clutch bag of the victim inside the car, pull said victim out of the car,
and drop him on the road. He then heard another shot coming from said
attacker (No. 1). Another man (No. 5 in Exhibit “H” ) 51

shouted: “Dapa…walang makikialam!” and the rest of the four (4) men

(marked as Nos. 2, 3 and 4 in Exhibit “H” ) faced him (witness Alejo).
52

Next, the companion of No. 5, who was earlier walking back and forth
infront of him (marked as No. 6 in Exhibit “H” ), pointed a gun at him.
53

This time, he did come down, lowering his body and bowing his head
inside the guardhouse. The witness identified the suspects inside the
courtroom as the persons he saw and marked as No. 5 (Joel de Jesus)
the first one who pointed a gun at him shouting “Baba ka!”; No. 1 who
grabbed the victim, got his clutch bag and pulled him out of the car
(Lenido Lumanog); No. 2 (Rameses de Jesus); No. 6 the second
person who pointed a gun at him (Lorenzo delos Santos); No. 4
(Augusto Santos) and No. 3 who was positioned at the right front door
of the victim’s car (Cesar Fortuna). Nos. 1 and 3 (Lumanog and
Fortuna) were the ones who shot the victim with short firearms, while
No. 2 (Rameses) was just standing and facing the victim with a gun in
his hand, and No. 4 (Augusto) was also just standing facing the driver
and holding a short gun. It was probably less than a minute when the
gunfire stopped, and he stood up at his guard post. The assailants were
no longer in sight and he saw the car’s window shattered. He identified
the victim’s black car as shown in photographs (Exhibits “A-1” to “A-
4” ).
54 55

_______________

50 Id.
51 Id.
52 Id.
53 Id.
54 Folder of exhibits, p. 23.
55 TSN, August 20, 1996, pp. 11-69.
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Lumanog vs. People
Alejo further testified that he was one (1) of those asked by the
policemen who arrived regarding the incident. He was told to go to
Station 8, which was just near the place. At Station 8, another security
guard of an adjacent building was also being investigated. Thereafter,
the police officers brought him to Camp Karingal, along with the other
security guard. 56

On cross-examination, Alejo described his guard post as elevated;

and two (2) arm’s length on the left and right side, there was an alley
just beside the guard post which was at the corner.57 The victim’s car
was infront of the building he was guarding, at a slightly slanted
direction from it (“Lihis po ng konti”). His view was toward the
direction of the front door of the car (rear end). From where he was at
the time, the car was at a distance of more or less ten (10) meters. The
first time one (1) of the suspects pointed a gun at him, he was not
scared. He saw four (4) men standing around the victim’s car, two (2)
on the left side, and two (2) on the right side. He saw only two (2) of
them (the ones at the front left and right sides of the car) shooting at the
car; they were carrying short firearms. One (1) of these two (2) got the
clutch bag (at the left front side of the car), grabbed the victim by the
neck and shot him once before dropping him down the road. Even if he
could not see the gun when that assailant pulled the victim from the car,
he knew that the victim was shot again, because he saw a gun smoke
just beside the left side of the car where the victim was dropped. The
second man who pointed a gun at him shouted “Dapa!” and thereupon
his companions (the ones at the right rear side, left rear side, and front
right side) faced him for less than a minute. Because at that precise
moment the gun was not yet poked at him, he was able to recognize
their faces. When finally the gun was pointed at him, he became
nervous and bowed down his head inside the guard house. The color of
the clutch bag taken from the victim was black. He could see the inside
of the car from his guard post
_______________

56 Id., at pp. 70-75.

77
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Lumanog vs. People
because the car’s glass window was not tinted and, besides, his position
was elevated or higher than the height of the car.  He confirmed the
58

contents of his Sinumpaang Salaysay (Exhibit “L”) before policeman

Edilberto Nicanor on June 13, 1996 taken at the CID-PNP, Camp
Karingal at 1:55 p.m. or barely four (4) hours after the shooting
incident. 59

Alejo further testified on cross-examination that on June 19, 1996 at

around 2:00 o’clock in the afternoon, he was fetched by four (4)
policemen at his agency in Monumento and they told him they were
going to Fairview. Before this, in the afternoon of June 18, 1996, they
showed him a picture of a man wearing eyeglasses, but he told them he
would not point a man in photographs, but would like to see the man in
person. That was the second time he saw Joel de Jesus since the
shooting incident on June 13, 1996. He executed a supplemental
statement on June 21, 1996 when he identified said suspect in a police
line-up. 60

On September 26, 1996, the trial court conducted an ocular

inspection of the place where the shooting incident took place, in the
presence of the prosecutors, defense counsel, Alejo and Maj. Villena.
Alejo was asked to demonstrate his exact location, the relative positions
of the assailants and the victim’s car, and the entire incident he had
witnessed in the morning of June 13, 1996. The Presiding Judge who
took the same position of Alejo in the guardhouse made the following
observations:
COURT:
From this position, the Presiding Judge can see the car very clearly
even if the car would be moved back by another segment of the cement
or even if it is forwarded by another segment also, as segment can
accommodate one car of the likes of Honda Accord and the Court
observes
_______________

57 Id., at pp. 114-120.

58 TSN, August 21, 1996, pp. 27-28, 39-43, 45-60, 71-72, 75-87.
59 TSN, August 29, 1996, pp. 4-10.
60 TSN, September 3, 1996, pp. 10-11, 13-22, 27, 80-82.
78
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Lumanog vs. People
that from the guard post the faces of the persons beside the car are very
clear.
x x x
COURT:
The Court observed that from where the witness Alejo was he can still
see the whole car as it has been moved back per the directive of Major
Villena.
x x x
COURT:
 The Court adds that from the position of the witness, Freddie Alejo, the
Court can still see faces behind the car which can accommodate
another car.
x x x
COURT:
The front right window has been rolled down and also the back right
window of the car have been rolled down with the left front door
opened, the Court can observed the two (2) front seats particularly the
upper portion, meaning the head rest and the back rest, half of the back
rest, all the head rest can be seen.
x x x
INTERPRETER:
(measuring the distance from the guardhouse to the black car).
The measurement from the foot of the guardpost up to the right front
door of the black car is fifteen (15) meters.
x x x
INTERPRETER:
(Measuring the distance between the bodega to the black car)
The measurement from the front portion of the bodega (papaya) to the
side of the black car is 11.8 meters.
x x x79
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Lumanog vs. People
INTERPRETER:
The measurement…the distance from where suspect No. 6 was
standing to the guard house when measured is 7.34 meters, your
Honor.
x x x
INTERPRETER:
The distance from where suspect No. 5 was standing up to the guard
house is 5.17 meters.
x x x
COURT:
After the demonstration while witness Alejo was demonstrating how
[suspect No. 2] got the clutch bag and how [suspect No. 2] grabbed the
neck of the driver of the black car, the Judge was at the guard post and
 saw for himself that [Alejo] clearly saw the taking of the clutch bag
even if the untinted windows were closed and the pulling of the driver
of the black car. 61

P/Insp. Castillo, on re-direct examination testified that Atty.

Sansano actively assisted Joel de Jesus during the time the
latter’s Sinumpaang Salaysay was being taken by SPO2 Garcia, Jr.
There were questions propounded to Joel which Atty. Sansano had told
Joel not to answer, and advice was given by said counsel. They left
Quezon City Hall at about 5:00 o’clock in the afternoon and returned to
the CPDC headquarters. He maintained that all the accused were
brought before the City Prosecutor for inquest proceedings prior to the
filing of the information in court. 62

Susan Samonte-Abadillatestified that their family incurred expenses

for the burial of her husband, repair of the Honda Accord and loss of
the .45 cal gold cup pistol and Omega watch during the shooting of her
husband. She further testified that she was very shocked and saddened
by the
_______________

61 TSN, September 26, 1996, pp. 21-22, 43-44, 46-47, 61-62, 69.
62 TSN, September 17, 1996, pp. 16-21.
80
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Lumanog vs. People
tragic death of her husband. Because she led a practically sheltered life,
it was difficult for her, as it was the older children who were now
taking care of their businesses, which were attended to by her husband
when he was still alive. Three (3) of her eight (8) children were still
studying (Ana, 14; Nico, 13; and BJ, 10), and one had just graduated
last March 1997. 63

Merlito Herbas, in his Karagdagang Salaysay dated June 21, 1996,

identified Joel de Jesus in a police line-up at the CID-CPDC, Camp
Karingal, as one (1) of those men who shot the victim on June 13,
1996. However, not having been presented by the prosecution as
64
witness, he testified for the defense declaring that none of those whom
he saw during the shooting incident was present inside the courtroom.
He produced a list of amounts he had received from Mayor Abadilla,
totaling P30,000.00 in support of his claim that Mayor Abadilla did not
fulfill his promise to give him exactly the same salary he was receiving
as security guard (P6,000.00 monthly only instead of the P8,000.00 he
used to receive as monthly pay), although he admitted having stayed
for free inside the Abadilla compound from July 11, 1996 up to
November 26, 1996. He was later told that he would no longer be
presented as witness because the testimony of Alejo would be
sufficient. 65

Defense Evidence
All the accused raised the defense of alibi, highlighted the negative
findings of ballistic and fingerprint examinations, and further alleged
torture in the hands of police officers and denial of constitutional rights
during custodial investigation.
_______________

63 TSN, September 18, 1996, pp. 28-30, 36-39, 41-55.

64 Exhibit “EE”, folder of exhibits, p. 315.
65 TSN, February 20, 1998,  pp. 58-68, 73-79, 84-85, 91-92, 103-105; Exhibit “48” (“U” for
Prosecution),  folder of exhibits, p. 188.
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P/Insp. Reynaldo D. de Guzman, firearms examiner and Chief of
the Firearms Division of the PNP Crime Laboratory, testified that he
conducted an examination of the slug recovered from the body of Col.
Abadilla, as per request of the CPDC for cross-matching with a bullet
also recovered from the body of another shooting victim, Suseso de
Dios, i.e., whether or not they were fired from one (1) and the same
firearm.66 The result of their microscopic examination was that the
aforesaid bullets were fired from the same firearm. 67
 Dr. Jesse Rey Cruel, medico-legal officer of the CHR, testified that
he examined accused Cesar Fortuna, Rameses de Jesus, Lenido
Lumanog on June 25, 1996 and Lorenzo delos Santos on July 3, 1996.
His findings showed that their bodies bore the following injuries: “(1)
Fortuna—abrasions on forearm, elbow and knee; contusions on chest
area; and incised wounds on the waist and legs68; (2) Rameses—
contusions on chest, abdomen, knee and thigh areas ; (3) Lumanog— 69

contusions on abdomen and lumbar region, and a horizontal lacerated

wound on the forehead70; and (4) Lorenzo—abrasions on the arms,
contusions in thigh and knee, petechia marks (minute hemorrhages)
between chest/abdomen and the penis, discoloration on right arm, and
new scars on left arm, right foot and second toe.”  All said wounds 71

required not more than nine (9) days of medical attendance. The
defense also presented pictures taken at the time of the
examination.  On cross-examination, Dr. Cruel opined that it was
72

possible the
_______________

66 Exhibits “2-F-19” and “2-F-20” and “3”, folder of exhibits, pp. 106-108, 111; TSN, December 10,
1997, pp. 15-27.
67 TSN, December 10, 1997, pp. 40-42; Exhibits “2” to “2-F-14”, folder of exhibits, pp. 102-105.
68 Exhibit “5”, folder of exhibits, p. 112.
69 Exhibit “6”, Id., at p. 113.
70 Exhibit “8”, Id., at p. 116.
71 Exhibit “7”, Id., at p. 114.
72 Exhibits “7-A”, “7-B”, “9-a” to “9-g”, Id. at pp. 115, 117-121; TSN, December 11, 1997, pp. 16-17,
26-149.
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injuries could have been self-inflicted and pointed out that the injury on
the forehead of Lumanog was not complained of. 73

Remedios Dedicatoria, a fingerprint examiner at the PNP Crime

Laboratory testified on the results stated in a Dactyloscopy Report No.
F-086-96 comparison of the latent prints lifted from the Honda Accord
with Plate No. RNA-777, Kia Pride PTZ-401 and Mitsubishi Lancer
car with the standard fingerprints of the accused. The only match was
found in the specimen fingerprint of Rameses de Jesus with respect to
the fragmentary prints lifted from the Mitsubishi Lancer car. None of
the fingerprints of the accused is identical with the latent prints lifted
from the Honda Accord and Kia Pride.  On cross-examination, the
74

witness stated that if a person had touched the car and rubbed it, there
would be no fingerprint that could be lifted therefrom. She also
admitted that no latent print was taken from inside the Honda Accord
nor was there any fingerprint taken of the late Rolando Abadilla (only
two fingerprints were taken from his car). When asked if a person
opened the car holding only the back portion of the handle, the witness
answered that there would likewise be no fingerprint on the outside of
the car. 75

Joel de Jesus testified that on June 19, 1996, at around 3:00 o’clock

in the afternoon, he was at their street corner fixing his tricycle and was
with Arturo Napolitano and Felicisimo Herrera. A van stopped and six
(6) armed men alighted from it, among whom he recognized Antonio
Rodolfo, Pio Tarala and Dario Añasco (whom he came to know when
they charged him with rape on January 17, 1994, from which charge he
was acquitted on June 19, 1996). He even greeted said cops, but they
forced him into the van, and handcuffed and blindfolded the three (3) of
them. They were brought to a certain house where they were boxed,
kicked and slammed on
_______________

73 TSN, December 11, 1997, pp. 174-183.

74 TSN, January 9, 1998, pp. 12-13, 29-43, 92-98.
75 Id., at pp. 119-132.
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the wall. When his blindfold was removed, the police officers were
forcing him to admit that he killed Abadilla. Capt. Rodolfo was also
there and he later identified the rest of those who picked him up as
Romulo Sales, Lt. Castillo, Bartolome Baluyot, Major Reyes and
Cataluña. After he denied having anything to do with the killing, PO2
Tarala tried to suffocate him with a plastic bag. He could not breathe
and lost consciousness. Recounting his ordeal in tears, the witness said
that for one (1) hour his captors repeatedly inserted a plastic bag and
boxed him. A younger looking man then slapped him saying that they
had ambushed his father. While detained, he was only given water to
drink and not allowed to contact his relatives. He was asked to sign by
Lt. Castillo a seven (7)-page document, torturing him if he refused to
do so. There were already other signatures on the edge and every page
of said document (Sinumpaang Salaysay dated June 20, 1996). He
denied the contents of this statement but admitted that he was brought
to the IBP Office, Quezon City Hall. After signing, he heard Lt.
Castillo call somebody saying, “Parating na kami dyan.” He was then
made to board a vehicle and was taken to the Quezon City Hall where a
man wearing barong tagalog was waiting, asking if he was Joel de
Jesus. When Lt. Castillo answered in the affirmative, the man just
signed the document. He denied having met Atty. Confesor Sansano,
nor was he told of his right to the assistance of counsel; he even told
them the name of his lawyer at that time, but they just said, “Mas
marunong ka pa sa amin.” 76

Testifying on cross-examination, Joel insisted that on June 13, 1996,

he went home at around 10:00 o’clock in the evening. He started plying
his route at 6:00 o’clock in the morning; he was hired (inarkila) by a
passenger who asked him to bring her to an albularyo in Roosevelt
Avenue, Novaliches. He admitted this was the first time he mentioned
this, as it was not mentioned in his Affidavits which were prepared by
77

the
_______________

76 TSN, September 9, 1998, pp. 9-32.

77 Exhibits “5” and “6”, folder of exhibits, pp. 112-113.
84
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 Lumanog vs. People
police. Atty. Lupino Lazaro assisted him in filing charges against the
police officers and Atty. Hector Corpuz before the Department of
Justice (DOJ). He admitted that he did not say anything about the
illegality of his arrest and the torture he suffered prior to his
arraignment.  On re-direct examination, he denied having executed
78

the Karagdagang Salaysay dated June 21, 1996 before the IBP lawyer,

because at this time he was still detained in a safehouse where he
remained until June 25, 1996. He was just forced to sign said
document; after signing it, he heard Lt. Castillo say to one (1) Fiscal
Soler, “Fiscal, salamat.” Thereafter, he and the other accused were
presented in a press conference as suspects in the Abadilla slaying
inside Camp Crame. During this time, he pointed to Lorenzo delos
Santos and Augusto Santos, because they were his enemies at their
place. He only pointed to them out of fear that he might be salvaged by
the police and because of the torture. He really did not know Abadilla
nor was he at any time within the vicinity of Katipunan Avenue on June
13, 1996. He knew Rameses de Jesus, being his longtime neighbor, and
also Lumanog who ran for councilor in their place. All he knows was
that his co-accused were picked up from their place, and he saw them
only during the press conference. He affirmed the contents of
the Sinumpaang Salaysay he executed before Police Major (Pol. Maj.)
Escote with the assistance of Atty. Lazaro. 79

Joel admitted that he was the one (1) who pointed out Cesar Fortuna
and Rameses de Jesus to the PARAC investigators. He confirmed that
he was known as “Tabong” in their locality. He also filed a complaint
before the CHR against the same police officers. 80

Cesar Fortuna testified that he was a member of the PNP assigned

at Cagayan de Oro City. He came to Manila on June
_______________

78 TSN, September 9, 1998, pp. 33-43.

79 TSN, August 26, 1998, pp. 40-61.
80 TSN, September 9, 1998, pp. 21-29.
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7, 1996, as he was ordered by his superior, Col. Roberto Sacramento, to
attend to the documents required for reassignment of some of their
companions (as evidenced by a used Super Ferry ticket and an unused
return ticket for June 20, 1996). On June 11, 1996, he went to the PNP
Directorate for Personnel at the office of Insp. Oscar Alcala. However,
on the night of June 19, 1996, he was arrested by PARAC operatives
while he was at the house of an acquaintance, Rameses de Jesus, in
Ruby St., Fairview. He had brought for repair a Ford Maverick Model
’69 registered in the name of Col. Sacramento. At 11:00 o’clock in the
evening, his mechanic road-tested the car, but since he was left alone,
he decided to go to the house of Rameses which was near the shop.
Several armed policemen arrived and entered the house of Rameses.
Not finding Rameses there, they asked him instead to go along with
them. He was made to board an owner-type jeep and immediately
blindfolded. After one (1) hour, they arrived at a place which he was
told was the office of PARAC. Somebody approached him and he felt a
lighter’s flame touch his chin. He then identified himself as a
policeman, but was only told: “Walang pulis pulis dito.” They kept on
asking him where Rameses could be found. Still blindfolded, he led
them to Palmera Subdivision where he knew Rameses had another
house. Upon reaching Palmera, his blindfold was removed, but he was
unable to locate the house until they went home at 5:00 p.m. In the
morning of June 20, 1996, the policemen told him that he was just
confusing them (nililito), but he explained that he had been to that
house only once. The driver of the Honda Civic was already angry at
him and inserted a .45 cal pistol in his mouth. They went back to the
PARAC office, and he was interrogated about the Abadilla killing. He
was informed that he was being implicated as somebody had pointed at
him. When he still denied having any knowledge about the ambush-
slay, he was repeatedly suffocated with a plastic bag placed on his head
while he was handcuffed and blindfolded. After one (1) hour and due to
hardship he suffered, he just told them he would admit whatever it was
they
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wanted him to admit. He said that he acted as a look-out. They had him
copy a prepared sketch and when his blindfold was finally removed,
someone introduced himself as Col. Bartolome Baluyot who told him
he just had to obey and he would not be hurt. Maj. George Reyes
arrived, looked at the sketch and said it was not the place where Col.
Abadilla was ambushed. He was blamed for that fiasco even as he said
it was they who prepared the sketch. After an hour, they returned to
Palmera Subdivision, Novaliches and this was already between 2:00
and 3:00 p.m. After rounding the area, he found the house, but Rameses
was not there. He was made to sit the whole night in the kitchen.
81

Fortuna continued to narrate that on June 21, 1996, he was made to

lie down on a bench covered with a GI sheet and was asked where the
firearm of Col. Abadilla was. When he answered that he really did not
know about it, they electrocuted him and poured cold water on his
body. He told them that if they needed a gun, he had a gun in
Sampaloc, a .45 cal licensed firearm. Thereupon, they asked him to go
to that place where Dante Montevirgen was the gunsmith. Only the
policemen alighted from the vehicle and talked to Montevirgen. He saw
that Montevirgen gave them two (2) firearms, after which they went
back to the PARAC office. On his licensed firearm, he just brought this
for repair on May 10, 1996, saying “ayaw mag-automatic,” while the
other gun belonged to Capt. Regis, and these were covered by receipts.
Next, they asked him about the Rolex watch of Col. Abadilla. When he
denied having any knowledge about it, he was again electrocuted. He
had filed a complaint before the CHR for the injuries inflicted on him
and the violation of his rights. Aside from this case and the charge of
illegal possession of firearms, he was also charged with an
administrative case and a criminal complaint for carnapping (of the
KIA Pride). The carnapping complaint was dismissed by Assistant
Prosecutor Amolin on
_______________

81 TSN, September 16, 1998, pp. 4-30; Exhibits “54” to “58”, folder of exhibits, pp. 205-209.
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September 23, 1996. The Decision issued by P/Sr. Supt. Rodolfo N.
Caisip of the PNP Headquarters Traffic Management Group also
dismissed Administrative Case No. 96-09-03. He insisted that on the
morning of June 13, 1996, he was at Camp Crame following up the
reassignment papers of his colleagues, showing the letter-order issued
by Col. Sacramento. He saw PO3 Ramon Manzano at the Office of the
Directorate for Personnel at about 9:00 o’clock in the morning. He left
said office as soon as he got the folder, signed their logbook, gave it to
SPO4 Mercado of the Office of PNP Personnel Highway Patrol. Then
he went home to eat before proceeding to the Metro Traffic Force,
Central District at the office of Col. Juanito de Guzman at Roces St.,
Quezon City, at around 2:00 o’clock in the afternoon, for the renewal
of the license of Col. Sacramento’s driver.  He also filed with the CHR
82

an administrative complaint against those police officers who had

illegally arrested, detained and tortured him.
Fortuna further testified that PARAC operatives seized his Kawasaki
motorcycle which he had left inside Camp Crame because it had no
fender. However, the certificate of registration was lost since it had
been in custody of the police; the Land Transportation Office (LTO)
registration paper was locked inside, and he forgot what its plate
number was. He admitted that he was able to use said motorcycle in
June 1996 even with the missing fender. He left the motorcycle at Gate
2, Camp Crame before leaving for Cagayan de Oro City; as to his car,
he left it at Pier 2. He admitted that he was the same person charged
with kidnapping and serious illegal detention with ransom in Criminal
Case No. 96-312, which was filed on July 15, 1996 in Mabalacat,
Pampanga against him, Lumanog and Rameses by a certain Dr. Jesusa
dela Cruz. Said case was transferred to the Quezon City RTC in the
same sala of the presiding judge in this case. The filing of this case
destroyed his reputation as a police officer and affected his children,
_______________

82 TSN, September 16, 1998, pp. 31-74; Exhibits “59” to “70-C”, “80”, folder of exhibits, pp. 210-228,
245. 
88
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who stopped going to school. He admitted though that he had once
been dishonorably discharged from the service as a result of an
extortion case filed against him. He had appealed his case and he was
reinstated on August 20, 1983. A memorandum dated June 25, 1996
was issued by Col. Sacramento to attest to his moral character and
loyalty to the service.  He admitted that he never raised the issue of the
83

legality of his arrest or the torture he suffered while in detention, during

his arraignment. When confronted with his sworn statement submitted
to the CHR, he admitted that he did not mention therein the pouring of
cold water on his body, that he was asked to make a sketch of
Katipunan Avenue, that a .45 cal pistol was inserted into his mouth and
that there was no firearm confiscated from him at the time of his arrest.
When he was apprehended on the night of June 19, 1996 at the house of
Rameses at Ruby St., he was half-naked standing outside at the
balcony. He saw someone’s hand, but not the whole body of that
person to whom he was shown that night, and he just heard from the
policemen he had been positively identified. 84

Fortuna’s claim that he was at Camp Crame following up papers in

the morning of June 13, 1996 was corroborated by Oscar Alcala (Chief
Clerk of the Recruitment and Selection Division) and SPO2 Ramon
Manzano (Office of the Directorate for Personnel and Recruitment).
However, Alcala could not present the particular logbook containing
the record of the documents and transaction with Fortuna, as it could
not be located, as it got lost after the office renovation in the early part
of 1997. A xerox copy of the logbook entry was presented in court
(Exhibit “70”).  However, said witness admitted he was not the
85

custodian of the said logbook, and he did not have

_______________

83 TSN, November 17, 1998, pp. 13-18,  24-27, 31-38, 43-69; Exhibits “LL” and “76”, folder of
exhibits,  pp. 326, 234-235.
84 TSN, November 24, 1998, pp. 6-10, 14-16; Exhibit “65”, folder of exhibits, pp. 217-220.
85 TSN, October 21, 1998, pp. 5-13; folder of exhibits, p. 228. 
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personal knowledge of the date and time of the entries in Exhibit
“70”; it was also SPO2 Manzano who xeroxed the said logbook
entry.  Manzano confirmed that he personally saw Fortuna in the
86

morning of June 13, 1996, between 9:00 and 9:30, when Fortuna
retrieved the papers he earlier submitted in May 1996. 87

On further cross-examination, Fortuna admitted that he never told his

lawyer (Atty. Ramonito M. Delfin) when they brought his complaint
before the CHR that he had documents to prove he was at Camp Crame
in the morning of June 13, 1996. He explained that the matter did not
enter his mind because he had no food and no sleep for several days:
“At the time my salaysaywas taken from me, everything was still fresh
and there were so many things that I wanted to say but I was not able to
say because masama pa ang aking pakiramdam.” Neither did he
mention it to Fiscal Refuerzo who interviewed him after the press
conference, as they did not ask him about it.  He had brought up such
88

matter with his lawyer in another case not before the sala of the
presiding judge in this case. 89

Lorenzo delos Santostestified that on June 13, 1996, he left his

house at Fairview and boarded a bus bound for Quiapo. Upon reaching
Quiapo, he heard mass in Quiapo Church until around 8:30 a.m. He
arrived in their office at Binondo on June 13, 1996 at 9:30 a.m. He
remembered going to the office of the Felipe Santos Brokerage in the
same building to check on the date of arrival of a certain shipment.
Thereafter, he went back to his office and stayed there until 2:30 p.m.
He left his place of work about 4:30 in the afternoon and went to a
client who invited him to drink at the house of his brother somewhere
in Quezon City. On June 19, 1996, at
_______________

86 TSN, October 21, 1998, pp. 19-20, 25-33.

87 Id., at pp. 35-37, 47-48.
88 TSN, November 25, 1998, pp. 6-13.
89 Id., at p. 17.
90
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Lumanog vs. People
around 11:00 o’çlock in the evening, several persons suddenly barged
into his house while he and his wife were sleeping. Sgt. Bela
introduced himself, and he was slapped and handcuffed and the house
was searched. They took his .38 cal. revolver which was licensed. He
was blindfolded, made to board a car and taken to a safehouse where he
was tied and tortured (suffocation with plastic bag and electrocution).
He was told that he was pointed to by Joel, but he explained to them
that Joel was his opponent in a court case (for grave threats, physical
injuries and trespassing).  He also answered their questions regarding
90

his co-accused. He told them that he used to see Rameses when he

brings his children to school and came to know Lumanog when he ran
as city councilor, while he did not know Fortuna. After the
interrogation, he was again subjected to torture and he felt weak; this
lasted up to June 21, 1996. On June 21, 1996, he was brought to a
field (bukid) where he was forced to sign a paper. He was then brought
to the Quezon City Hall of Justice at the second floor and instructed
that he should just walk along. There were two (2) women inside aside
from policemen, and he was elbowed by a policeman to sign a
document. He signed it out of fear, and the document was handed by
the policemen to a man who entered the room, whom he later came to
know as Atty. Florimond Rous. He was brought to another floor at the
Fiscal’s Office while he was still limping. Somebody there asked why
he was in that condition, but one (1) of his police companions elbowed
him so he just said it was nothing. A man who was probably the Fiscal
signed the document, and they left at around 5:00 in the
afternoon. Lorenzo admitted he had an owner-type jeep, which was
91

registered in his own name, but said jeep had been mortgaged to Danilo
Lintag since May 27, 1996. 92

_______________

90 Exhibits “6”, “6-A” and “7”, folder of exhibits, pp. 381, 382-384, 405, 406-408.
91 TSN, December 2, 1998, pp. 6-27.
92 TSN, December 9, 1998, pp. 3-6.
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Lorenzo presented as witness Edith Lingan, an employee of Felipe
M. Santos, who corroborated his alibi. 93

Augusto Santos testified that on June 13, 1996 at around 7:00

o’clock in the morning, he accompanied his brother-in-law Jonas
Ayhon whose wife, his sister, gave birth on June 11, 1996 at the Jose
Fabella Hospital at Sta. Cruz, Manila. He stayed there until 2:00
o’clock in the afternoon. On June 26, 1996, five (5) men suddenly
barged into their house. He was hit in the neck with a .45 cal. pistol,
blindfolded and brought outside where he was beaten. They had no
warrant of arrest but were forcing him to admit that Joel de Jesus gave
him big money and that he knew what it was. He told them that he did
not know anything, and that Joel was his enemy, as his Tito Lorenzo
had a quarrel with Joel in which he helped his Tito. He confirmed the
contents of the Sinumpaang Salaysay dated July 3, 1996 which he
executed at Camp Crame, and also presented a copy of the birth
certificate of the baby delivered by his sister at Fabella Hospital. 94

Jonas Padel Ayhon corroborated the foregoing testimony of his

brother-in-law, Augusto “Ogie” Santos, whose half-sister was his
wife. 95
 Rameses de Jesus testified that on June 12, 1996 at 7:00 o’clock in
the evening, he and Lumanog left for Mabalacat, Pampanga on board
the latter’s brand new Mitsubishi Lancer, together with Romeo
Costibollo, Manny dela Rosa and Boni Mandaro. They arrived in
Mabalacat at about 10:00 o’clock in the evening and after resting they
started digging infront of the church, inside the compound of the Tiglao
family, Lumanog’s in-laws. They dug until 4:00 o’clock in the morning
of June 13, 1996. Thereafter, they slept and woke up at around 10:00
o’clock in the morning. They helped in the preparations
_______________

93 TSN, January 28, 1999, pp. 5-10.

94 TSN, January 7, 1999, pp. 4-17;  Exhibits “1”, “2” and  “3”, folder of exhibits,  pp. 398-400.
95 TSN, January 28, 1999, pp. 34-38.
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for the celebration of the wedding anniversary of the Tiglaos. After
eating lunch, they drank liquor. They returned to Manila only on June
14, 1996 at 7:00 p.m.. On June 19, 1996, they went back to Pampanga
and returned to Manila on June 20, 1996. At around 10:00 p.m., they
proceeded to Fairview, Quezon City to visit the sick child of Romeo
Costibollo who was then confined at Fairview Polymedic Hospital.
After Costibollo and Lumanog alighted from their car and while he was
parking infront of the hospital, several armed men came. Two (2) men
approached him from behind and asked him if Costibollo and Lumanog
were his companions. When he replied yes, he was pushed inside the
car; Costibollo and Lumanog were handcuffed. Without any warrant,
they were apprehended, blindfolded and taken to a place where he was
tortured. They were forcing him to admit that he and his companions
killed “Kabise” who was the ex-governor of Ilocos Norte. Despite his
denials they continued to torture him by electrocution and suffocation
with a plastic bag. A policeman arrived with Fortuna, who was asked
how much Ram gave them, to which Fortuna replied “P10,000.00.” He
got mad at Fortuna and cursed him for telling such a lie. After two (2)
days, he was brought to Camp Karingal still blindfolded. He was again
tortured for two (2) days, the policemen forcing him to admit he
participated in the killing of Col. Abadilla. When he could no longer
bear the torture, he finally admitted to Insp. Castillo that he took part in
the Abadilla ambush-slay. When the one (1) interviewing him asked
how he did it, he just said that Fortuna came to his house with an
owner-type jeep and two (2) other persons, and that they rode to Dau,
Pampanga and headed to Tarlac, on their way to Ilocos to kill Abadilla.
Insp. Castillo got angry, saying that he was just fooling them and he
was again hit. 96

Rameses continued to narrate that after two (2) or three (3) days’ stay
at Camp Karingal, he and the other accused were
_______________

96 TSN, March 9, 1999, pp. 2-49.

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presented at a press conference. During the inquest conducted by Fiscal
Refuerzo, he saw Freddie Alejo for the first time, and also his co-
accused Lumanog, Fortuna, Lorenzo, Joel and Augusto. As far as he
knew, they had brought the matter of the torture they suffered in the
hands of policemen to the DOJ. 97

On cross-examination, Rameses was shown a medical certificate

issued by Dr. Servillano B. Ritualo III at the PNP General Hospital,
Camp Crame, but he said he could no longer remember the date he was
examined by said doctor. He confirmed that Fortuna was renting a
room in his house together with his mistress “Baby.” When confronted
with his Sinumpaang Salaysay dated June 26, 1996 he executed before
the CHR, he admitted that there was no mention therein of their
treasure-hunting trip to Pampanga on June 12 to 15, 1996. He said he
was never asked about it. He likewise admitted that he was included in
the kidnapping charge filed in Mabalacat, but asserted that it was
trumped-up (“Ipinatong po sa akin yan ni Col. Baluyot”). 98

The Trial Court’s Verdict

On August 11, 1999, the trial court promulgated a Joint Decision
dated July 30, 1999, the dispositive portion of which reads:
“ACCORDINGLY,  judgment is hereby rendered as follows:
x x x
V. In Criminal Case No. Q-96-66684, for Murder,:
1. Accused Arturo Napolitano yCaburnay is hereby ACQUITTED;
2. Accused SPO2 Cesar Fortuna y Abudo, Rameses de Jesus y Calma,
Leonardo Lumanog y Luistro (a.k.a. Leonido or Lenido), Joel de Jesus yValdez,
and Augusto Santos yGalang are hereby found
_______________

97 TSN, March 18, 1999, pp. 3-10.

98 Id., at pp. 10-20; Exhibits “PP”, “QQ”, “SS” and “TT”, folder of exhibits, pp. 333-342.
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GUILTY beyond reasonable doubt as co-principals of the crime of MURDER as
defined and penalized in the Revised Penal Code for the death of ex-Col.
Rolando Abadilla yNolasco with the aggravating circumstances of treachery
(absorbing abuse of superior strength) and evident premeditation and they are
hereby sentenced to suffer the penalty of DEATH;
3. Accused Lorenzo delos Santos y dela Cruz is hereby ACQUITTED.
On the civil aspect, accused SPO2 Cesar Fortuna y Abudo, Rameses de
Jesus y Calma, Leonardo Lumanog yLuistron (a.k.a. Leonido or Lenido), Joel de
Jesus y Valdez and Augusto Santos y Galang are hereby ordered jointly and
solidarily to pay the heirs of the deceased ex-Col. Rolando Abadilla y Nolasco
the following:
1. As actual damages, the sum of P294,058.86;
2. As indemnity damages, the sum of P50,000.00;
3. As moral damages, the sum of P500,000.00;
4. As exemplary damages, the sum of P500,000.00.
 The firearm, one (1) Smith & Wesson .38 caliber revolver with Serial No.
980974, subject of Case No. Q-96-66680 is hereby ordered returned to Lorenzo
delos Santos ydela Cruz.
The firearm, one (1) Amscor .38 caliber revolver with Serial No. 21907,
subject of Case No. Q-96-66683 is hereby ordered forwarded to the PNP
Firearms and Explosives Division, Camp Crame, Quezon City for safekeeping
in accordance with law and as said firearm belongs and is licensed to accused
Leonardo Lumanog y Luistro (a.k.a. Leonido or Lenido) who has been
sentenced in Case No. Q-96-66684 for Murder, until further orders from this
court.
Costs against the accused.
Let the entire records of these cases be transmitted forthwith to the Honorable
Supreme Court for automatic review, in accordance with law and the Rules of
Court.
SO ORDERED.” 99

The trial court was firmly convinced that the prosecution succeeded
in establishing the identities of accused Joel,
_______________

99 Records, Vol. 3, pp. 1027-1028.

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Rameses, Lumanog, Fortuna and Augusto as the perpetrators in the
fatal shooting of Abadilla in the morning of June 13, 1996. It found that
both security guards Alejo and Herbas confirmed the presence of Joel
de Jesus in the crime scene. However, with respect to the positive
identification of all the five (5) accused, namely, Joel de Jesus,
Rameses de Jesus, Cesar Fortuna, Lenido Lumanog and Augusto
Santos, the trial court gave more credence to the testimony of Alejo
than the declaration on the witness stand of Herbas who had
backtracked on his earlier statement dated June 21, 1996 wherein he
pointed to Joel as one (1) of those participants in the shooting incident.
In doubting the credibility of Herbas, the trial court stressed that
Herbas was obviously disgruntled at the Abadilla family’s failure to
give him the promised salary, and circumstances showed that his need
for job and money colored his perception and attitude in testifying for
the defense. Moreover, despite the impression he had given to the
police and the Abadilla family that he could identify the four (4)
persons who surrounded Col. Abadilla’s car, Herbas could not have
really been able to recognize the faces of the ambushers for three (3)
reasons: (1) he was on the ground when he turned his head (lumingon)
towards where the gunshots were being fired and quite a lot of vehicles
in traffic stopped at the time; (2) the whole incident, as far as Herbas
observed, happened in seconds only; and (3) Herbas was three (3)
Meralco posts away from the ambush site. All these factors combined,
according to the trial court, could not have given Herbas enough time
and opportunity to clearly see those who ambushed Abadilla, and hence
he was really a poor and inadequate witness either for the prosecution
or the defense. 100

Compared to Herbas, the trial court found the eyewitness testimony

of Alejo more credible due to his elevated position at his guard post and
the fact that the ambush had taken
_______________

100 CA Rollo, Vol. II, p. 1021.

96
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place before his very eyes, so near that one (1) of the conspirators had
to order him to lie flat (which obviously he could not do because of the
narrow space inside his guard house), and which appeared to be the
reason why a second order came for him to get down from the guard
house, to which he nervously complied. From his vantage point, Alejo
sufficiently and in a detailed manner recognized the relative positions
and participations of the ambushers, each of whom he had identified as
Rameses, Fortuna, Lumanog, Augusto and Joel, both in the police line-
up and again inside the courtroom during the trial.
101
 The trial court also found that the statements of Joel, in which he
admitted his participation in the crime assisted by Atty. Sansano and in
the presence of the IBP personnel and police investigators, were not
flawed by intimidation or violence when obtained and sworn to before
the fiscal. The common defense of alibi put up by all the accused was
rejected by the trial court, holding that (1) the alleged treasure-hunting
trip made by Lumanog and Rameses was incredible and unpersuasive,
as it was contrary to ordinary human experience; (2) Fortuna’s claim
was weak, the logbook entry on his supposed transaction in the Office
of the Directorate for Personnel and Recruitment at Camp Crame was a
mere photocopy, and also, as in the case of Rameses, he never
mentioned such digging activity in Pampanga in the sworn complaint
he had filed before the CHR; (3) Augusto’s alibi was supported only by
his brother-in-law, and it was simply not usual for menfolk, instead of
women, in our family culture, to fetch a woman who had just given
birth at the hospital, aside from the observation that Augusto could
have gone straight to Fabella Hospital in Sta. Cruz, Manila instead of
going first to Buendia, Makati before 7:00 a.m. to fetch his brother-in-
law. With respect to Lumanog, the trial court pointed out that his
silence and failure to testify in court, despite the evidence implicating  
_______________

101 Id., at pp. 1022.

97
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him in the murder of Abadilla, justified an inference that he was not
innocent. 102

On August 25, 1999, Lumanog filed a motion for

reconsideration.  On September 2, 1999, Joel filed a motion for new
103

trial based on newly discovered evidence to present two witnesses,

Merevic S. Torrefranca and Rosemarie P. Caguioa, who offered to
testify on the whereabouts of Joel on the day of the incident. Lumanog
104 

likewise filed a motion for new trial for the presentation of a new
witness, who was allegedly on board a taxi immediately behind
Abadilla’s car, and who clearly saw that those who perpetrated the
gruesome crime were not the accused.  In his Supplement to the
105

Motion for Reconsideration, Lumanog assailed the inconsistencies in

the declarations of Alejo, and the non-presentation of eyewitnesses
Minella Alarcon and Metro Aide Aurora Urbano. In addition, Lumanog
pointed to well-publicized statements of the Alex Boncayao Brigade
(ABB), which claimed responsibility for the killing of Abadilla, but the
investigation got sidetracked by another angle—that a political rival of
Abadilla paid money for a contract assassination. He contended that the
police opted for the path of least resistance by rounding up the usual
suspects, indeed another glaring example of our law enforcers’ strategy
of instituting trumped-up charges against innocent people just to
comply with their superior’s directive to accelerate solving an ambush-
slay case.  In additional pleadings filed by his new counsel, Lumanog
106

reiterated the ABB’s assassination theory in the light of more recent

press statements issued by said group describing the accused as mere
fall guys of the police to project an image of efficiency.
107

_______________

102 Id., at pp. 1024-1025.

103 Records, Vol. 4, pp. 1039-1049.
104 Id., at pp. 1050-1056.
105 Id., at pp. 1099-1103.
106 Id., at pp. 1183-1201.
107 Id., at pp. 1215-1228, 1248-1269.
98
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On January 25, 2000, the trial court issued an Order ruling on the
pending motions:
“WHEREFORE, premises considered, the court resolves:
1. to DENY the Motion for Reconsideration by accused Lenido
Lumanog;
2. to DENY the Motion for New Trial by accused Joel de Jesus;
 3. to consider the Motion for New Trial by accused Lenido
Lumanog as abandoned and/or withdrawn;
4. to DENY the Supplement to the Motion for Reconsideration by
accused Lenido Lumanog as well as his addendum thereto and his
Manifestation and Motion dated December 15, 1999 to allow him
to introduce additional evidence in support of his Supplement to
the Motion for Reconsideration;
5. to DENY the Manifestation and Submission dated December 14,
1999 by accused Lenido Lumanog;
6. and to ORDER the immediate transmittal of the records of these
cases to the Honorable Supreme Court for automatic review
pursuant to law, the Rules of Court and the Joint Decision of this
court dated July 30, 1999.
SO ORDERED.” 108

On January 19, 2000, Fr. Roberto P. Reyes, parish priest of the Parish
of the Holy Sacrifice, University of the Philippines at Diliman, Quezon
City, assisted by Atty. Neri J. Colmenares, filed an “Urgent
Independent Motion for Leave of Court to Present Vital Evidence.” Fr.
Reyes claimed that an ABB personality came to him confessing that the
ABB was responsible for the killing of Abadilla and gave him an object
(Omega gold wristwatch) taken from said victim, which can be
presented as evidence in this case to prove the innocence of the accused
_______________ 

108 Id., at p. 1320.
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who were erroneously convicted by the trial court and save them from
the penalty of death. 109

After due hearing, the trial court denied the said motion of Fr. Reyes,
holding that the latter’s proposed testimony could not be considered an
exception to the hearsay rule, considering that: (1) it cannot be said that
the person who allegedly approached Fr. Reyes was unable to testify, as
said person was simply unwilling to face in a court of law the legal
consequences of whatever admissions he made to Fr. Reyes; (2) the
alleged admission was made long after trial had ended and long after
the court had promulgated its decision, at which time the public and
persons interested in the outcome of the case knew already what were
the court’s findings and conclusions of fact; and (3) going by the
advertised image of the ABB as an ideologically motivated group that
would shoot to death public officers and private individuals perceived
by its ranking cadres as corrupt, the court found it hard to believe that
ABB gunman would in full view of idealist comrades and everybody
else, would open Abadilla’s car and steal that watch, and remain
unscathed for his unproletarian act by his peers in the
organization.  The trial court, however, ordered that the Omega
110

wristwatch allegedly belonging to the late Col. Abadilla, the copy of

the motion for leave to present vital evidence and the transcript of the
proceedings on January 26, 2000 be attached to the records of the case
as part of the offer of proof of the defense.
Two (2) more pleadings were filed by Lumanog’s counsel just before
the records of Criminal Case No. Q-96-66684 were transmitted to this
Court for automatic review, namely, a Final Submission to This Court
dated February 8, 2000, together with an attached copy of the letter of
Lt. Gen. Jose M. Calimlim of the Armed Forces of the Philippines
(AFP) Intelligence Service regarding an unsuccessful operation of the
_______________

109 Id., at pp. 1270-1273.

110 Id., at pp. 1355-1362.
100
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ABB to kill Col. Abadilla, and Final Manifestation to This Court dated
February 9, 2000. 111

Lumanog challenged before this Court the validity of the Orders

dated January 25, 26, and 28, 2000 allegedly issued with grave abuse of
discretion on the part of the trial judge who thereby denied the accused
the opportunity to introduce evidence on the alleged role of the ABB in
the ambush-slay of Col. Abadilla. On September 7, 2001, we denied his
petition for certiorari in G.R. No. 142065, as we thus held:
112

“A perusal of the pieces of evidence, except the Omega wristwatch, which are
sought to be presented by the petitioners in a new trial are not newly discovered
evidence because they were either available and could have been presented by
the defense during the trial of the case with the exercise of due diligence, such as
the alleged newspaper reports and AFP/PNP intelligence materials on Col.
Abadilla. The wristwatch allegedly belonging to the late Col. Abadilla is
immaterial to the case of murder while the testimony of F. Roberto Reyes on the
turn over of the said wristwatch by an alleged member of the ABB who
purportedly knows certain facts about the killing of Col. Abadilla would be
hearsay without the testimony in court of the said alleged member of the ABB.
The document which granted amnesty to Wilfredo Batongbakal is irrelevant to
the killing of Col. Abadilla inasmuch as Batongbakal does not appear privy to
the actual commission of the crime of murder in the case at bar. If at all, those
pieces of additional evidence will at most be merely corroborative to the defense
of alibi and denial of herein petitioners. Petitioners’ alternative prayer that this
Court “itself conduct hearings and receive evidence on the ABB angle” is not
well taken for the reason that the Supreme Court is not a trier of facts.”
113

Accused-petitioner’s motion for reconsideration of the above

decision was denied with finality on November 20, 2001.  On 114

September 17, 2002, this Court likewise denied for lack of

_______________

111 Id., at pp. 1365-1371.

112 Lumanog v. Salazar, Jr., 364 SCRA 719.
113 Id., at pp. 725-726.
114 CA Rollo, Vol. I, pp. 244-245.
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Lumanog vs. People
merit the motion for new trial and related relief dated April 26, 2002
filed by counsel for said accused-petitioner. 115
 Pursuant to our decision in People v. Mateo,  this case was
116

transferred to the Court of Appeals for intermediate review on January

18, 2005. 117

Ruling of the CA
On April 1, 2008, the CA rendered the assailed decision, thus:
“WHEREFORE, in the light of the foregoing, the impugned decision is
AFFIRMED with the MODIFICATION that the accused-appellants are
sentenced each to suffer reclusion perpetua without the benefit of parole.
In all other respects, the lower court’s decision is AFFIRMED.
Costs against appellants.
SO ORDERED.” 118

The CA upheld the conviction of the accused-appellants based on the

credible eyewitness testimony of Alejo, who vividly recounted before
the trial court their respective positions and participation in the fatal
shooting of Abadilla, having been able to witness closely how they
committed the crime. On the sufficiency of prosecution evidence to
establish appellants’ guilt beyond reasonable doubt and the scant
weight of their defense of alibi, as well as the allegations of torture and
intimidation in the hands of the police investigator and negative results
of ballistic and fingerprint tests, the CA ruled as follows:
“Despite a lengthy and exhaustive cross-examination by the defense counsel,
eyewitness Alejo stuck to the essentials of his story,
_______________

115 Id., at p. 388.
116 G.R. Nos. 147678-87, July 7, 2004, 433 SCRA 640.
117 CA Rollo, Vol. II, pp. 1583-1584.
118 Id., at p. 1797.
102
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Lumanog vs. People
including the identification of the persons who killed Col. Abadilla. He was only
ten (10) meters away from the locus crimini. Standing on an elevated
guardhouse, he had a close and unobstructed view of the whole incident. He was
in a vantage position to clearly recognize Col. Abadilla’s assailants, more so
because the crime happened in clear and broad daylight.
Even standing alone, Alejo’s positive and unequivocal declaration is
sufficient to support a conviction for murder against appellants. Indeed, the
testimony of a single witness, when positive and credible, is sufficient to support
a conviction even for murder. For there is no law requiring that the testimony of
a simple [sic] witness should be corroborated for it to be accorded full faith and
credit. The credible testimony of a lone witness(es) assumes more weight when
there is no showing that he was actuated by improper motive to testify falsely
against the accused, as in the case of Freddie Alejo.
x x x
…appellants failed to prove that it was physically impossible for them to be at
the locus delicti or within its immediate vicinity at the time the crime was
committed.
In the case of Joel de Jesus, he maintains that he was driving his tricycle on a
special chartered trip for a passenger going to Roosevelt, Novalichez, Quezon
City. But, it was not impossible for him to have also gone to Katipunan Avenue,
which is also part of Quezon City; not to mention the fact that with his tricycle,
he could have easily moved from one place to another.
The testimonies of Rameses de Jesus and Leonido Lumanog that they were
treasure hunting in Mabalacat, Pampanga on the day in question, lack credence
as they are unsupported by the testimonies of independent witnesses. At any
rate, Rameses de Jesus admitted that they were using the new car of Leonido
Lumanog. Hence, it was not physically impossible for them to travel to Quezon
City via the North Expressway at the time the crime took place.
Augusto claims that he was at the Fabella Hospital in Sta. Cruz, Manila, and
his alibi was corroborated by his brother-in-law, Jonas Padel Ayhon, who is not
an impartial witness. Where nothing supports the alibi except the testimony of a
relative, it deserves scant consideration.
x x x103
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Lumanog vs. People
Finally, Cesar Fortuna claims that he was in Camp Crame on the day the
murder took place. But it was not impossible for him to have gone to Katipunan
Road, Blue Ridge, which is relatively near Camp Crame when the shooting
happened around 8:40 in the morning. After the shooting, he could have easily
and quickly transferred to Camp Crame between 9:00 and 9:30 in the morning
of the same day.
In any event, appellants’ alibis were belied by the positive identification made
by prosecution eyewitness Freddie Alejo.
x x x
Further, appellants’ allegations that the police authorities maltreated them,
and forcibly extracted their extrajudicial confessions do not exculpate them from
criminal liability. For one, their conviction was not based on their extrajudicial
confessions, but on their positive identification of Freddie Alejo as the authors
of the crime. Such positive identification is totally independent of their extra-
judicial confessions. For another, the Constitutional guarantees contained in the
Bill of Rights cannot be used as a shield whereby a person guilty of a crime may
escape punishment. Thus, the Supreme Court in Draculan vs. Donato, held:
“x x x. Pangalawa, ang mga karapatan ng mga mamamayan na natatala sa
Saligang Batas (sa Bill of Rights) ay hindi mga paraan upang ang isang
tunay na may pagkakasala na labag sa batas, ay makaligtas sa nararapat na
pagdurusa. Ang tunay na layunin ng mga tadhanang iyon ng Saligang Batas
ay walang iba kundi tiyakin na sinumang nililitis ay magkaroon ng sapat na
pagkakataon at paraan na maipagtanggol ang sarili, bukod sa pagbabawal
ng pagtanggap ng katibayan (evidence) laban sa kanya na bunga ng
pagpipilit, dahas at iba pang paraang labag sa kanyang kalooban.”
To repeat, assuming that appellants’ allegations of torture were true, the same
do not exculpate them from liability for the crime which the People had
adequately established by independent evidence, neither was their claim that the
results of the ballistics test purportedly showing that the bullets and bullet shells
found in the crime scene did not match with any of the firearms supposedly in
their possession. But these ballistic results are inconclusive and can never
prevail over appellants’ positive identification by eyewitness Freddie Alejo as
the persons who perpetrated the ambush-slay of
104
10 SUPREME
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ANNOTATED
Lumanog vs. People
Col. Abadilla. Besides, there is no showing that the firearms supposedly found
in appellants’ possession long after the incident were the same ones they used in
the ambush-slay.” 119
 In its Resolution  dated October 28, 2008, the CA denied the
120

motions for reconsideration respectively filed by Fortuna and Joel de

Jesus. 121

Rameses de Jesus and Joel de Jesus filed notices of appeal (G.R. No.
122

187745), while Fortuna (G.R. No. 185123), and Lumanog and Augusto
Santos (G.R. No. 182555) filed their respective petitions for review. On
August 6, 2009, G.R. No. 187745 was ordered consolidated with the
already consolidated petitions in G.R. Nos. 182555 and 185123. In 123

view of the judgment of the CA imposing the penalty of reclusion

perpetua, said petitions for review are treated as appeals, in accordance
with A.M. No. 00-5-03-SC (Amendments to the Revised Rules of
Criminal Procedure to Govern Death Penalty Cases)  which provides
124

under Rule 124 (c):

(c) In cases where the Court of Appeals imposes reclusion perpetua, life
imprisonment or a lesser penalty, it shall render and enter judgment imposing
such penalty. The judgment may be appealed to the Supreme Court by notice of
appeal filed with the Court of Appeals.

Appellants’ Arguments
Lenido Lumanog and Augusto Santos set forth the following
arguments in their memorandum, which basically reflect 
119 Id., at pp. 1792-1795.
120 Penned by Associate Justice Celia C. Librea-Leagogo and
concurred in by Associate Justices Regalado E. Maambong and Romeo
F. Barza.
121 CA Rollo, Vol. II, pp. 2027-2028.
122 Id., at pp. 2036-2037, 2046-2047.
123 Rollo (G.R. No. 187745), pp. 40-48.
124 Effective October 15, 2004.
 
105
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Lumanog vs. People
 the same issues raised by appellants in the memorandum filed in G.R.
No. 182555:
1. The Court of Appeals did not make a real and honest review of
the appealed case. There was a failure of appellate review,
rendering its decision void.
2. The affirmation of the conviction over-relies on the testimony of
one alleged eyewitness, Freddie Alejo.
3. The affirmation of the conviction misappreciates the alibi
evidence for the defense.
4. The affirmation of conviction gravely erred when it unduly
disregarded other pieces of vital evidence.
5. The penalty imposed by the Court of Appeals is
unconstitutional.125
On his part, Fortuna alleges that: 
I. The Honorable Court of Appeals committed serious error and
gravely abused its discretion when it affirmed the conviction of the
petitioner and his co-accused based solely on the incredible and
contradicted eyewitness account of Security Guard (S/G) Alejo.
II. The Honorable Court of Appeals seriously erred and gravely
abused its discretion in not considering the defense of petitioner
herein despite the weakness of the evidence of the prosecution.
III. The Honorable Court seriously erred in favoring the
prosecution on the ballistic test showing that the bullets and bullet
shells found in the crime scene did not match with any firearms
supposedly in petitioner’s possession; evidence which was
supposed to support the theory of the prosecution. When such
physical evidence did not favor the prosecution’s theory the same
was still taken against the petitioner.
125 Rollo (G.R. No. 182555), p. 285.
 
106
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Lumanog vs. People
 IV. The Honorable Court of Appeals seriously erred in disregarding
allegations and proof of torture and maltreatment by police officers
against the petitioner in affirming his conviction.  
126

Appellants assail the wholesale adoption, if not verbatim copying, by

the CA of the factual narration, as well as the arguments for and
disposition of the merits of the case from the Consolidated Brief for the
Appellees, which in turn is based on the memorandum submitted by the
private prosecutors to the trial court. This anomaly, according to the
appellants, which was aggravated by the insufficient findings of fact
and absence of actual discussion of the assignment of errors raised by
each appellant before the CA, resulted in the failure of intermediate
review without any independent findings and resolution of important
issues of the case, thus rendering the CA decision void. Hence,
appellants seek not just to overturn or reverse the CA decision but also
to declare it null and void, by way of “radical relief” from this Court.
On the merits, appellants principally contend that the CA gravely
erred in its over-reliance on the problematic identification provided by
the prosecution’s lone eyewitness, security guard Alejo. The CA
simply did not rule on questions concerning the credibility of said
eyewitness through the “totality of circumstances” test. They also fault
the CA for misappreciating their common defense of alibi, thus
disregarding exculpatory documentary evidence including negative
results of ballistic and fingerprint examinations, and evidence of torture
which appellants had suffered in the hands of police investigators.
Equally deplorable is the trial and appellate courts’ refusal to admit
evidence coming from underground revolutionary forces, in particular
the ABB which claimed responsibility for the killing of Col. Abadilla, a
notorious military henchman during the martial law era. Appellants
maintain that violations of constitutional rights have been held as a
126 Rollo (G.R. No. 185123), pp. 30, 41-42 and 44.
 
107
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 Lumanog vs. People
ground for acquittal or dismissal in certain cases. In one (1) case, the
long delay in the termination of preliminary investigation was found to
be violative of the accused’s constitutional rights to procedural due
process and speedy disposition of cases and was cause for the dismissal
of the case by this Court as a matter of “radical relief.”
Finally, the appellants argue that the penalty of reclusion
perpetua “without the benefit of parole” meted by the CA pursuant to
Sec. 3 of R.A. No. 9346 is unconstitutional. Article III, Section 19 (1)
of the 1987 Constitution provides that “any death penalty imposed shall
be reduced to reclusion perpetua.” There is no mention of “without the
benefit of parole” or “shall not be eligible for parole” therein.
Appellants contend that the questioned provisions of R.A. No. 9346
constitute encroachments or dilutions of the President’s broad, if not
near absolute, constitutional power of executive clemency, based not
only on Article VII, Sec. 19, but also on constitutional tradition and
jurisprudence. Although the said section does not explicitly mention
“parole” as a form of executive clemency, constitutional tradition and
jurisprudence indicate it to be such. In Tesoro v. Director of
Prisons,  for instance, it was held that the power to pardon given to the
127

President by theConstitution includes the power to grant and revoke

paroles. The aforesaid provision of R.A. No. 9346 also inflicts an
inhuman punishment, which is prohibited by the Constitution, and also
violates the equal protection clause of the Bill of Rights.
Our Ruling
Once again, this Court upholds the constitutional mandate protecting
the rights of persons under custodial investigation. But while we strike
down the extrajudicial confession extracted in violation of
constitutionally enshrined rights and
127 68 Phil. 154 (1939).
 
108
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Lumanog vs. People
declare it inadmissible in evidence, appellants are not entitled to an
acquittal because their conviction was not based on the evidence
obtained during such custodial investigation. Even without the
extrajudicial confession of appellant Joel de Jesus who was the first to
have been arrested, the trial court’s judgment is affirmed, as the
testimonial and documentary evidence on record have established the
guilt of appellants beyond reasonable doubt.
CA Decision meets the
Constitutional standard
The Constitution commands that “[n]o decision shall be rendered by
any court without expressing therein clearly and distinctly the facts and
the law on which it is based.”  Judges are expected to make complete
128

findings of fact in their decisions and scrutinize closely the legal

aspects of the case in the light of the evidence presented. They should
avoid the tendency to generalize and form conclusions without
detailing the facts from which such conclusions are deduced. 129

Section 2, Rule 120 of the 1985 Rules on Criminal Procedure, as

amended, likewise provides:
“Sec. 2. Form and contents of judgments.—The judgment must be written
in the official language, personally and directly prepared by the judge and signed
by him and shall contain clearly and distinctly a statement of the facts proved
or admitted by the accused and the law upon which the judgment is based.
x x x  x x x  x x x.”  [EMPHASIS SUPPLIED.]
We have sustained decisions of lower courts as having substantially
or sufficiently complied with the constitutional injunction,
notwithstanding the laconic and terse manner in
_______________

128 Art. VIII, Sec. 14, 1987 Constitution.

129 Velarde v. Social Justice Society, G.R. No. 159357, April 28, 2004, 428 SCRA 283, 305, citing
Administrative Circular No. 1 issued on January 28, 1988.
109
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which they were written; and even if “there (was left) much to be
desired in terms of (their) clarity, coherence and comprehensibility,”
provided that they eventually set out the facts and the law on which
they were based, as when they stated the legal qualifications of the
offense constituted by the facts proved, the modifying circumstances,
the participation of the accused, the penalty imposed and the civil
liability; or discussed the facts comprising the elements of the offense
that was charged in the information, and accordingly rendered a verdict
and imposed the corresponding penalty; or quoted the facts narrated in
the prosecution’s memorandum, but made their own findings and
assessment of evidence, before finally agreeing with the prosecution’s
evaluation of the case. 130

In the same vein, we have expressed concern over the possible denial
of due process when an appellate court failed to provide the appeal the
attention it rightfully deserved, thus depriving the appellant of a fair
opportunity to be heard by a fair and responsible magistrate. This
situation becomes more ominous in criminal cases, as in this case,
where not only property rights are at stake but also the liberty if not the
life of a human being. The parties to a litigation should be informed of
131

how it was decided, with an explanation of the factual and legal reasons
that led to the conclusions of the trial court. The losing party is entitled
to know why he lost, so he may appeal to the higher court, if permitted,
should he believe that the decision should be reversed. A decision that
does not clearly and distinctly state the facts and the law on which it is
based leaves the parties in the dark as to how it was reached
_______________

130 Yao v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 132428, October 24, 2000, 344 SCRA 202, 215-216,
citing People v. Bongbahoy, G.R. No. 124097, June 17, 1999, 308 SCRA 383, People v. Landicho, G.R.
No. 116600, July 3, 1996, 258 SCRA 1, 26, People v. Sadiosa, G.R. No. 107084, May 15, 1998, 290 SCRA
92, 107 and People v. Gastador, G.R. No. 123727, April 14, 1999, 305 SCRA 659, 670.
131 See Yao v. Court of Appeals, supraat p. 218, citing Romero v. Court of Appeals, No. L-59606,
January 8, 1987,147 SCRA 183.
110
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and is precisely prejudicial to the losing party, who is unable to
pinpoint the possible errors of the court for review by a higher
tribunal. 132

In Bank of the Philippine Islands v. Leobrera,  we held that though it

133

is not a good practice, we see nothing illegal in the act of the trial court
completely copying the memorandum submitted by a party, provided
that the decision clearly and distinctly states sufficient findings of fact
and the law on which they are based. In another case where we upheld
134

the validity of memorandum decisions, we nevertheless took occasion

to remind judges that it is still desirable for an appellate judge to
endeavor to make the issues clearer and use his own perceptiveness in
unraveling the rollo and his own discernment in discovering the law.
No less importantly, he must use his own language in laying down his
judgment. 135

Perusing the CA decision, we hold that it cannot be deemed

constitutionally infirm, as it clearly stated the facts and law on which
the ruling was based, and while it did not specifically address each and
every assigned error raised by appellants, it cannot be said that the
appellants were left in the dark as to how the CA reached its ruling
affirming the trial court’s judgment of conviction. The principal
arguments raised in their Memorandum submitted before this Court
actually referred to the main points of the CA rulings, such as the
alleged sufficiency of prosecution evidence, their common defense
of alibi, allegations of torture, probative value of ballistic and
fingerprint test results, circumstances qualifying 
_______________

132 Yao v. Court of Appeals, supra at p. 219.

133 G.R. No. 137147, January 29, 2002, 375 SCRA 81.
134 Id., at p. 86, citing Hernandez v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 104874, December 14, 1993, 228
SCRA 429, 435 and Valdez v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 85082, February 25, 1991, 194 SCRA 360.
135 See Francisco v. Permskul, G.R. No. 81006, May 12, 1989, 173 SCRA 324, cited in ABD Overseas
Manpower Corporation v. National Labor Relations Commission, G.R. No. 117056, February 24, 1998,
286 SCRA 454, 463.
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the offense and modification of penalty imposed by the trial court.
What appellants essentially assail is the verbatim copying by the CA of
not only the facts narrated, but also the arguments and discussion
including the legal authorities, in disposing of the appeal. On such
wholesale adoption of the Office of the Solicitor General’s position, as
well as the trial court’s insufficient findings of fact, appellants anchor
their claim of failure of intermediate review by the CA.
We now proceed to the other substantive issues presented by
appellants.
Rights of Accused During
Custodial Investigation
The rights of persons under custodial investigation are enshrined in
Article III, Section 12 of the 1987 Constitution, which provides:
“Sec. 12 (1) Any person under investigation for the commission of an
offense shall have the right to be informed of his right to remain silent and to
have competent and independent counsel preferably of his own choice. If the
person cannot afford the services of counsel, he must be provided with one.
These rights cannot be waived except in writing and in the presence of counsel.
(2) No torture, force, violence, threat, intimidation or any other means
which vitiate the free will shall be used against him. Secret detention places,
solitary, incommunicado, or other similar forms of detention are prohibited.
(3)  Any confession or admission obtained in violation of this or section 17
hereof (right against self-incrimination) shall be inadmissible in evidence against
him.
(4) The law shall provide for penal and civil sanctions for violation of this
section as well as compensation for the rehabilitation of victims of tortures or
similar practices, and their families.” [EMPHASIS SUPPLIED.]
Extrajudicial Confession
of Joel de Jesus Not Valid
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Custodial investigation refers to the critical pre-trial stage when the
investigation is no longer a general inquiry into an unsolved crime, but
has begun to focus on a particular person as a suspect.  Police officers 136

claimed that appellants were apprehended as a result of “hot pursuit”

activities on the days following the ambush-slay of Abadilla. There is
no question, however, that when appellants were arrested they were
already considered suspects: Joel was pinpointed by security guard
Alejo who went along with the PARAC squad to Fairview on June 19,
1996, while the rest of appellants were taken by the same operatives in
follow-up operations after Joel provided them with the identities of his
conspirators and where they could be found.R.A. No. 7438, approved 137

on May 15, 1992, has reinforced the constitutional mandate protecting

the rights of persons under custodial investigation. The pertinent
provisions read:
“SEC. 2. Rights of Persons Arrested, Detained or under Custodial
Investigation; Duties of Public Officers.—
a. Any person arrested, detained or under custodial investigation shall at all
times be assisted by counsel.
b. Any public officer or employee, or anyone acting under his order or his
place, who arrests, detains or investigates any person for the commission of
an offense shall inform the latter, in a language known to and understood by
him, of his rights to remain silent and to have competent and independent
counsel, preferably of his own choice, who shall at all times be allowed to
confer private with the person arrested, detained or under custodial inves-
_______________

136 People v. Rodriguez, G.R. No. 129211, October 2, 2000, 341 SCRA 645, 654, citing People v.
Domantay,  G.R. No. 130612, May 11, 1999, 307 SCRA 1, 15 and  People v. Andan,G.R. No. 116437,
March 3, 1997, 269 SCRA 95.
137 Otherwise known as “An Act Defining Certain Rights of Persons Arrested, Detained or Under
Custodial Investigation as well as the Duties of the Arresting, Detaining and Investigating Officers and
Providing Penalties for Violations Thereof.”
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tigation. If such person cannot afford the services of his own counsel, he must be
provided by with a competent and independent counsel.
x x x x
f. As used in this Act, “custodial investigation” shall include the practice of
issuing an “invitation” to a person who is investigated in connection with an
offense he is suspected to have committed, without prejudice to the liability of
the “inviting” officer for any violation of law.” [EMPHASIS SUPPLIED.]
Police officers claimed that upon arresting Joel, they informed him of
his constitutional rights to remain silent, that any information he would
give could be used against him, and that he had the right to a competent
and independent counsel, preferably, of his own choice, and if he
cannot afford the services of counsel he will be provided with one (1).
However, since these rights can only be waived in writing and with the
assistance of counsel, there could not have been such a valid waiver by
Joel, who was presented to Atty. Sansano at the IBP Office, Quezon
City Hall only the following day and stayed overnight at the police
station before he was brought to said counsel.
P/Insp. Castillo admitted that the initial questioning of Joel began in
the morning of June 20, 1996, the first time said suspect was presented
to him at the CPDC station, even before he was brought to the IBP
Office for the taking of his formal statement. Thus, the possibility of
appellant Joel having been subjected to intimidation or violence in the
hands of police investigators as he claims, cannot be discounted. The
constitutional requirement obviously had not been observed. Settled is
the rule that the moment a police officer tries to elicit admissions or
confessions or even plain information from a suspect, the latter should,
at that juncture, be assisted by counsel, unless he waives this right in
writing and in the presence of counsel.  The purpose of providing
138

counsel to a
_______________

138 People v. Rapeza, G.R. No. 169431, April 4, 2007, 520 SCRA 596, 623, citing People v.
Delmo,  439 Phil. 212; 390 SCRA 395 (2002),
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person under custodial investigation is to curb the police-state practice
of extracting a confession that leads appellant to make self-
incriminating statements. 139

Even assuming that custodial investigation started only during Joel’s

execution of his statement before Atty. Sansano on June 20, 1996, still
the said confession must be invalidated. To be acceptable, extrajudicial
confessions must conform to constitutional requirements. A confession
is not valid and not admissible in evidence when it is obtained in
violation of any of the rights of persons under custodial investigation. 140

Since Joel was provided with a lawyer secured by CPDC

investigators from the IBP-Quezon City chapter, it cannot be said that
his right to a counsel “preferably of his own choice” was not complied
with, particularly as he never objected to Atty. Sansano when the latter
was presented to him to be his counsel for the taking down of his
statement. The phrase “preferably of his own choice” does not convey
the message that the choice of a lawyer by a person under investigation
is exclusive as to preclude other equally competent and independent
attorneys from handling the defense; otherwise the tempo of custodial
investigation would be solely in the hands of the accused who can
impede, nay, obstruct the progress of the interrogation by simply
selecting a lawyer who, for one reason or another, is not available to
protect his interest.  Thus, while the choice of a lawyer in cases where
141

the person under custodial interrogation cannot afford the services of

counsel—or where the preferred lawyer is not available—is naturally
lodged in the police investigators, the suspect has
cited in People v. Dueñas, Jr.,G.R. No. 151286,  March 31, 2004, 426
SCRA 666.
_______________

139 Id., at p. 630.
140 People v. Muleta, G.R. No. 130189, June 25, 1999, 309 SCRA 148, 160.
141 People v. Mojello,  G.R. No. 145566, March 9, 2004, 425 SCRA 11, 18, citing People v.
Barasina,  G.R. No. 109993, January 21, 1994, 229 SCRA 450.
115
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the final choice, as he may reject the counsel chosen for him and ask
for another one. A lawyer provided by the investigators is deemed
engaged by the accused when he does not raise any objection against
the counsel’s appointment during the course of the investigation, and
the accused thereafter subscribes to the veracity of the statement before
the swearing officer. 142

The question really is whether or not Atty. Sansano was an

independent and competent counsel as to satisfy the constitutional
requirement. We held that the modifier competent and independent in
the 1987 Constitution is not an empty rhetoric. It stresses the need to
accord the accused, under the uniquely stressful conditions of a
custodial investigation, an informed judgment on the choices explained
to him by a diligent and capable lawyer. An effective and vigilant
143

counsel necessarily and logically requires that the lawyer be present

and able to advise and assist his client from the time the confessant
answers the first question asked by the investigating officer until the
signing of the extrajudicial confession. Moreover, the lawyer should
ascertain that the confession is made voluntarily and that the person
under investigation fully understands the nature and the consequence of
his extrajudicial confession in relation to his constitutional rights. A
contrary rule would undoubtedly be antagonistic to the constitutional
rights to remain silent, to counsel and to be presumed innocent. 144

Atty. Sansano, who supposedly interviewed Joel and assisted the

latter while responding to questions propounded by
_______________

142 Id., at p.18, citing  People v. Continente, G.R. Nos. 100801-02, August 25, 2000, 339 SCRA 1.
143 People v. Suela,  G.R. Nos. 133570-71, January 15, 2002, 373 SCRA 163, 182, citing People v.
Deniega, G.R. No. 103499, December 29, 1995, 251 SCRA 626, 638-639 and People v. Santos,  G.R. No.
117873, December 22, 1997, 283 SCRA 443.
144 Id., at pp. 181-182, citing People v. Labtan, G.R. No. 127493, December 8, 1999, 320 SCRA, 140,
159.
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SPO2 Garcia, Jr., did not testify on whether he had properly discharged
his duties to said client. While SPO2 Garcia, Jr. testified that Atty.
Sansano had asked Joel if he understood his answers to the questions of
the investigating officer and sometimes stopped Joel from answering
certain questions, SPO2 Garcia, Jr. did not say if Atty. Sansano, in the
first place, verified from them the date and time of Joel’s arrest and the
circumstances thereof, or any previous information elicited from him
by the investigators at the station, and if said counsel inspected Joel’s
body for any sign or mark of physical torture.
The right to counsel has been written into our Constitution in order to
prevent the use of duress and other undue influence in extracting
confessions from a suspect in a crime. The lawyer’s role cannot be
reduced to being that of a mere witness to the signing of a pre-prepared
confession, even if it indicated compliance with the constitutional
rights of the accused. The accused is entitled to effective, vigilant and
independent counsel.  Where the prosecution failed to discharge the
145

State’s burden of proving with clear and convincing evidence that the
accused had enjoyed effective and vigilant counsel before he
extrajudicially admitted his guilt, the extrajudicial confession cannot be
given any probative value. 146

With respect to the other appellants, they were likewise entitled to

the rights guaranteed by the Constitution when they were brought to the
police station as suspects and were, there-
_______________

145 People v. Peralta, G.R. No. 145176, March 30, 2004, 426 SCRA 472, 481-482, citing People v.
Binamira, G.R. No. 110397, August 14, 1997, 277 SCRA 232, 238; People v. Ordoño, G.R. No. 132154,
June 29, 2000, 334 SCRA 673, 688; People v. Rodriguez, G.R. No. 129211,October 2, 2000, 341 SCRA
645, 653; People v. Rayos, G.R. No. 133823, February 7, 2001, 351 SCRA 336, 344; and People v.
Patungan, G.R. No. 138045,March 14, 2001, 354 SCRA 413, 424.
146 People v. Paule, G.R. Nos. 118168-70, September 11, 1996,  261 SCRA 649.
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fore under custodial investigation.  However, they cannot simply rely
147

on those violations of constitutional rights during custodial

investigation, which are relevant only when the conviction of the
accused by the trial court is based on the evidence obtained during such
investigation.  As for the matters stated in the extrajudicial confession
148

of appellant Joel, these were not the basis for appellants’ conviction. It
has to be stressed further that no confession or statement by appellants
Fortuna, Lumanog, Augusto and Rameses was used as evidence by the
prosecution at the trial.
After a thorough and careful review, we hold that there exists
sufficient evidence on record to sustain appellants’ conviction even
without the extrajudicial confession of appellant Joel de Jesus.
Allegations of Torture
and Intimidation
The Court notes with utmost concern the serious allegations of
torture of appellants who were dubbed by the media as the “Abadilla
5.” This was brought by appellants before the CHR which, in its
Resolution dated July 26, 1996, did not make any categorical finding of
physical violence inflicted on the appellants by the police authorities.
The CHR, however, found prima facie evidence that respondent police
officers could have violated R.A. No. 7438, particularly on visitorial
rights and the right to counsel, including the law on arbitrary detention,
and accordingly forwarded its resolution together with records of the
case to the Secretary of Justice, Secretary of the Department of Interior
and Local Government, the PNP Director General and the Ombudsman
to file the appropriate criminal and/or administrative actions against the
person or
_______________

147 See People v. Hijada, G.R. No. 123696, March 11, 2004, 425 SCRA 304.
148 People v. Sabalones, G.R. No. 123485, August 31, 1998, 294 SCRA 751, 790.
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persons responsible for violating the human rights of the suspects as the
evidence may warrant. As per the manifestation of appellants, the
149

DOJ, after conducting a preliminary investigation, referred the matter

to the Ombudsman in 2004. As of July 2007, the case before the
Ombudsman docketed as OMB-P-C-04-1269/CPL-C-04-1965 was
“still pending preliminary investigation. 150

Right to Speedy
Disposition of Cases
Appellants further cite the comment made by the United Nations
Human Rights Committee in its Communication No. 1466/2006 that
under the circumstances, there was, insofar as the eight (8)-year delay
in the disposition of their appeal in the CA was concerned, a violation
of Article 14, paragraph 3 (c) of the International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights (1966). It provides that in the determination of any
criminal charge against him, everyone shall be entitled, as among the
minimum guarantees provided therein, “to be tried without undue
delay.” 151

Section 16, Article III of the 1987 Constitution provides that “all

persons shall have the right to a speedy disposition of their cases before
all judicial, quasi-judicial, or administrative bodies.”  This protection
152

extends to all citizens and covers the periods before, during and after
trial, affording broader protection than Section 14(2), which guarantees
merely the right to a speedy trial. However, just like the constitutional 
153

_______________

149 Exhibit “79”, folder of exhibits, pp. 237-243.

150 Letter-reply dated of Ombudsman addressed to Atty. Soliman M. Santos, Jr., Annex “F” of
Memorandum for Petitioners, Rollo of G.R. No. 182555, p. 442.
151 Addendum to Petition, CA Rollo, Vol. II, pp. 1975-1985.
152 Sec. 16, Article III.
153 Abadia v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 105597, September 23, 1994, 236 SCRA 676, 682, cited
in Licaros v. Sandiganbayan,  G.R. No. 145851, November 22, 2001, 370 SCRA 394, 407.
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guarantee of “speedy trial,” “speedy disposition of cases” is a flexible
concept. It is consistent with delays and depends upon the
circumstances. What the Constitution prohibits are unreasonable,
arbitrary and oppressive delays, which render rights nugatory. 154

In this case, the records of Criminal Case No. Q-96-66684 were

transmitted to this Court for automatic review on February 11, 2000.
On September 7, 2001, this Court rendered a decision dismissing the
Petition for Certiorari (Rule 65) and for Extraordinary Legal and
Equitable Relief (G.R. No. 142065). By June 2004, all appeal briefs for
the present review had been filed and on July 6, 2004, appellants filed a
Consolidated Motion for Early Decision. On December 13, 2004, they
filed a Motion for Early Decision. 155

By resolution of January 18, 2005, we transferred this case to the CA

for intermediate review, conformably with our pronouncement
in People v. Mateo decided on July 7, 2004. Appellants’ Urgent Motion
for Reconsideration of Transfer to the Court of Appeals filed on
February 24, 2005 was denied on March 29, 2005. A similar request
filed on June 2, 2005 was likewise denied by our Resolution dated July
12, 2005.  At the CA, appellants also moved for early resolution of
156

their appeal after the case was submitted for decision on November 29,
2006. The case remained unresolved due to a number of factors, such
as the CA internal reorganization and inhibition of some Justices to
whom the case was re-raffled. Before the retirement of the ponente,
157

Justice Agustin S. Dizon, the CA’s Sixteenth Division finally rendered

its decision on April 1, 2008. Appellants’ motion for reconsideration
was denied by the Special Former Sixteenth Division on October 28,
2008.
_______________

154 Ombudsman v. Jurado, G.R. No. 154155, August 6, 2008, 561 SCRA 135, 146-147, citing
Caballero v. Alfonso, Jr.,G.R. No. L-45647, August 21, 1987, 153 SCRA 153, 163.
155 CA Rollo, Vol. II, pp. 1530-1531 and 1580.
156 Id., at pp. 1581-1582, 1605-1609.
157 Id., at pp. 1728-1761.
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It must be stressed that in the determination of whether the right to
speedy disposition of cases has been violated, particular regard must be
taken of the facts and circumstances peculiar to each case. A mere
mathematical reckoning of the time involved would not be
sufficient.  Under the circumstances, we hold that the delay of (4) four
158

years during which the case remained pending with the CA and this
Court was not unreasonable, arbitrary or oppressive.In several cases
where it was manifest that due process of law or other rights guaranteed
by the Constitution or statutes have been denied, this Court has not
faltered to accord the so-called “radical relief” to keep accused from
enduring the rigors and expense of a full-blown trial.  In this case, 159

however, appellants are not entitled to the same relief in the absence of
clear and convincing showing that the delay in the resolution of their
appeal was unreasonable or arbitrary.
Credibility of Eyewitness Testimony
Time and again, we have held that the testimony of a sole eyewitness
is sufficient to support a conviction so long as it is clear,
straightforward and worthy of credence by the trial court.  Indeed, 160

when it comes to credibility of witnesses, this

_______________

158 Gaas v. Mitmug, G.R. No. 165776, April 30, 2008, 553 SCRA 335, 342-343, citing Mendoza-Ong
v. Sandiganbayan,G.R. Nos. 146368-69,  October 18, 2004, 440 SCRA 423, 425-426.
159 Uy v. Adriano, G.R. No. 159098, October 27, 2006, 505 SCRA 625, 652-653, citing Mendoza-Ong
v. Sandiganbayan, G.R. Nos. 146368-69, October 18, 2004, 440 SCRA 423;  Dimayacyac v. Court of
Appeals, G.R. No. 136264, May 28, 2004, 430 SCRA 121; Dela Peña v. Sandiganbayan, 412 Phil. 921;
360 SCRA 478 (2001); Dansal v. Hon. Fernandez, Sr., 383 Phil. 897, 908; 327 SCRA 145, 157
(2000); Duterte v. Sandiganbayan, 352 Phil. 557; 289 SCRA 721 (1998); and Tatad v.
Sandiganbayan,G.R. Nos. L-72335-39, March 21, 1998, 159 SCRA 70.
160 People v. Rivera, G.R. No. 139185, September 29, 2003, 412 SCRA 224, 236.
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Court accords the highest respect, even finality, to the evaluation made
by the lower court of the testimonies of the witnesses presented before
it. This holds true notwithstanding that it was another judge who
presided at the trial and Judge Jaime N. Salazar, Jr. who penned the
decision in this case heard only some witnesses for the defense. It is
axiomatic that the fact alone that the judge who heard the evidence was
not the one who rendered the judgment, but merely relied on the record
of the case, does not render his judgment erroneous or irregular. This is
so even if the judge did not have the fullest opportunity to weigh the
testimonies, not having heard all the witnesses speak or observed their
deportment and manner of testifying. 161

Verily, a judge who was not present during the trial can rely on the
transcript of stenographic notes taken during the trial as basis of his
decision. Such reliance does not violate substantive and procedural due
process.  We have ruled in People v. Rayray  that the fact that the
162 163

judge who heard the evidence was not himself the one who prepared,
signed and promulgated the decision constitutes no compelling reason
to jettison his findings and conclusions, and does not per se render his
decision void. The validity of a decision is not necessarily impaired by
the fact that its ponente only took over from a colleague who had
earlier presided at the trial. This circumstance alone cannot be the basis
for the reversal of the trial court’s decision. 164

In giving full credence to the eyewitness testimony of security guard

Alejo, the trial judge took into account his prox-
_______________

161 Concepcion v. Court of Appeals,G.R. No. 120706, January 31, 2000, 324 SCRA 85, 92.
162 Serna v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 124605, June 18, 1999, 308 SCRA 527, 533, citing People v.
Espanola, G.R. No. 119308, April 18, 1997, 271 SCRA 689, 716.
163 G.R. No. 90628, February 1, 1995, 241 SCRA 1, 8-9.
164 Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corporation v. Gobonseng, Jr., G.R. No. 163562, July 21, 2006, 496
SCRA 305, 320.
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imity to the spot where the shooting occurred, his elevated position
from his guardhouse, his opportunity to view frontally all the
perpetrators for a brief time—enough for him to remember their faces
(when the two [2] lookouts he had earlier noticed walking back and
forth infront of his guard post pointed their guns at him one [1]  after
the other, and later when the four [4] armed men standing around the
victim’s car momentarily looked at him as he was approached at the
guardhouse by the second lookout), and his positive identification in
the courtroom of appellants as the six (6) persons whom he saw acting
together in the fatal shooting of Abadilla on June 13, 1996. The clear
view that Alejo had at the time of the incident was verified by Judge
Jose Catral Mendoza (now an Associate Justice of this Court) during
the ocular inspection conducted in the presence of the prosecutors,
defense counsel, court personnel, and witnesses Alejo and Maj. Villena.
The trial judge also found that Alejo did not waver in his detailed
account of how the assailants shot Abadilla who was inside his car, the
relative positions of the gunmen and lookouts, and his opportunity to
look at them in the face. Alejo immediately gave his statement before
the police authorities just hours after the incident took place. Appellants
make much of a few inconsistencies in his statement and testimony,
with respect to the number of assailants and his reaction when he was
ordered to get down in his guard post. But such inconsistencies have
already been explained by Alejo during cross-examination by
correcting his earlier statement in using number four (4) to refer to
those persons actually standing around the car and two (2) more
persons as lookouts, and that he got nervous only when the second
lookout shouted at him to get down, because the latter actually poked a
gun at him. It is settled that affidavits, being ex-parte, are almost
always incomplete and often inaccurate, but do not really detract from
the credibility of witnesses.  The discrepancies between
165

_______________ 

165 People v. Silvano, G.R. No. 125923, January 31, 2001, 350 SCRA 650, 660.
123
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a sworn statement and testimony in court do not outrightly justify the
acquittal of an accused,  as testimonial evidence carries more weight
166

than an affidavit. 167

As to appellants’ attempt to discredit Alejo by reason of the latter’s

acceptance of benefits from the Abadilla family, the same is puerile,
considering that the trial court even verified for itself how Alejo could
have witnessed the shooting incident and after he withstood intense
grilling from defense lawyers. Case law has it that where there is no
evidence that the principal witness for the prosecution was actuated by
improper motive, the presumption is that he was not so actuated and his
testimony is entitled to full faith and credit. 168

The trial judge also correctly rejected appellants’ proposition that the
eyewitness testimony of security guard Herbas should have been given
due weight and that other eyewitnesses should have been presented by
the prosecution, specifically Cesar Espiritu and Minella Alarcon, who
allegedly had better opportunity to recognize Abadilla’s attackers. As
correctly pointed out by the trial judge, Herbas could not have really
seen at close range the perpetrators from his position at a nearby
building, which is several meters away from the ambush site, as
confirmed by photographs submitted by the prosecution, which Herbas
failed to refute. The same thing can be said of Espiritu who admitted in
his Sinumpaang Salaysay that his car was ahead of the Honda Accord
driven by Abadilla, and that he had already alighted from his car some
houses away from the exact spot where Abadilla was ambushed while
his car was in the stop position. 169

_______________

166 People v. Gallo, G.R. No. 133002, October 19, 2001, 367 SCRA 662, 668.
167 People v. Mendoza, G.R. No. 142654, November 16, 2001, 369 SCRA 268, 286.
168 People v. Tagana,  G.R. No. 133027, March 4, 2004, 424 SCRA 620, 639.
169 Records, Vol. I, pp. 27-29.
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Positive Identification of Appellants
Appellants assail the out-of-court identification made by Alejo who
pointed to appellant Joel de Jesus and Lorenzo delos Santos in a line-up
at the police station together with police officers. However, appellants’
claim that the police officers who joined the line-up were actually in
their police uniforms at the time, as to make the identification process
suggestive and hence not valid, was unsubstantiated.
In People v. Teehankee, Jr., we explained the procedure for out-of-
170

court identification and the test to determine the admissibility of such

identification, thus: 
“Out-of-court identification is conducted by the police in various ways. It is
done thru show-ups where the suspect alone is brought face to face with the
witness for identification. It is done thru mug shots where photographs are
shown to the witness to identify the suspect. It is also done thru line-upswhere a
witness identifies the suspect from a group of persons lined up for the
purpose. . . In resolving the admissibility of and relying on out-of-court
identification of suspects, courts have adopted the totality of circumstances
testwhere they consider the following factors, viz: (1) the witness’ opportunity
to view the criminalat the time of the crime; (2) the witness’ degree of
attention at that time; (3) the accuracy of anyprior description given by the
witness; (4) the level of certaintydemonstrated by the witness at the
identification; (5) the length of time between the crime and the identification;
and, (6) the suggestiveness of the identification procedure.” [EMPHASIS
171

SUPPLIED.]
Examining the records, we find nothing irregular in the identification
made by Alejo at the police station for which he executed
the Karagdagang Sinumpaang Salaysay dated June 21, 1996, during
which he positively identified Joel de Jesus and Lorenzo delos Santos
as those lookouts who had pointed 
_______________

170 G.R. Nos. 111206-08, October 6, 1995, 249 SCRA 54.

171 Id., at p. 95.
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Lumanog vs. People
their guns at him demanding that he buck down at his guardhouse. In
any case, the trial court did not rely solely on said out-of-court
identification considering that Alejo also positively identified
appellants during the trial. Thus, even assuming arguendo that Alejo’s
out-of-court identification was tainted with irregularity, his subsequent
identification in court cured any flaw that may have attended it.  We 172

have held that the inadmissibility of a police line-up identification

should not necessarily foreclose the admissibility of an independent in-
court identification. 173

We also found none of the danger signals enumerated by Patrick M.

Wall, a well-known authority in eyewitness identification, which give
warning that the identification may be erroneous even though the
method used is proper. The danger signals contained in the list, which
is not exhaustive, are: 
(1) the witness originally stated that he could not identify anyone;
(2) the identifying witness knew the accused before the crime, but
made no accusation against him when questioned by the police;
(3) a serious discrepancy exists between the identifying witness’
original description and the actual description of the accused;
(4) before identifying the accused at the trial, the witness
erroneously identified some other person;
(5) other witnesses to the crime fail to identify the accused;
(6) before trial, the witness sees the accused but fails to identify
him;
(7) before the commission of the crime, the witness had limited
opportunity to see the accused;
_______________

172 People v. Rivera, supra, at p. 239, citing People v. Timon, G.R. Nos. 97841-42, November 12,
1997, 281 SCRA 577, 592.
173 Id., citing People v. Timon, id. and People v. Lapura, G.R. No. 94494, March 15, 1996, 255 SCRA
85, 96.
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(8) the witness and the person identified are of different racial
groups;
(9) during his original observation of the perpetrator of the crime,
the witness was unaware that a crime was involved;
(10) a considerable time elapsed between the witness’ view of the
criminal and his identification of the accused;
(11) several persons committed the crime; and
(12) the witness fails to make a positive trial identification.   174

Appellants nonetheless point out the allegedly doubtful prior

descriptions given by Alejo, who was able to describe the physical
appearance of only two (2) suspects in his statement:
“Iyong tumutok sa akin ay naka-asul na t-shirt, edad 30-35, 5’5”-5’6” ang
taas, katamtaman ang katawan, maikli ang buhok, kayumanggi. Ang baril niya
ay tipong 45 o 9 mm na pistola. Iyong sumakal sa biktima at nang-agaw ng
clutch bag nito ay 25-30 ang edad, payat, mahaba ang buhok na
nakatali, maitim, may taas na 5’5”-5’6”, maiksi din ang baril niya at naka-puting
polo. Iyong iba ay maaring makilala ko kung makikita ko uli.” 175

Appellants claimed that if Alejo was referring to appellant Joel de

Jesus who pointed a gun at him, his description did not jibe at all since
Joel de Jesus was just 22 years old and not 30-35 years of age, and who
stands 5’9” and not 5’5”-5’6”. And if indeed it was appellant Lenido
Lumanog whom Alejo saw as the gunman who had grabbed the victim
by the neck after opening the car’s left front door, his description again
failed because far from being “maitim,” Lumanog was in fact fair-
complexioned.
We are not persuaded. Alejo positively identified Joel de Jesus in a
line-up at the police station and again inside the
_______________

174 People v. Pineda, G.R. No. 141644, May 27, 2004, 429 SCRA 478, 503-504, citing Patrick M.
Wall, Eye-Witness Identification in Criminal Cases 74 (1965), pp.  90-130.
175 Exhibit “L-1”, folder of exhibits, p. 27.
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courtroom as the first lookout who pointed a gun at him. Though his
estimate of Joel’s age was not precise, it was not that far from his true
age, especially if we consider that being a tricycle driver who was
exposed daily to sunlight, Joel’s looks may give a first impression that
he is older than his actual age. Moreover Alejo’s description of
Lumanog as dark-skinned was made two (2) months prior to the dates
of the trial when he was again asked to identify him in court. When
defense counsel posed the question of the discrepancy in Alejo’s
description of Lumanog who was then presented as having a fair
complexion and was 40 years old, the private prosecutor manifested the
possible effect of Lumanog’s incarceration for such length of time as to
make his appearance different at the time of trial.
Applying the totality-of-circumstances test, we thus reiterate that
Alejo’s out-court-identification is reliable, for reasons that, first, he was
very near the place where Abadilla was shot and thus had a good view
of the gunmen, not to mention that the two (2) lookouts directly
approached him and pointed their guns at them; second, no competing
event took place to draw his attention from the event; third, Alejo
immediately gave his descriptions of at least two (2) of the perpetrators,
while affirming he could possibly identify the others if he would see
them again, and the entire happening that he witnessed;
and finally,there was no evidence that the police had supplied or even
suggested to Alejo that appellants were the suspects, except for Joel de
Jesus whom he refused to just pinpoint on the basis of a photograph
shown to him by the police officers, insisting that he would like to see
said suspect in person. More importantly, Alejo during the trial had
positively identified appellant Joel de Jesus independently of the
previous identification made at the police station. Such in-court
identification was positive, straightforward and categorical.
 Appellants contend that the subsequent acquittal of Lorenzo delos
Santos, whom Alejo had categorically pointed to
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as one (1) of the two (2) men whom he saw walking to and fro infront
of his guard post prior to the shooting incident, and as one (1) of the
two (2) men who pointed a gun at him and ordered him to get down,
totally destroyed said witness’ credibility and eroded the
trustworthiness of each and every uncorroborated testimony he gave in
court. This assertion is untenable. A verdict of acquittal is immediately
final; hence, we may no longer review the acquittal of accused Lorenzo
delos Santos.  However, the acquittal of their co-accused does not
176

necessarily benefit the appellants. We have ruled that accused-appellant

may not invoke the acquittal of the other conspirators to merit the
reversal of his conviction for murder. 177

Ballistic and fingerprint

examination results are
inconclusive and not
indispensable
Appellants deplore the trial court’s disregard of the results of the
ballistic and fingerprint tests, which they claim should exonerate them
from liability for the killing of Abadilla. These pieces of evidence were
presented by the defense to prove that the empty shells recovered from
the crime scene and deformed slug taken from the body of Abadilla
were not fired from any of the firearms seized from appellants. Instead,
they matched the same firearm used in the killings of Suseso de Dios
and other supposed victims of ambush-slay perpetrated by suspected
members of the ABB. Further, none of the fingerprints lifted from the
KIA Pride, used by the gunmen as
_______________

176 People v. Dulay, G.R. No. 174775, October 11, 2007, 535 SCRA 656, 662, citing People v. Court
of Appeals,  G.R. No. 159261, February 21, 2007, 516 SCRA 383.
 177 Id., citing People v. Uganap, G.R. No. 130605, June 19, 2001, 358 SCRA 674, 684.
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getaway vehicle, matched any of the specimens taken from the
appellants.
We are not persuaded. As correctly held by the CA, the negative
result of ballistic examination was inconclusive, for there is no showing
that the firearms supposedly found in appellants’ possession were the
same ones used in the ambush-slay of Abadilla. The fact that ballistic
examination revealed that the empty shells and slug were fired from
another firearm does not disprove appellants’ guilt, as it was possible
that different firearms were used by them in shooting Abadilla. Neither 178

will the finding that the empty shells and slug matched those in another
criminal case allegedly involving ABB members, such that they could
have been fired from the same firearms belonging to said rebel group,
exonerate the appellants who are on trial in this case and not the
suspects in another case. To begin with, the prosecution never claimed
that the firearms confiscated from appellants, which were the subject of
separate charges for illegal possession of firearms, were the same
firearms used in the ambush-slay of Abadilla. A ballistic examination is
not indispensable in this case. Even if another weapon was in fact
actually used in killing the victim, still, appellants Fortuna and
Lumanog cannot escape criminal liability therefor, as they were
positively identified by eyewitness Freddie Alejo as the ones who shot
Abadilla to death. 179

As this Court held in Velasco v. People — 180

“As regards the failure of the police to present a ballistic report on the seven
spent shells recovered from the crime scene, the same does not constitute
suppression of evidence. A ballistic report serves
_______________

178 See Maandal v. People, G.R. No. 144113, June 28, 2001, 360 SCRA 209, 228.
179 See People v. Belaro, G.R. No. 99869, May 26, 1999, 307 SCRA 591, 605.
180 G.R. No. 166479, February 28, 2006, 483 SCRA 649, 666-667.
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only as a guide for the courts in considering the ultimate facts of the case. It
would be indispensable if there are no credible eyewitnesses to the crime
inasmuch as it is corroborative in nature. The presentation of weapons or the
slugs and bullets used and ballistic examination are not prerequisites for
conviction. The corpus delicti and the positive identification of accused-
appellant as the perpetrator of the crime are more than enough to sustain his
conviction. Even without a ballistic report, the positive identification by
prosecution witnesses is more than sufficient to prove accused’s guilt beyond
reasonable doubt. In the instant case, since the identity of the assailant has
been sufficiently established, a ballistic report on the slugs can be
dispensed with in proving petitioner’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt.”
[emphasis supplied.]
The negative result of the fingerprint tests conducted by fingerprint
examiner Remedios is likewise inconclusive and unreliable. Said
witness admitted that no prints had been lifted from inside the KIA
Pride and only two (2) fingerprints were taken from the car of Abadilla.
Defense of Alibi Cannot
Prevail Over Positive
Identification
Alibi is the weakest of all defenses, for it is easy to fabricate and
difficult to disprove, and it is for this reason that it cannot prevail over
the positive identification of the accused by the witnesses.  To be valid
181

for purposes of exoneration from a criminal charge, the defense of alibi

must be such that it would have been physically impossible for the
person charged with the crime to be at the locus criminis at the time of
its commission, the reason being that no person can be in two places at
the same time. The excuse must be so airtight that it would admit of no
exception. Where there is the least possibil-
181 People v. Medina, G.R. No. 155256, July 30, 2004, 435 SCRA
610, 619.
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ity of accused’s presence at the crime scene, the alibi will not hold
water. 182

Deeply embedded in our jurisprudence is the rule that positive

identification of the accused, where categorical and consistent, without
any showing of ill motive on the part of the eyewitness testifying,
should prevail over the alibi and denial of appellants, whose
testimonies are not substantiated by clear and convincing
evidence. However, none of the appellants presented clear and
183

convincing excuses showing the physical impossibility of their being at

the crime scene between 8:00 o’clock and 9:00 o’clock in the morning
of June 13, 1996. Hence, the trial court and CA did not err in rejecting
their common defense of alibi.
As to the failure of appellant Lumanog to take the witness stand,
indeed the grave charges of murder and illegal possession of firearms
would have normally impelled an accused to testify in his defense,
particularly when his life is at stake. As this Court observed in People
v. Delmendo: 184

“An adverse inference may also be deduced from appellant's failure to take
the witness stand. While his failure to testify cannot be considered against him,
it may however help in determining his guilt. “The unexplained failure of the
accused to testify, under a circumstance where the crime imputed to him is
so serious that places in the balance his very life and that his testimony
might at least help in advancing his defense, gives rise to an inference that
he did not want to testify because he did not want to betray himself.”
An innocent person will at once naturally and emphatically repel an
accusation of crime, as a matter of self-preservation, and as a precaution against
prejudicing himself. A person’s silence, therefore, particularly when it is
persistent, may justify an inference that he is
_______________

182 People v. Bracamonte,  G.R. No. 95939, June 17, 1996, 257 SCRA 380.
183 People v. Abes, 465 Phil. 165; 420 SCRA 259 (2004).
184 G.R. No. 123300, September 25, 1998, 296 SCRA 371, 379-380.
132
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not innocent. Thus, we have the general principle that when an accused is silent
when he should speak, in circumstances where an innocent person so situated
would have spoken, on being accused of a crime, his silence and omission are
admissible in evidence against him. Accordingly, it has been aptly said that
silence may be assent as well as consent, and may, where a direct and specific
accusation of crime is made, be regarded under some circumstances as a quasi-
confession.” 185

Treachery and Evident Premeditation

Attended the Commission of the Crime
As regards the presence of treachery as a qualifying circumstance,
the evidence clearly showed that the attack on the unsuspecting—who
was inside his car on a stop position in the middle of early morning
traffic when he was suddenly fired upon by the appellants—was
deliberate, sudden and unexpected. There was simply no chance for
Abadilla to survive the ambush-slay, with successive shots quickly
fired at close range by two (2) armed men on both sides of his car; and
much less to retaliate by using his own gun, as no less than 23 gunshot
wounds on his head and chest caused his instantaneous death. As we
have consistently ruled, the essence of treachery is the sudden and
unexpected attack on an unsuspecting victim by the perpetrator of the
crime, depriving the victim of any chance to defend himself or to repel
the aggression, thus insuring its commission without risk to the
aggressor and without any provocation on the part of the victim. 186

Evident premeditation was likewise properly appreciated by the trial

court, notwithstanding the inadmissibility of Joel de Jesus’s
extrajudicial confession disclosing in detail the pre-planned ambush of
Abadilla, apparently a contract killing in which the perpetrators were
paid or expected to receive payment for the job. As correctly pointed
out by the CA, Alejo had
_______________
 185 Id.
186 People v. Castillano, 426 Phil. 752, 767; 377 SCRA 79, 96 (2002).
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stressed that as early as 7:30 in the morning of June 13, 1996, he
already noticed something unusual going on upon seeing the two (2)
lookouts (appellants Joel de Jesus and Lorenzo delos Santos) walking
to and fro along Katipunan Avenue infront of the building he was
guarding. True enough, they were expecting somebody to pass that
way, who was no other than Abadilla driving his Honda Accord. After
the lapse of more or less one (1) hour, he already heard successive
gunshots, while in his guard post, from the direction of the middle lane
where Abadilla’s car was surrounded by four (4) men carrying short
firearms. All the foregoing disclosed the execution of a pre-conceived
plan to kill Abadilla. The essence of evident premeditation is that the
execution of the criminal act is preceded by cool thought and reflection
upon the resolution to carry out criminal intent within a span of time
sufficient to arrive at a calm judgment. 187

The trial court and CA were therefore correct in declaring the

appellants guilty as conspirators in the ambush-slay of Abadilla, the
presence of treachery and evident premeditation qualifying the killing
to murder under Art. 248 of the Revised Penal Code, as amended.
Proper Penalty
The CA correctly modified the death penalty imposed by the trial
court. At the time the crime was committed, the penalty for murder
was reclusion perpetua to death. Since the penalty is composed of two
(2) indivisible penalties, then for the purpose of determining the
imposable penalty, Article 63 of the Revised Penal Code, as amended,
must be considered. It provides in part:
1. When in the commission of the deed there is present only one aggravating
circumstance, the greater penalty shall be applied. 
_______________
 187 People v. Rabanillo, G.R. No. 130010, May 26, 1999, 307 SCRA 613, 621.
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With the presence of the aggravating circumstance of treachery and
there being no mitigating circumstance, the higher penalty of death
should be imposed. 188

In view, however, of the passage of Republic Act No. 9346 entitled,

“An Act Prohibiting the Imposition of Death Penalty in the
Philippines,” which was signed into law on June 24, 2006, the
imposition of the death penalty has been prohibited. Pursuant to
Section 2 thereof, the penalty to be meted to appellants shall
be reclusion perpetua. Said section reads:
“SECTION 2. In lieu of the death penalty, the following shall be imposed:
(a) the penalty of reclusion perpetua, when the law violated makes use of
the nomenclature of the penalties of the Revised Penal Code; or
(b)  the penalty of life imprisonment, when the law violated does not make
use of the nomenclature of the penalties of the Revised Penal Code.”
Notwithstanding the reduction of the penalty imposed on appellants,
they are not eligible for parole following Section 3 of said law which
provides: 189

“SECTION 3. Persons convicted of offenses punished with reclusion

perpetua, or whose sentences will be reduced to reclusion perpetua, by reason
of this Act, shall not be eligible for parole under Act No. 4103, otherwise known
as the Indeterminate Sentence Law, as amended.”
Appellants’ attack on the constitutionality of the above provision on
grounds of curtailment of the President’s absolute power to grant
executive clemency, imposition of an in-
_______________

188 People v. Nabong, G.R. No. 172324, April 3, 2007,  520 SCRA 437, 457, citing People v. Navida,
G.R. Nos. 132239-40, December 4, 2000,  346 SCRA 821, 834.
189 Mendoza v. People, G.R. No. 173551, October 4, 2007, 534 SCRA 669, 701.
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human punishment and violation of equal protection clause, is utterly
misplaced.
As succinctly explained by this Court in People v. Gardon 190

“We should point out that the benefit of parole cannot be extended to Gardon
even if he committed the crimes for which he is now convicted prior to the
effectivity of R.A. No. 9346. Sec. 2 of the Indeterminate Sentence Law provides
that the law “shall not apply to persons convicted of offenses punished with
death penalty or life- imprisonment.” Although the law makes no reference to
persons convicted to suffer the penalty of reclusion perpetua such as Gardon,
the Court has consistently held that the Indeterminate Sentence Law likewise
does not apply to persons sentenced to reclusion perpetua. In People v.
Enriquez, we declared:
[R]eclusion perpetua is the only penalty that can be imposed against the
appellants. As correctly argued by the Solicitor General, Act No. 4103,
otherwise known as the Indeterminate Sentence Law, cannot be applied in
the case of appellants considering the proscription in Sec. 2 thereof, viz:
x x x x
Indeed, in People v. Asturias, Serrano v. Court of Appeals, People v.
Lampazaand People v. Tan, to name a few cases, we in effect equated the
penalty of reclusion perpetua as synonymous to life-imprisonment for
purposes of the Indeterminate Sentence Law, and ruled that the latter law
does not apply to persons convicted of offenses punishable with the said
penalty. Consequently, we affirm the Court of Appeals in not applying the
Indeterminate Sentence Law, and in imposing upon appellants the penalty
of reclusion perpetua instead.
Reclusion perpetua is an indivisible penalty without a minimum or maximum
period. Parole, on the other hand, is extended only to those sentenced to
divisible penalties as is evident from Sec. 5 of the Indeterminate Sentence Law,
which provides that it is only after “any prisoner shall have served the minimum
penalty imposed on
_______________

190 G.R. No. 169872, September 27, 2006, 503 SCRA 757, 770-771.
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 Lumanog vs. People
him” that the Board of Indeterminate Sentence may consider whether such
prisoner may be granted parole.” 191

Further, we cite the concurring opinion of Mr. Justice Dante Tinga

in People v. Tubongbanua,  addressing the issue herein raised by
192

appellants, to wit:
“No constitutional sanctities will be offended if persons previously sentenced
to death, or persons sentenced to reclusion perpetua, are denied the benefit of
parole conformably to Section 3 of Rep. Act No. 9346. As to persons
previously sentenced to death, it should be remembered that at the time of
the commission of the crime, the penalty attached to the crime was death.
To their benefit, Rep. Act No. 9346 reduced the penalty attached to the
crime to reclusion perpetua.Yet such persons cannot claim the benefit of parole
on the basis of the ex post facto clause of the Constitution, since an ex post
factolaw is one which, among others, “changes punishment, and inflicts a
greater punishment than the law annexed to the crime when committed.” Rep.
Act No. 9346 had the effect of “inflicting” a lighter punishment, not a greater
punishment, than what the law annexed to the crime when
committed.”  [emphasis supplied.]
193

Civil Liability
When death occurs due to a crime, the following damages may be
awarded: (1) civil indemnity ex delicto for the death of the victim; (2)
actual or compensatory damages; (3) moral damages; (4) exemplary
damages; and (5) temperate damages. 194

191 Id., citing  People v. Enriquez, Jr., G.R. No. 158797, July 29,
2005, 465 SCRA 407, 418; and People v. Tubongbanua,G.R. No.
171271, August 31, 2006, 500 SCRA 727 (see Concurring Opinion).
_______________

192 Id.
193 Id., at pp. 746-747.
194 Id., citing People v. Enriquez, Jr.,G.R. No. 158797, July 29, 2005, 465 SCRA 407, 418; and People
v. Tubongbanua, G.R. No. 171271, August 31, 2006, 500 SCRA 727 (see Concurring Opinion).
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 Lumanog vs. People
Civil indemnity is mandatory and granted to the heirs of the victim
without need of proof other than the commission of the crime.  We 195

have ruled that even if the penalty of death is not to be imposed

because of the prohibition in R.A. No. 9346, the civil indemnity of
P75,000.00 is proper, because it is not dependent on the actual
imposition of the death penalty but on the fact that qualifying
circumstances warranting the imposition of the death penalty attended
the commission of the offense.  As explained in People v.
196

Salome,  while R.A. No. 9346 prohibits the imposition of the death
197

penalty, the fact remains that the penalty provided for by the law for a
heinous offense is still death, and the offense is still heinous.
Accordingly, the heirs of Col. Rolando N. Abadilla is entitled to civil
indemnity in the amount of P75,000.00. The grant of actual damages
representing burial expenses, funeral services and cost of repair of the
Honda car, is likewise in order, being duly supported by receipts. 198

With regard to moral and exemplary damages, we find the amounts

awarded by the trial court excessive and the same are hereby reduced to
P75,000.00 and P30,000.00, respectively. It must again be stressed that
moral damages are emphatically not intended to enrich a plaintiff at the
expense of the defendant. When awarded, moral damages must not be
palpably and scandalously excessive as to indicate that it was the result
of passion, prejudice or corruption on the part of the trial judge or
appellate court justices.  As to exemplary dam-
199

_______________

195 Id.
196 Madsali v. People, G.R. No. 179570, February 4, 2010, 611 SCRA 596, citing People v.
Quiachon, G.R. No. 170236, August 31, 2006, 500 SCRA 704, 719.
197 500 SCRA 659, 676 (2006).
198 Exhibits “T” to “T-6”, folder of exhibits, pp. 40-46; TSN, January 27, 1997, p. 3.
199 Francisco v. Ferrer, Jr.,  G.R. No. 142029, February 28, 2001, 353 SCRA 261, 266-267, citing
American Home Assurance Company v. Chua, G.R. No. 130421, June 28, 1999, 309 SCRA 250, 263, Ben-
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Lumanog vs. People
ages, the same is justified under Article 2230 of the New Civil Code
when a crime is committed with an aggravating circumstance, either
qualifying or generic. 200

WHEREFORE, the consolidated petitions and appeal are hereby

DISMISSED. The Decision dated April 1, 2008 of the Court of
Appeals in CA-G.R. CR-HC No. 00667 is hereby AFFIRMED with
MODIFICATIONS in that the civil indemnity for the death of Col.
Rolando N. Abadilla is hereby increased to P75,000.00, and the
amounts of moral and exemplary damages awarded to his heirs are
reduced to P75,000.00 and P30,000.00, respectively.
With costs against the accused-appellants.
SO ORDERED.
Corona (C.J.), Velasco, Jr., Leonardo-De Castro, Peralta, Del
Castillo and Perez, JJ., concur.
Carpio, J., See dissenting opinion.
Carpio-Morales, J., I join the dissents of JJ. Carpio and Abad.
Nachura, J., No part. Signed pleading as Sol. Gen.
Brion, J., Brion on official leave but he left his vote concurring
with J. Villarama and the majority.
Bersamin, J., With concurring opinion.
Abad, J., See my dissenting opinion.
_______________

guet Electric Cooperative, Inc. v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 127326, December 23, 1999, 321 SCRA
524, 537, Singson v. Court of Appeals,  346 Phil. 831, 845; 282 SCRA 149, 163 (1997) and  De la Serna v.
Court of Appeals,  G.R. No. 109161, June 21, 1994, 233 SCRA 325, 329-330.
200 People v. Padilla, G.R. No. 167955 (Formerly G.R. No. 151275), September 30, 2009, 601
SCRA 385, citing People v. Marcos, G.R. No. 185380, June 18, 2009, 589 SCRA 661.
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Lumanog vs. People
Mendoza, J., No part.
Sereno, J., I join the dissents of JJ. Abad and Carpio.
DISSENTING OPINION
CARPIO, J.:
An accused has the right to be presumed innocent unless proven
guilty beyond reasonable doubt. No less than the fundamental law
guarantees such human right. Section 14(2), Article III of the
Constitution mandates that “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused
shall be presumed innocent until the contrary is proved.” Reinforcing
this right, Section 2, Rule 134 of the Rules of Court specifically
provides that “In a criminal case, the accused is entitled to an acquittal,
unless his guilt is shown beyond reasonable doubt.”
The “presumption of innocence” serves to emphasize that the
prosecution has the obligation to prove not only each element of the
offense beyond reasonable doubt  but also the identity of the accused
1

as the perpetrator. The accused, on the other hand, bears no burden of

proof.  The prosecution evidence must stand or fall on its own weight
2

and cannot draw strength from the weakness of the defense. 3

The present consolidated cases involve the ambush-killing of former

Metropolitan Command Intelligence and Security Group of the
Philippine Constabulary Colonel Rolando N. Abadilla (Abadilla) on 13
June 1996 by several men while he was stuck in traffic along
Katipunan Avenue, Quezon City.
Accused of being the killers of Abadilla, Lenido Lumanog
(Lumanog), Augusto Santos (Santos), Cesar Fortuna (For-
_______________

1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presumption_of_innocence
2 Id.
3 People v. Ulpindo, G.R. No. 115983, 12 April 1996; People v. Subido, G.R. No. 115004, 5 February
1996; People v. Payawal, G.R. No. 113995, 16 August 1995.
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tuna), Rameses De Jesus (Rameses), Lorenzo Delos Santos (Delos
Santos), Joel De Jesus (Joel), and Arturo Napolitano (Napolitano) were
charged with murder, aggravated by treachery, evident premeditation,
and taking advantage of superior strength. The trial court convicted
Lumanog, Santos, Fortuna, Rameses, and Joel, while it acquitted Delos
Santos and Napolitano. The Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction.
The majority sees no reason to disturb the verdict. The majority
discards the extrajudicial confession extracted from the accused for
being violative of the accused’s constitutional rights. Nevertheless, the
majority affirms the trial and appellate courts’ finding of guilt, which
was basically anchored on the alleged positive identification of the
accused as gunmen and lookouts by a lone eyewitness, Freddie Alejo
(Alejo). The majority gives credence to the prosecution’s eyewitness,
and disbelieves the defense’s eyewitness. For these reasons, the
majority finds that the prosecution has sufficiently overthrown the
presumption of innocence which the accused enjoy and has proved
beyond reasonable doubt the accused’s guilt for the crime of murder.
I dissent.
I. The photographic identification of Joel De Jesus
is tainted with impermissible suggestion,
violating the accused’s due process rights.
As the majority found, “when appellants (accused) were arrested
they were already considered suspects: Joel was pinpointed by
security guard Alejo who went along with the PARAC squad to
Fairview on June 19, 1996, x x x.” In other words, insofar as the
police was concerned, Joel was already a suspect even before Alejo
went with them to “identify” Joel. In fact, before Alejo pinpointed
Joel as one of the suspects, the police showed Alejo a photograph of
Joel, supporting the fact that the
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police focused on Joel as a suspect in the Abadilla killing. Alejo
testified:
ATTY. BAGATSING:
 Q Prior to 3:00 o’clock PM of June 19, 1996 on or about 2:00 o’clock PM where were you?
A Perhaps I was on my way I was fetched by the policeman from our agency in Monumento, sir.
Q Who was that police officer who fetched you?
A I can’t recall his name which was placed on his name plate, sir.
Q How many were they?
A They were four (4) of them, sir.
Q After you were fetched from your post or agency in Monumento, where did you go?
A The police officers told me we were going to Fairview, sir.
Q While you were with these police officers on the way to Fairview, did you have any conversation
with them?
A This was what happened. On the 18th of June in the afternoon of June 18, 1996, they showed
me a picture of a man wearing eyeglasses but I told them I will not point a man in
photographs I would like to see him in person.4 (Emphasis supplied)
In People v. Teehankee,  the Court laid down the guidelines to
5

determine the admissibility and reliability of an out-of-court

identification, thus:
“In resolving the admissibility of and relying on out-of-court identification of
suspects, courts have adopted the totality of circumstances testwhere they
consider the following factors, viz: (1) the witness’ opportunity to view the
criminal at the time of the crime; (2) the witness’ degree of attention at the time;
(3) the accuracy of any prior description given by the witness; (4) the level of
certainty demonstrated by the witness at the identification; (5) the length of time
_______________

4 TSN, 3 September 1996, pp. 21-22.

5 G.R. Nos. 111206-08, 6 October 1995, 249 SCRA 54.
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between the crime and the identification; and (6) the suggestiveness of the
identification procedure.” (Emphasis supplied)
Hence, in an out-of-court identification, among the factors to be
considered is the suggestiveness of the procedure. In this case, the
police resorted to a photographic identification of Joel, who was the
first suspect to be apprehended and who provided the identities of the
other accused.
In People v. Pineda,  the Court explained the rules in proper
6

photographic identification procedure, to wit:

 
“Although showing mug shots of suspects is one of the established methods of
identifying criminals, the procedure used in this case is unacceptable. The first
rule in proper photographic identification procedure is that a series of
photographs must be shown, and not merely that of the suspect. The second
rule directs that when a witness is shown a group of pictures, their
arrangement and display should in no way suggest which one of the
pictures pertains to the suspect. Thus:
[W]here a photograph has been identified as that of the guilty party, any
subsequent corporeal identification of that person may be based not upon
the witness’s recollection of the features of the guilty party, but upon his
recollection of the photograph. Thus, although a witness who is asked to
attempt a corporeal identification of a person whose photograph he
previously identified may say, “That’s the man that did it,” what he may
actually mean is, “That’s the man whose photograph I identified.”
x x x
A recognition of this psychological phenomenon leads logically to the
conclusion that where a witness has made a photographic identification of a
person, his subsequent corporeal identification of that same person is
somewhat impaired in value, and its accuracy must be evaluated in light of
the fact that he first saw a photograph. (Emphasis supplied)
_______________

6 G.R. No. 141644, 27 May 2004, 429 SCRA 478, 497-498.

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In Pineda, the Court rejected the out-of-court identification of the
accused, since only the photographs of the two accused, Pineda and
Sison, were shown to the witnesses, contrary to the recognized rules in
photographic identification. Finding the identification of appellant
therein tainted with impermissible suggestion, the Court held the
identification failed the totality of circumstances test, thus:
“In the present case, there was impermissible suggestion because the
photographs were only of appellant and Sison, focusing attention on the two
accused. The police obviously suggested the identity of the accused by showing
only appellant and Sison’s photographs to Ferrer and Ramos.
 The testimonies of Ferrer and Ramos show that their identification of
appellant fails the totality of circumstances test. The out-of-court identification
of appellant casts doubt on the testimonies of Ferrer and Ramos in court.” 7

Similarly, in this case, Alejo was first shown a photograph of Joel

before Alejo pinpointed Joel as one of the suspects. The police
showed only one photograph, that of Joel’s, highlighting the fact
that the police primed and conditioned Alejo to identify Joel as one
of the murderers of Abadilla. The police focused on Joel as one of the
suspects, prior to Alejo’s identification. The police did not show Alejo
any other photograph, only that of Joel’s. Assuming Alejo refused to
glance at Joel’s photograph, which is quited unbelievable, the fact that
he was shown only one photograph violates standard operating
procedures in criminal investigations. Clearly, the police, in showing
Alejo only a photograph of Joel, instead of a series of photographs
arranged in an unsuspicious manner, breached the recognized rules in
photographic identification. Undoubtedly, this procedure seriously
corrupted the identification process with impermissible suggestion. 
_______________

7 Id., at p. 498.
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In People v. Rodrigo,  the Court, speaking thru Justice Arturo Brion,
8

acquitted the accused for failure of the prosecution to identify the

accused as the perpetrator of the crime, which identification is
extremely crucial to the prosecution’s burden of proof. Stressing the
importance of a proper identification of the accused, most
especially “when the identification is made by a sole witness and the
judgment in the case totally depends on the reliability of the
identification,” just like in this case, the Court held:
“The greatest care should be taken in considering the identification of the
accused especially, when this identification is made by a sole witness and the
judgment in the case totally depends on the reliability of the identification. This
level of care and circumspection applies with greater vigor when, as in the
present case, the issue goes beyond pure credibility into constitutional
dimensions arising from the due process rights of the accused.
x x x x
That a single photograph, not a series, was shown to Rosita is admitted by
Rosita herself in her testimony.
x x x x
We hold it highly likely, based on the above considerations, that Rosita’s
photographic identification was attended by an impermissible suggestion
that tainted her in-court identification of Rodrigo as one of the three
robbers. We rule too that based on the other indicators of unreliability we
discussed above, Rosita’s identification cannot be considered as proof
beyond reasonable doubt of the identity of Rodrigo as one of the
perpetrators of the crime.
A first significant point to us is that Rosita did not identify a person whom she
had known or seen in the past. The robbers were total strangers whom she saw
very briefly. It is unfortunate that there is no direct evidence of how long the
actual robbery and the accompanying homicide lasted. But the crime, as
described, could not
_______________

8 G.R. No. 176159, 11 September 2008, 564 SCRA 584, 597, 600, 609-610.
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have taken long, certainly not more than a quarter of an hour at its longest. This
time element alone raises the question of whether Rosita had sufficiently
focused on Rodrigo to remember him, and whether there could have been a
reliable independent recall of Rodrigo’s identity.
We also find it significant that three robbers were involved, all three
brandishing guns, who immediately announced a holdup. This is an unusual
event that ordinarily would have left a person in the scene nervous, confused, or
in common parlance, “rattled.” To this already uncommon event was added the
shooting of Rosita’s husband who charged the robbers with a “bangko”and was
promptly shot, not once but three times. These factors add up to our conclusion
of the unlikelihood of an independent and reliable identification.” (Emphasis
supplied)
 The clear import of Rodrigo is that an out-of-court identification,
made by the lone witness, who was subjected to impermissible
photographic suggestion, fatally tainted the subsequent in-court
identification made by the same witness. Accordingly, the
testimony of such witness on the identification of the accused, by
itself, cannot be considered as proof beyond reasonable doubt of
the identity of the perpetrator of the crime. Without proof beyond
reasonable doubt of the identity of the perpetrator, the accused
deserves an acquittal.
Inasmuch as the present case involves the alleged positive
identification by a lone eyewitness and the entire case depends on such
identification, the Rodrigo case squarely applies here. Moreover,
similar to this case, the witness in Rodrigo was initially shown a single
photograph of the accused.
Applying Rodrigo to this case, the sole eyewitness Alejo’s out-of-
court identification which proceeded from impermissible suggestion
tainted his in-court identification of Joel as one of the perpetrators of
the crime. As a result, Alejo’s corrupted testimony on the identification
of Joel cannot be considered as proof beyond reasonable doubt of the
identity of Joel as one of the perpetrators. Without such proof, Joel
must be acquitted.146
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In his Separate Concurring Opinion, Justice Lucas P. Bersamin
distinguishes Rodrigofrom the instant case. Indeed, Rodrigo involved a
robbery with homicide while this case is for murder. Notwithstanding
the dissimilarity in the factual milieus, Rodrigo similarly dealt with
the admissibility and reliability of the identification made by a sole
witness and the judgment in the case totally depends on such
identification. In this case, Alejo is the sole eyewitness whose
identification of the perpetrators is determinative of the final
outcome of this case.
 Justice Bersamin errs in concluding that Alejo’s alleged act of
“categorically declining to identify any suspect from mere looking at a
photograph” removes any taint of impermissible suggestion from the
out-of-court identification. This does not detract from the fact that the
police showed Alejo no other photograph, except that of Joel’s.
Moreover, to repeat the majority’s finding: “when appellants
(accused) were arrested they were already considered suspects:
Joel was pinpointed by security guard Alejo who went along with
the PARAC squad to Fairview on June 19, 1996, x x x.”Moreover,
the fact remains that Joel testified that the police “showed me a picture
of a man wearing eyeglasses.”
Further, it must be emphasized that a highly suggestive identification
results in a denial of the accused’s right to due process since it
effectively and necessarily deprives the accused of a fair trial.
In Rodrigo, the Court stated:
“The initial photographic identification in this case carries serious
constitutional law implications in terms of the possible violation of the
due process rights of the accused as it may deny him his rights to a fair
trial to the extent that his in-court identification proceeded from and
was influenced by impermissible suggestions in the earlier
photographic identification. In the context of this case, the investigators
might not have been fair to Rodrigo if they themselves, purposely or
unwittingly, fixed in the mind of Rosita, or at least actively prepared
her mind to, the thought that Rodrigo was one of the robbers.
Effectively, this act is no different from coercing a
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witness in identifying an accused, varying only with respect to the
means used. Either way, the police investigators are the real actors in
the identification of the accused; evidence of identification is
effectively created when none really exists.” 9
 In Pineda, the Court pointed out the dangers a photographic
identification spawns: an impermissible suggestion and the risk that
the eyewitness would identify the person he saw in the photograph
and not the person he saw actually committing the crime. Citing
Patrick M. Wall, the Court stated:
“[W]here a photograph has been identified as that of the guilty party,
any subsequent corporeal identification of that person may be based not
upon the witness’ recollection of the features of the guilty party, but
upon his recollection of the photograph. Thus, although a witness who
is asked to attempt a corporeal identification of a person whose
photograph he previously identified may say, “That’s the man that did
it,” what he may actually mean is, “That’s the man whose photograph I
identified.”
x x x x
A recognition of this psychological phenomenon leads logically to
the conclusion that where a witness has made a photographic
identification of a person, his subsequent corporeal identification of
that same person is somewhat impaired in value, and its accuracy must
be evaluated in light of the fact that he first saw a photograph.” 10

Due process dictates that the photographic identification must be

devoid of any impermissible suggestions in order to prevent a
miscarriage of justice. In People v. Alcantara, the Court declared:
 
Due process demands that identification procedure of criminal suspects must
be free from impermissible suggestions. As appropriately held in US vs. Wade,
“the influence of improper suggestion
_______________

9 Id., at pp. 598-599.

10 People v. Pineda, supra at p. 498.
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 upon identifying witness probably accounts for more miscarriages of
justice than any other single factor.”  (Emphasis supplied)
11

Therefore, the police’s act of showing a single photograph to Alejo,

prior to “identifying” Joel as a suspect, corrupted the identification
procedure with impermissible suggestion. Through this illegal
procedure, the police, purposely or otherwise, suggested and implanted
on Alejo’s mind that Joel was one of the perpetrators, thereby violating
Joel’s right as an accused to due process. Not only did the police
disregard recognized and accepted rules in photographic identification,
they likewise transgressed the clear mandate of the Constitution that
“No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due
process of law.” More particularly, the police violated Section 14(1) of
the Constitution which provides: “No person shall be held to answer for
a criminal offense without due process of law.”
II. The accused was not assisted by counsel
during the police line-up, violating the accused’s
right to counsel in a custodial investigation.
The second out-of-court identification of Joel was made by Alejo
when Joel and Delos Santos were presented in a police line-up
conducted at the Criminal Investigation Division in Camp Karingal on
21 June 1996, two days after the first out-of-court identification of Joel.
As stated above, Alejo was shown a picture of Joel prior to the latter’s
arrest on 19 June 1996. Similar to the first out-of-court identification,
the identification of Joel in a police line-up likewise proceeded from
impermissible suggestion. Alejo already saw Joel’s photograph and had
seen Joel in person when Alejo pinpointed Joel as a suspect. The
necessity for the police line-up was doubtful and the conduct thereof
suspicious considering that Joel was al-
_______________

11 G.R. No. 91283, 17 January 1995, 240 SCRA 122, 135.

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 Lumanog vs. People
ready identified by Alejo when the latter went with the police to
Fairview to “pinpoint the suspect.”
More importantly, the police denied Joel his right to counsel during
the line-up, contrary to Section 12(1) of the Constitution which
provides:
“Any person under investigation for the commission of an offense shall have the
right to be informed of his right to remain silent and to have competent and
independent counsel preferably of his own choice. If the person cannot afford
the services of counsel, he must be provided with one. These rights cannot be
waived except in writing and in the presence of counsel.”
In People v. Escordial,     the Court pertinently ruled:
12

“As a rule, an accused is not entitled to the assistance of counsel in a police

line-up considering that such is usually not a part of the custodial inquest.
However, the cases at bar are different inasmuch as accused-appellant, having
been the focus of attention by the police after he had been pointed to by a certain
Ramie as the possible perpetrator of the crime, was already under custodial
investigation when these out-of-court identifications were conducted by the
police.
An out-of-court identification of an accused can be made in various ways. In a
show-up, the accused alone is brought face to face with the witness for
identification, while in a police line-up, the suspect is identified by a witness
from a group of persons gathered for that purpose. During custodial
investigation, these types of identification have been recognized as “critical
confrontations of the accused by the prosecution” which necessitate the
presence of counsel for the accused. This is because the results of these pre-
trial proceedings “might well settle the accused’s fate and reduce the trial
itself to a mere formality.” We have thus ruled that any identification of an
uncounseled accused made in a police line-up, or in a show-up for that
matter, after the start of the custodial investigation is inadmissible as
evidence against him.” (Emphasis supplied)
_______________

12 G.R. Nos. 139834-35, 16 January 2002, 373 SCRA 585, 607.

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 Lumanog vs. People
As stated in Escordial, generally, an accused is not entitled to the
assistance of counsel in a police line-up considering that such is usually
not a part of custodial investigation. An exception to this rule is when
the accused had been the focus of police attention at the start of the
investigation. The line-up in this case squarely falls under this
exception. It was established that Joel was already a suspect prior to the
police line-up. In fact, even before Joel’s apprehension, the police had
already zeroed in on Joel as one of Abadilla’s killers. As such, Joel was
entitled to counsel during the police line-up.
However, there is no question that Joel was not assisted by counsel,
whether of his own choice or provided by the police, during the line up.
As Joel’s identification was uncounseled, it cannot be admitted in
evidence for grossly violating Joel’s right to counsel under Section
12(1) of the Constitution.
Further, the Court held in Escordial that the testimony of the witness
regarding the inadmissible identification cannot be admitted as well,
thus:
“Here, accused-appellant was identified by Michelle Darunda in a
show-up on January 3, 1997 and by Erma Blanca, Ma. Teresa Gellaver,
Jason Joniega, and Mark Esmeralda in a police line-up on various dates
after his arrest. Having been made when accused-appellant did not have
the assistance of counsel, these out-of-court identifications are
inadmissible in evidence against him. Consequently, the testimonies
of these witnesses regarding these identifications should have been
held inadmissible for being “the direct result of the illegal lineup
‘come at by exploitation of [the primary] illegality.’ ” 13

III. The in-court identification of the accused

did not cure the flawed out-of-court identification.
_______________ 

13 Id., at pp. 607-608.

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Citing Patrick M. Wall,  the majority enumerated the danger signals
14

which give warning that the identification may be erroneous even

though the method used is proper. Contrary to the majority, some of
these danger signals are present in this case: (1) a serious discrepancy
exists between the identifying witness’ original description and the
actual description of the accused; (2) the limited opportunity on the part
of the witness to see the accused before the commission of the crime;
(3) a considerable time elapsed between the witness’ view of the
criminal and his identification of the accused; and (4) several persons
committed the crime.
A. Discrepancy between original description and actual description
In his sworn statement, which was executed barely five hours after
the commission of the crime, Alejo was able to recall the features of
only two suspects, those of one of the gunmen and one of the lookouts.
Significantly, Alejo failed to remember the physical attributes of the
rest of the suspects. Alejo described the two suspects as follows:
20. T—Kung makita mo bang muli ang mga suspect, makikilala mo ba sila?
S—Maaari, sir.
21. T—Ano ba ang itsura ng mga suspect?
S—Iyong tumutok sa akin ay naka-asul na t-shirt, edad 30-35, 5’5” - 5’6” ang taas, maikli
ang buhok, kayumanggi. xxx Iyong sumakal sa biktima at nang-agaw ng clutch bag nito
ay 25-30 ang edad, payat, mahaba ang buhok na nakatali, maitim, may taas na 5’5” - 5’6”,
maiksi din ang baril niya at nakaputing polo. xxx
_______________

14 A well-known authority in eyewitness identification (see People v. Pineda, supra).

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22. T—Ang sabi mo, pagbangon mo sa pagkadapa sa guardhouse ay wala na ang mga suspect, may
napansin ka bang sasakyan man sila sa pagtakas?
S—Mabilis nga sir ang pangyayari. Wala din akong napansin kung may sasakyan man sila sa
pagtakas. (Emphasis supplied)
 In his in-court identification of the suspects, two months after the
crime, Alejo identified Lumanog as Suspect No. 1, who allegedly took
the clutch bag of the victim, “sinakal ang biktima, inilabas ng kotse at
nang bagsak sa kalsada ay binaril pa uli.”
However, Lumanog’s actual age and physical features are nowhere
close to Alejo’s description of the gunman in his sworn statement. In a
newspaper article, it was reported that the “police sketch of killer bore
no resemblance to any of the Abadilla 5 (referring to the five
accused).”  Lumanog is fair complexioned, definitely not “maitim;” 40
15

years old, not 25 to 30 years of age; and sported a short, not long, hair.
The grave disparity between the description of the gunman in Alejo’s
sworn statement and in his testimony greatly undermines Alejo’s
credibility in identifying the perpetrators of the gruesome crime.
Yet, the majority brushed aside Alejo’s inconsistencies, justifying the
same, thus:
“Alejo’s description of Lumanog as dark-skinned was made two (2)
months prior to the dates of trial when he was again asked to identify
him in court. When defense counsel posed the question of the
discrepancy in Alejo’s description of Lumanog who was then presented
as having fair complexion and 40 years old, the private prosecutor
manifested the possible effect of Lumanog’s incarceration for such
length of time as to make his appearance different at the time of the
trial.”
16

_______________

15 http://news.google.com/newspapers?
nid=2479&dat=20021210&id=Alk1AAAAIBAJ&sjid=iyUMAAAAIBAJ&pg=3075,32965267
16 Decision, p. 68.
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Notably, the majority failed to consider the disparity in the suspect’s
estimated age and Lumanog’s actual age. Alejo described the gunman
as between 25-30 years old, while Lumanog was actually 40 years old.
Certainly, a 40 year old man could not be mistaken for a 25 or 30 year
old male, unless the prosecution had shown that Lumanog, despite his
age, looked quite young, or that Lumanog underwent facial surgery
before he supposedly shot the victim to appear as a 25-30 year old
male.
With respect to one of the lookouts, who pointed a gun at him, Alejo
described him in his sworn statement as “edad 30-35, 5’5”-5’6” ang
taas, maikli ang buhok, kayumanggi.” It must be pointed out that Alejo
was only able to give a prior description of one of the lookouts who
pointed a gun at him, despite his later testimony that there were two
lookouts who threatened his life and were walking to and fro in front of
his guardpost prior to the killing, suggesting Alejo had ample time to
see and familiarize himself with the faces of these two lookouts.
Considering that in open court, Alejo testified that there were two
suspects who each pointed a gun at him, whom he identified as Joel and
Delos Santos, the prosecution must sufficiently and clearly establish as
to who between these two accused would the description in Alejo’s
sworn statement be used as basis for identification. This the
prosecution gravely failed to do.
With respect to Joel, Alejo’s prior description given before the police
did not match Joel’s physical features. Joel was only 22 years old then,
leaving at least an 8-year difference as to the age of the lookout who
was described by Alejo as 30-35 years old. The majority explained the
difference in the age by stating, thus:
“Though his estimate of Joel’s age was not precise, it is not far from his true
age, especially if we consider that being a tricycle
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driver who is exposed daily to sunlight, Joel’s looks may give a first impression
that he is older than his actual age.”
17

The majority’s explanation is purely speculative. There was no

evidence presented to prove (1) that Joel plied his tricycle everyday
during daytime; (2) the amount of Joel’s exposure to sunlight; and (3)
such exposure was excessive as to result to premature aging of the
facial skin.
Moreover, Joel’s height is 5’9” whereas the man whom Alejo
described as lookout was about 5’5”-5’6” tall. There was no
explanation offered as to the disparity in the height.
To repeat, Alejo described only one lookout in his sworn statement,
contrary to his testimony that there were two lookouts. For such
conflicting statements, the trial court acquitted Delos Santos, thus:
“The typewriter recording at 1:55 in the afternoon of SG Alejo’s salaysay is but
the culmination of a long process of oral interviews and conversation so that the
results thereof can be put in systematic order. Additionally, at that period in
time, SG Alejo’s recollection is still very recent and fresh and he appears to be
solely in touch with police investigators who came to know of the ambush that
same morning. His court testimony, therefore, given at a much later date
(August 1996) after the arrest of Lorenzo delos Santos wherein SG Alejo
narrated that there were two (2) men loitering about near his post and that one
after the other those two men barked at or ordered him is weakened by what he
had earlier told police investigators disclosing that only one (1) person shouted
orders at him. In view of this, the court finds the alibi of Lorenzo to have been
correspondingly strengthened as to put in doubt the prosecution’s case against
this particular accused.”
The trial court disbelieved Alejo’s testimony wherein he pinned Joel
and Delos Santos as the suspects who were walking to and fro and
threatened him at his guard post. Despite the fact that in terms of
proximity to Alejo, these two suspects
_______________

17 Decision, p. 68.
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were nearest him, and would most likely be recognized, if seen again,
the trial court doubted Alejo’s identification of Delos Santos. Alejo’s
 testimony is fatally inconsistent with his earlier claim that there was
only one lookout who twice ordered him to lie down (“baba”).
Considering there was sufficient reason to doubt Delos Santos’
culpability based on Alejo’s conflicting statements, there is more
reason to doubt Joel’s participation in the crime. The discrepancy
between Alejo’s description given before the police and the actual
physical appearance of Joel, and the inconsistency in the number of
lookouts, severely weakened the credibility of Alejo in identifying the
real culprits.
B. Limited opportunity for Alejo to see the criminals
There is no dispute that Alejo does not know the murderers. Neither
does he know the accused. Alejo saw the gunmen and lookouts for the
first time during the killing. In Rodrigo, the Court observed:
“This fact can make a lot of difference as human experience tells us: in the
recognition of faces, the mind is more certain when the faces relate to those
already in the mind’s memory bank; conversely, it is not easy to recall or
identify someone we have met only once or whose appearance we have not fixed
in our mind.” 18

Aside from the fact that Alejo did not know the killers, Alejo saw
them very briefly. In fact, in his own words, he admitted this to the
police investigators when he answered “mabilis ang mga pangyayari,
sir.” Likewise, in his testimony, Alejo stated:
ATTY. AZARCON
Q And how long a time when the first suspect poked the gun at you and the time you faced the
other suspect?
_______________

18 Supra at p. 604. 
 
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A I faced the man who poked a gun at me for about 5 seconds and then I looked back towards the
four suspects.
Q How long a time were you facing the four suspects?
A Less than a minute, sir.19
 We agree with the accused that the swiftness by which the crime was
committed and the physical impossibility of memorizing the faces of all
the perpetrators of the crime whom the witness saw for the first time
and only for a brief moment under life-threatening and stressful
circumstances incite disturbing doubts as to whether the witness could
accurately remember the identity of the perpetrators of the crime.
C. A considerable time elapsed between the witness’ view of the
criminal and his identification of the accused.
Except for Joel and Delos Santos, the rest of the accused were
identified for the first time in open court when Alejo testified during
the trial. It must be stressed that there was neither any prior
identification nor prior description of Lumanog, Santos, Rameses, and
Fortuna as murder suspects in this case.
The crime took place on 13 June 1996, while Alejo testified in
August 1996. Alejo was never made to identify Lumanog, Santos,
Rameses, and Fortuna prior to their arrest until their in-court
identification was made. Two months had elapsed between Alejo’s
view of the criminals and his identification of the accused in open
court. Alejo’s memory, just like any other human’s, is frail. In fact, as
noted by the trial court, Alejo’s recollection at the time he gave his
statement before the police investigators was more recent and fresher
than when Alejo testified in court. Accordingly, the trial court gave
more credence to Alejo’s sworn statement than his testimony in
acquitting Delos Santos.
_______________

19 TSN, 4 September 1996, p. 28.

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Considering Alejo’s weak recollection of the incident, it is quite
incredible that Alejo, at the time he identified the accused in open
court, had perfect memory as to the identity of the five accused, who
were complete strangers allegedly seen by Alejo for the first time on 13
June 1996 in a very fleeting and extremely stressful moment.
D. Several persons committed the crime.
According to Alejo, six men perpetrated the crime. He saw these six
male adults, all complete strangers, for the very first time in a matter of
seconds. It is quite unbelievable that Alejo, whose life was threatened
by at least one of the suspects, focused his attention on all six suspects,
looked at them at the same time, and memorized their faces and
features in less than a minute. In fact, he did not witness the entire
incident as it unfolded. Alejo did not even see the suspects flee the
crime scene in a white Kia Pride car as he was ordered to lie down by
one of the lookouts. The physical impossibility of looking at the faces
of six different men at the same time points to the incredibility of
Alejo’s testimony, certain details of which clearly run counter to human
nature and experience.
IV. Alejo’s in-court identification of the accused
proceeded from illegal police activities.
As discussed earlier, Alejo’s in-court identification of Joel proceeded
from and was influenced by impermissible suggestions in the earlier
photographic identification. As a consequence, Alejo’s testimony based
on such fatally defective identification cannot be considered as proof
beyond reasonable doubt of the identity of the perpetrators, warranting
Joel’s acquittal.
As regards Lumanog, Fortuna, Santos and Rameses, it was Joel,
through a coerced confession, who supplied the police investigators
with the identities of his supposed cohorts and their whereabouts. The
majority notes that “Police officers
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claimed that appellants were apprehended as a result of “hot pursuit”
activities on the days following the ambush-slay of Abadilla. There is
no question, however, that when appellants were arrested they were
already considered suspects: Joel was pinpointed by security guard
Alejo who went along with the PARAC squad to Fairview on June 19,
1996, while the rest of appellants were taken by the same
operatives in follow-up operations after Joel provided them with
identities of his conspirators and where they could be found.”
The police did not posses any description or prior identification of
these accused. There was no leading information, or any piece of
reliable information for that matter, on the identity of the killers, except
Joel’s illegally extracted extrajudicial confession. Neither did the police
have any evidence linking the other accused to the crime. To repeat,
Joel provided the police, through a coerced confession, with the
identities of his supposed co-conspirators and where they could be
found. Clearly, “the police investigators are the real actors in the
identification of the accused; evidence of identification is effectively
created when none really exists.” 20

The majority strikes down “the extrajudicial confession [which were]

extracted in violation of constitutional enshrined rights and declares it
inadmissible in evidence.” Since Joel’s coerced extrajudicial confession
is inadmissible, the contents of which, specifically the identities of the
supposed killers, are unreliable and inadmissible as well.
In Escordial, the Court stated that the testimonies of the witnesses on
the identification of the accused should be held inadmissible for being
“the direct result of the illegal lineup ‘come at by exploitation of [the
primary] illegality.’ ”  Here, 21

_______________

20 People v. Rodrigo, supra at p. 599.

21 People v. Escordial, supra at p. 608 citing Gilbert v. California, 388 U.S. 263, 272-273, 18 L.Ed.2d
1178 (1967).
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being a direct result of an illegal police activity, that is the coerced
extraction of a confession from Joel, the subsequent in-court
identification by Alejo of Lumanog, Rameses, Fortuna and Santos must
be rejected. The testimony of Alejo on the identification of the accused
as perpetrators of the crime cannot be given any weight. Alejo’s in-
court identification of Lumanog, Rameses, Fortuna, and Santos was
fatally tainted because the identity of the suspects came from a coerced
confession of Joel, who himself was identified as a suspect through a
fatally defective impermissible suggestion to Alejo. In short, Alejo’s
identification of Joel was fatally defective; Alejo’s identification of
Lumanog, Rameses, Fortuna and Santos was also fatally defective.
Both identification directly emanated from illegal police activities
—impermissible suggestion and coerced confession.
Without any credible evidence of their identification as the
perpetrators of the crime, Lumanog, Rameses, Fortuna, Santos, and
Joel must therefore be acquitted.
V. Alejo’s familiarity with the faces of the accused,
due to media exposure of the identities of the
accused extracted from a coerced confession,
impaired his in-court identification.
After the police investigators had illegally extracted from Joel the
identities and locations of the other suspects, and after they had arrested
Lumanog, Rameses, Fortuna and Santos, the police proudly declared:
“crime solved” and “case closed.” With this remarkable development,
the accused were presented before the media in a press conference in
Camp Crame on 24 June 1996 or 11 days after the killing. The accused
were photographed by mediamen and interviewed by members of the
press. During the press conference, the ac-
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cused were made to squat on the floor, their names written on boards
dangling from their necks. 22
 Indisputably, the police extracted the identities of the accused from a
coerced confession of Joel. Then the police arrested the accused, and
allowed the media to take their pictures with their names written on
boards around their necks. The media promptly published these
pictures in several newspapers. Thus, at that time, the faces of the
accused were regularly splashed all over the newspapers and on
television screens in news reports. Alejo could not have missed seeing
the faces of the accused before he identified them in court. To rule
otherwise strains credulity.
Alejo, as the star witness in this case, must naturally be interested to
look, or even stare, at the faces of the alleged killers to make sure he
identifies them in court. Assuming Alejo failed to personally see the
faces of the accused in the newspapers or television, which is highly
improbable, if not totally impossible, his family and friends, if not the
police, would have provided him with photographs of the accused from
the newspapers for easier identification later in court. Surely, Alejo had
ample time to memorize and familiarize himself with the faces of the
accused before he testified in court and identified Lumanog, Santos,
Rameses, Joel, and Fortuna as the killers of Abadilla.
To give credence to Alejo’s in-court identification of the accused
is to admit and give probative value to the coerced confession of
Joel. Clearly, the publication of the pictures of the accused in the
newspapers and television came directly from the coerced
confession of Joel. Alejo would not have been able to identify the
accused without the pictures of the accused that were taken by
media as a result of the coerced confession of Joel.
_______________

22 http://news.google.com/newspapers?
nid=2479&dat=20021210&id=Alk1AAAAIBAJ&sjid=iyUMAAAAIBAJ&pg=3075,32965267
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 Inexplicably, the majority fails to consider this extensive media
exposure of the accused in ascertaining the reliability and admissibility
of Alejo’s testimony on the identities of the accused. The majority
ignores the fact that Alejo had seen the accused in print and on
television, guaranteeing Alejo’s in-court identification of the accused as
the perpetrators of the crime. The media exposure of the accused casts
serious doubts on the integrity of Alejo’s testimony on the
identification of the murderers. Such doubts are sufficient to rule that
Alejo’s in-court identification of the accused as the perpetrators of the
crime is neither positive nor credible. “It is not merely any
identification which would suffice for conviction of the accused. It
must be positive identification made by a credible witness, in order to
attain the level of acceptability and credibility to sustain moral certainty
concerning the person of the offender.” 23

VI. The police investigation and apprehension

of the accused violated the accused’s rights
against warrantless arrest and
against any form of torture.
The police arrested Joel, without any warrant, on 19 June 1996 or six
days after the killing. Six days is definitely more than enough to
secure an arrest warrant, and yet the police opted to arrest Joel
and the other accused, without any warrant, claiming that it was
conducted in “hot pursuit.” In law enforcement, “hot pursuit” can
refer to an immediate pursuit by the police such as a car chase.      24

Certainly, the warrantless arrest of Joel, made six days after

_______________

23 People v. Gamer, 383 Phil. 557, 570; 326 SCRA 660, 673 (2000).
24 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_pursuit.See People v. Bati, G.R. No. 87429, 27 August 1990, 189
SCRA 97, where the two accused were pursued and arrested a few minutes after consummating the sale of
marijuana.
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 Lumanog vs. People
the murder, does not fall within the ambit of “hot pursuit.” The
question now is whether the successive warrantless arrests of the
accused are legal. The pertinent provisions of Rule 113 of the Rules on
Criminal Procedure on warrantless arrest provide:
“Sec. 5. Arrest without warrant; when lawful.—A peace officer or a private
person may, without a warrant, arrest a person:
a) When, in his presence, the person to be arrested has committed, is
actually committing, or is attempting to commit an offense;
b) When an offense has just been committed, and he has probable cause to
believe based on personal knowledge of facts or circumstances that the person to
be arrested has committed it; and
c) When the person to be arrested is a prisoner who has escaped from a
penal establishment or place where he is serving final judgment or is temporarily
confined while his case is pending, or has escaped while being transferred from
one confinement to another.”
None of the above instances is present in this case: (1) the accused
were not arrested in flagrante delicto; (2) the arrest was not based on
personal knowledge of the arresting officers that there is probable cause
that the accused were the authors of the crime which had just been
committed; (3) the accused were not prisoners who have escaped from
custody serving final judgment or temporarily confined while their case
is pending. There is no question that all the accused were apprehended
several days after the crime while doing ordinary and unsuspicious
activities. There is also no question that the police had no personal
knowledge of probable cause that the accused were responsible for the
crime which had been committed. The third situation is inapplicable
since the accused are not prison escapees. Considering these facts, there
is indeed no justification for the warrantless arrests effected by the
police in their so-called “hot pursuit.” Such warrantless arrest,
therefore, amounts to a violation of Section 2, Article III of the
Constitution, which provides:163
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 Lumanog vs. People
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and
effects against unreasonable searches and seizures of whatever nature and for
any purpose shall be inviolable, and no search warrant or warrant of arrest shall
issue except upon probable cause to be determined personally by the judge after
examination under oath or affirmation of the complainant and the witnesses he
may produce, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the
persons or things to be seized.”
The police investigation work in this case, which led to the unlawful
warrantless arrest of the accused, is nothing but sloppy: (1) they chose
to rely solely on the sworn statement of one eyewitness (Alejo); (2)
they failed to obtain any description of the suspects from other
eyewitnesses, including the owner of the Kia Pride which was
forcefully obtained by the suspects as a get-away car; (3) they
showed Alejo a picture of Joel to assist him in identifying the
“suspect”; and (4) they arrested the other accused based entirely
on the illegally extracted extrajudicial confession of Joel.
Worse than their illegal warrantless arrest, the accused reportedly
underwent unspeakable torture in the hands of the police. While the
Commission on Human Rights, “in its Resolution dated July 16, 1996,
did not make any categorical finding of physical violence inflicted on
the appellants by the police authorities, the CHR found prima
facie evidence that the police officers could have violated Republic Act
No. 7438, particularly on visitorial rights and the right to counsel,
including the law on arbitrary detention, x x x.”
The majority also finds that “P/Insp. Castillo admitted that the initial
questioning of Joel began in the morning of June 20, 1996, the first
time said suspect was presented to him at the CPDC station, even
before he was brought to the IBP Office for the taking of his formal
statement. Thus, the possibility of appellant Joel having been
subjected to intimidation or violence in the hands of police
investigators as he claims cannot be discounted.” During the trial,
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the police miserably failed to explain Joel’s whereabouts from the time
he was arrested on 19 June 1996 until he was interrogated the next day.
Further, there were sufficient evidence that Joel and the other accused
suffered physical injuries consistent with torture bruises.
The speedy resolution of a crime is never a license for the police to
apprehend any person and beat him to admit his participation in a
gruesome crime. In this case, without any credible evidence linking the
accused to the murder, the police blindly resorted to careless
investigation and unlawful apprehension of innocent men. Worse, the
police apparently tortured the accused to answer for the brutal slaying
of Abadilla.
Indisputably, torturing the accused to extract incriminating
confessions is repugnant to the Constitution. Section 12(2), Article III
of the Constitution expressly provides “[n]o torture, force, violence,
threat, intimidation, or any other means which vitiate the free will shall
be used against [an accused].” The blatant and unacceptable
transgression of the accused’s constitutional rights, for the sake of
delivering speedy, but false, justice to the aggrieved, can never be
countenanced. This Court can never tolerate official abuses and
perpetuate the gross violation of these rights. The presumption that a
public officer had regularly performed his official duty can at no
instance prevail over the presumption of innocence.
VII. Conclusion
In reviewing criminal cases, the Court must carefully determine and
establish “first, the identification of the accused as perpetrator of the
crime, taking into account the credibility of the prosecution witness
who made the identification as well as the prosecution’s compliance
with legal and constitutional standards; and second, all the elements
constituting the crime were duly proven by the prosecution to be
present.”  The
25

_______________
 25 People v. Rodrigo, supra at p. 597.
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inexistence of any of these two factors compels us to acquit the
accused. 26

In this case, the identification of the accused as the perpetrators of the

crime was not clearly and convincingly established raising reasonable
doubt on the accused’s guilt for the crime charged.
Apart from breaching established rules on photographic
identification, the out-of-court identification of the accused Joel De
Jesus infringes upon his fundamental Constitutional rights (1) to due
process; and (2) to counsel. Specifically, the highly suggestive
photographic identification of Joel made by Alejo violated Joel’s due
process rights under Section 1, Article III and Section 14(1) of the
Constitution. Meanwhile, the failure of the police to provide Joel with
the assistance of counsel during the police line-up, regarded as a part of
custodial investigation, violated Section 12(1) of the Constitution.
On the other hand, the in-court identification of Joel and the rest of
the accused did not cure the flawed out-of-court identification.
Contrary to the majority’s view, various circumstances signal an
erroneous identification: (1) a serious discrepancy exists between the
identifying witness’ original description and the actual description of
the accused; (2) the limited opportunity on the part of the witness to see
the accused before the commission of the crime; (3) a considerable time
elapsed between the witness’ view of the criminal and his identification
of the accused; and (4) several persons committed the crime.
Moreover, it was clearly established that Joel was tortured in
admitting his participation in the crime and in providing the
identities of the his supposed co-conspirators. Such despicable act
violated the accused’s right under Section 12 (2) of the
Constitution. The torture, aside from the failure of the police to
pro-
_______________

26 Id.
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vide Joel with counsel, renders his extrajudicial confession
indamissible. Significantly, without such coerced confession, the
police had nothing to implicate the other accused to the murder.
Further, the police arrested the accused without warrant contrary to
Section 2, Article III of the Constitution. Also, none of the instances
under Rule 113 of the Rules on Criminal Procedure exists to justify the
accused’s warrantless arrest.
It devolves upon the police authorities, as law enforcers, to ensure the
proper and strict implementation of the laws, most specially, the
fundamental law of the land. Lamentably, the present case showcases
the dark reality in our country, where the police at times assumes the
role of law offenders. The policemen, boasting of solving a highly
sensationalized crime, flagrantly disregarded the accused’s
constitutional rights. These men in uniform openly defiled the
Constitution, which they are bound to observe and respect, by
infringing upon the accused’s rights guaranteed under (1) Section 1,
Article III; (2) Section 14(1); (3) Section 12(1); (4) Section 12 (2); and
(5) Section 2, Article III of the Constitution. Such violations simply
cannot be countenanced. Instead, they deserve utmost condemnation.
As the Court declared emphatically in Alcantara:
“The records show that [the police] illegally arrested appellant, arbitrarily
detained, physically abused and coerced him to confess to a crime penalized by
nothing less than reclusion perpetua. Too often, our law enforcers, in their haste
to solve crimes, strip people accused of serious offenses of the sanctity of their
constitutional rights. It is again time to pound on these lawenforcers with the
crania of cavern men that the guarantees of the rights of an accused in the
Constitution are not mere saccharine statements but the bedrock of our
liberty. If we allow a meltdown of these guarantees, our democracy will be a
delusion.” (Emphasis supplied)
 In view of the gross violations of the accused’s constitutional rights
as well as the seriously flawed identification of the accused as the
perpetrators of the crime, there is sufficient reason to doubt the
accused’s guilt for the crime
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charged. To repeat, the prosecution failed to discharge its burden of
proof, specifically to prove the identity of the perpetrators of the
crime beyond reasonable doubt. Accordingly, the presumption of
innocence in favor of the accused prevails. The accused need not even
raise the defenses of denial and alibi as the burden of proof never
shifted to the defense. “Any consideration of the merits of these
defenses is rendered moot and will serve no useful
purpose.”  Therefore, the accused are entitled to an acquittal.
27

Accordingly, I vote to GRANT the appeals and ACQUIT all the

accused.
CONCURRING OPINION
BERSAMIN, J.:
I concur with the thorough ponencia of Mr. Justice Villarama.
Indeed, the People established beyond reasonable doubt the guilt of the
appellants for the murder charged herein.
Through this humble concurrence, I only desire to spotlight some
aspects of the case to banish the unfounded misgivings my two
illustrious colleagues, Mr. Justice Carpio and Mr. Justice Abad, so
eloquently expressed about the affirmance of the two lower courts’
judgments. I would have unhesitatingly joined them in disagreeing with
the ponenciahad their misgivings been well founded. Alas, I cannot do
so, for the records firmly established that the accused were guilty
beyond reasonable doubt of the treacherous killing of the victim.
A
 In his separate opinion, Mr. Justice Carpio urges the acquittal of all
the accused due to the inadmissibility of the
_______________

27 People v. Rodrigo, supra at pp. 611-612.

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positive out-of-courtidentification of appellant Joel De Jesus (De Jesus)
by the eyewitness security guard Freddie Alejo (Alejo) for being
tainted with impermissible suggestiveness that cast grave doubt on the
reliability of the identification. Mr. Justice Carpio observes that the
police had first shown a photograph of De Jesus to Alejo prior to their
face-to-face confrontation, and contends that the police thereby
implanted in the mind of Alejo the identity of De Jesus as one of the
perpetrators of the crime. He concludes that De Jesus was not reliably
identified, and insists that the illegally-taken extrajudicial confession
(by which he had implicated the other perpetrators) rendered De Jesus’
identification of the other accused also baseless and inadmissible.
B
Citing People v. Rodrigo,  Mr. Justice Carpio advocates the acquittal
1

of all the accused.

I do not disagree that the Court properly dismissed as unreliable the
positive out-of-court and in-court identifications made in People v.
Rodrigo. The established facts and circumstances in that case fully
warranted the ultimate acquittal of Rodrigo, for the presumption of
innocence in his favor was not overcome without his reliable
identification as one of the robbers.
Yet, I cannot join Mr. Justice Carpio’s reliance on People v. Rodrigo,
because the established facts and circumstances there were not similar
to those herein.
People v. Rodrigo was a prosecution for robbery with homicide.
There, the Court acquitted Lee Rodrigo, one of the three alleged
robbers, because his out-of-court identification by the victim’s wife,
the lone eyewitness for the State, was held to be defective based on the
“totality of the circumstances” and did not come up to the standard for
reliable photographic identifi- 
_______________

1 G.R. No. 176159, September 11, 2008, 564 SCRA 584.

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cation set in People v. Pineda. The Court particularly took into account
2

that Rodrigo had been a stranger to the eyewitness, who had not known
him prior to the identification; that the eyewitness had had only a very
brief encounter with the robbers (there being no direct evidence on the
time the actual robbery and the accompanying homicide had taken);
that she (eyewitness) had already known the name of Rodrigo long
before she positively identified him, due to a neighbor of hers having
told her that one of the malefactors had been Lee Rodrigo; that she
could not have focused solely on the robber, because she had actually
been closer in proximity to another malefactor; that she had made the
out-of-court identification based on Rodrigo’s photograph more than a
month after the commission of the crime; and that she had been
inconsistent on the precise role that Rodrigo had played in the
commission of the crime. 3

The Court noted in People v. Rodrigo that the eyewitness, being the

wife of the victim and thus an aggrieved party, had hardly been a
disinterested witness whose testimony should be equated to or treated
as that from a detached party; and concluded that “based on the above
considerations, that Rosita’s (eyewitness) photographic identification
was attended by an impermissible suggestion that tainted her in-court
identification of Rodrigo (accused) as one of the three robbers xxx
[and] based on the other indicators of unreliability we discussed above,
Rosita’s identification cannot be considered as proof beyond reasonable
doubt of the identity of Rodrigo as one of the perpetrators of the
crime.”
_______________

2 G.R. No. 141644, May 17, 2004, 429 SCRA 478, 497; citing People v. Teehankee, Jr., G.R. No.
111206-08, October 6, 1995, 249 SCRA 54, 95.
3 The actual confrontation between the eyewitness and the accused occurred five and a half months after
the commission of the crime; and the in-court identification was conducted 15 months after the commission
of the crime.
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In contrast, the records of the present case show that impermissible
suggestion did not precede Alejo’s out-of-court positive identification
of De Jesus as one of the perpetrators of the crime. Alejo’s testimony
on September 3, 1996 reveals, on the contrary, that Alejo
even categorically declined to identify any suspect by mere looking at
a photograph, to wit:
 
ATTY. BAGATSING:
Q Prior to 3:00 o’clock PM of June 19, 1996 on or about 2:00 o’clock PM where were you?
A Perhaps I was on my way I was fetched by the policeman from out agency in Monumento, sir.
x x x
Q After you were fetched from your post or agency in Monumento, where did you go?
A The police officers told me we were going to Fairview, sir.
Q While you were with these police officers on the way to Fairview, did you have any conversation
with them?
A This is what happened. On the 18th of June in the afternoon of June 18, 1996, they showed me a
picture of a man wearing eyeglasses but I told them I will not point a man in photographs
I would like to see him in person.
Verily, the procedure outlined in People v. Pineda  and People v. 4

Teehankee  for a proper out-of-court identification was neither

5

disregarded nor violated.

_______________

4 Note 2, supra, viz.:
 The procedure on proper identification requires that, firstly, a series of photographs, not merely that of
the suspects, must be shown and; secondly, when a witness is shown a group of pictures, their arrangement
and display should in no way suggest which one of the pictures pertains to the suspect.
5 G.R. No. 111206-08, October 6, 1995, 249 SCRA 54, 95, to wit:
 In resolving the admissibility of and relying on out-of-court identification of suspects, courts have
adopted the totality of circumstances test where they consider the following factors, to wit: (1) the
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C
The reliability of Alejo’s in-court identification of all the accused is
being assailed on the ground that the identification of the other accused
had supposedly resulted from the illegally taken extrajudicial
confession of De Jesus, and that such identification had suffered from
flaws, specifically: (a) the discrepancies about the descriptions of two
of the accused and their features in Alejo’s sworn statement given a
few hours after the commission of the crime; (b) Alejo’s having seen
the killers only very briefly; (c) the lapse of a considerable length of
time between the commission of the crime and Alejo’s in-court
identification of all the accused sufficed to cast doubt on Alejo's ability
to still recall with clarity the details of the crime; and (d) the crime was
committed by six perpetrators.
I now address the aforecited misgivings.
The challenge to the reliability of the in-court identification of De
Jesus and Lenido Lumanog (Lumanog) was predicated on a report
contained in a newspaper article (which was extracted from the
internet)  to the effect that the “police sketch of [the] killer bore no
6

resemblance to any of the Abadilla 5 (referring to the five

accused).”  Allegedly, the physical descriptions of De Jesus and
7

Lumanog given in Alejo’s sworn statement—that the lookout (De

Jesus) was “edad 30-35, 5’5”-5'6” ang taas, maikli ang buhok,
kayumanggi” while the other suspect (Lumanog) looked like “25-
30 ang edad, payat, mahaba ang buhok na nakatali, maitim, may taas
na 5’5”-5’6”—did not match reality, considering that De Jesus actually
stood
witness’ opportunity to view the criminal at the time of the crime; (2)
the witness’ degree of attention at the time; (3) the accuracy of any
prior description given by the witness; (4) the level of certainty
demonstrated by the witness at the identification; (5) the length of time
between the crime and the identification; and (6) the suggestiveness of
the identification procedure.
_______________

6 See note 5, Separate Opinion, p. 6.

7 Id.
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at 5’9” and was only 22 years of age at the time of the commission of
the crime, and Lumanog was 40 years old and fair
complexioned (kayumanggi), not dark skinned (maitim) at the time of
the in-court identification.
With all due respect, the inconsistencies are more apparent than real,
and did not discredit the positive in-court identification of all the
accused.
To state that a police sketch of the killer bore no resemblance to any
of the accused is to make a very subjective assessment. It is worth
nothing in forensic determination. At any rate, a discrepancy between a
police artist’s sketch of a perpetrator of a crime based on descriptions
of witnesses at the scene of the crime, on one hand, and an actual
identification of the perpetrator by an eyewitness given in court, on the
other hand, is a very minimal factor of doubt on the reliability of the
identification. In any criminal prosecution there are more and better
circumstances to consider other than the initial sketch of a police artist
for determining the reliability of an identification. We have to
remember that a police artist’s sketch of a perpetrator of a crime is
initially for purposes of pursuing an investigation, and has seldom any
impact on the case after that.
That there might be a discrepancy between the alleged actual height
of De Jesus and eyewitness Alejo’s estimate of it did not negate the
reliability of the latter’s in-court identification of the former as the
lookout who had pointed a gun at the latter. The records show that
Alejo was standing inside his elevated guardhouse at the time of the
commission of the crime, from where he had a clear view of the
incident and of the persons involved. His good vantage point was
confirmed during the ocular inspection conducted by the trial
judge,  who observed for the record the high visibility of the events
8

from such vantage point. Moreover, Alejo definitely had a good

_______________

8 The trial judge was then RTC Judge Jose C. Mendoza, now a member of the Court.
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look at De Jesus, considering that the latter himself twiceshouted at
and even poked his gun at Alejo. Lastly, any discrepancy between
Alejo’s estimate and the alleged actual height of De Jesus was easily
accounted for by the higher location of Alejo in relation to De Jesus.
This explanation is made plausible by the fact that Alejo’s estimation
was off by only three to four inches.
Alejo’s description of Lumanog’s pony-tailed long hair at the time of
the commission of the crime did not also detract from Alejo’s reliability
by reason of Lumanog’s hair at the time of his arrest being shorter.
There is no question that Lumanog could have meanwhile cut his hair
to look different (which he had a good motive to do). I might doubt the
identification had Alejo described Lumanog’s hair as very short at the
time of the commission of the crime, due to the physical impossibility
for hair to grow beyond a couple of inches within the span of the two
months between the commission of the crime and his arrest.
The discrepancy between Alejo’s recollection of Lumanog’s dark
skin tone at the time of the commission of the crime (maitim) and the
latter's lighter one at the in-court identification (kayumanggi) did not
diminish the reliability of Alejo as an eyewitness. For one, Alejo
declared when asked that he had described Lumanog as maitiminstead
of kayumanggi because, to him, maitim and kayumanggimeant the
same thing.  Also, as Mr. Justice Villarama rightly indicates in
9

his ponencia, the variance in Lumanog’s skin tone depended on the

degree of his exposure to sunlight. Consequently, Lumanog’s lighter
skin tone at the time of his in-court identification as compared to his
skin tone when arrested was really attributable to the lessened exposure
to the sun during the period of over two months of his incarceration.
I have no doubt in my mind that whatever were the perceived
discrepancies in Alejo’s recollection of the event and
_______________

9 TSN, August 22, 1996, p. 100.

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the persons involved in it related only to minor and collateral matters,
and did not diminish the veracity and weight of his positive
identification of the accused as the heartless assailants of the
victim.  That the laws of physics and our daily human experience easily
10

explained the perceived discrepancies affirms that such discrepancies

were not factors of doubt that depreciated, but rather increased, Alejo’s
value as an eyewitness. For, as all courts ought to know, no person who
may be a witness in court possesses perfect faculties of observation or
unerring senses of perception. Thus, the courts are often reminded to
disregard discrepancies in testimony when the essential integrity of the
State’s evidence in its material whole is not damaged by such
discrepancies. The courts are instructed instead to regard the
discrepancies as erasing the suspicion that the testimony was rehearsed
or contrived. Verily, honest inconsistencies usually serve to strengthen
rather than destroy the witness’ credibility.
11

D
Alejo testified in court for the first time on August 20, 1996, or only
over two months following the commission of the crime. Yet, Mr.
Justice Carpio regards the interval as “a considerable length of time”
that rendered unreliable Alejo’s recollection of the significant
circumstances of the crime, particularly the identities of the
malefactors.
I concede that what is “considerable length of time” that can affect
the integrity of testimony solely based on recollection cannot be
defined with any consistency. In my long experience as a trial judge for
over 16 years,  however, I never
12

_______________

10 People v. Mercado, G.R. No. 116239, November 29, 2000, 346 SCRA 256, 280-281.
11 Decasa v. Court of Appeals, G.R. No. 172184, July 10, 2007, 527 SCRA 267, 282; citing People v.
Pateo, G.R. No. 156786, June 3, 2004, 430 SCRA 609, 615.
12 From November 6, 1986 until March 10, 2003.
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regarded the short period of only slightly over two months betweenthe
commission of the crime andthe court testimony of an eyewitness as “a
considerable length of time” sufficient to warp and distort testimonial
recollection. In this particular instance, that the eyewitness was a
trained security guard is even a better reason to hold that the lapse of
over two months from the commission of the crime to the time of his
giving testimony did not weaken his recollection.
In fact, I find that Alejo remained consistent and unshaken in his
recollection of the circumstances of people, acts and place, despite his
standing as a witness in court for nine days (that is, August 20, 21, 22,
28 and 29, and September 3, 4, 5 and 17, all in 1996). My finding is
based on his not wavering or not varying from his earlier eyewitness
account of the crime despite his exhaustive cross examination on eight
of those nine days.
E
The integrity and reliability of Alejo’s identification of the accused
were even fortified in the course of the trial.
 To insulate Alejo’s in-court identification of the accused from the
prejudicial effects of prior improper suggestion made by the police, if
any, the Defense deliberately subjected to a severe test the
trustworthiness of his recollection when the time came for Alejo to
make the identification in court by resorting to moves that would
confuse him and would make the identification difficult. Specifically,
the several accused donned regular clothing, instead of the regulation
orange prison shirts; and commingled with the public inside the
courtroom, with some putting on eyeglasses.
As the following excerpts from the records of the proceedings reveal,
Alejo creditably hurdled the test, viz.:
PROS. CHUA CHENG:
Q: Mr. Witness, you said that if you will be able to see those six (6) persons again you will be able
to identify them?
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A: Yes, mam.
x x x
Q: The person who first pointed the gun at you and told you to ‘bumabaka’ (sic), if he is inside the
courtroom will you please step down from your place and tap the shoulder of that person or
point at him if that person is inside the courtroom...
ATTY.AZARCON:                                                                                                                                   
                                                                                                                                                           
                                                                                                                                                           
                                                                                                                                                           
                                                                                                                                                           
                                                                                                                                                           
                                                                                                                                    I object to the
pointing, your Honor, no basis to the identity of the suspects mentioned from 1 to 6, your
Honor.
PROS. CHUA CHENG:
  That is the reason why we requested the witness to point to the suspect, your Honor. Before the
witness comply with the request, may we request that whoever pointed by the witness be
(sic) refrained from any comment, your Honor.
Q: Inside the courtroom ... will you please look around the court room and tell us if these
suspects #1, 2, 3, 4, 5, & 6 are inside the court room. (sic)
INTERPRETER:
  Witness looking around the courtroom.
ATTY. CORPUZ:
   May we request, your Honor, that all those persons wearing glasses including lawyers
removed (sic) their eyeglasses.
ATTY. AZARCON:
  Your Honor, that is uncalled for. That is not necessary.
PROS. CHUA CHENG:
  May we move, your Honor, that all persons inside the courtroom to sit down.
COURT:
All persons inside the courtroom please sit down.
PROS. CHUA CHENG:
Q: Are all these six (6) persons inside the court room?
A: Yes, mam.
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Q: This number 5 the person who first pointed a gun at you and told you ‘babaka’(sic), will
you please pointed(sic) to us?
INTERPRETER:
  Witness went down from the witness stand and approaching to the group of persons and witness
pointing to a man seated in the courtroom wearing stripe polo and when asked to identify
himself he gave his name as JOEL DE JESUS.
x x x x
PROS. CHUA CHENG:
Q: This person referred by you as #1 the person who got the clutch bag, grabbed the neck and
pulled the victim outside the car, is he inside the courtroom?
A: Yes, maam.
Q: Please step down and pointed (sic) to us that person?
INTERPRETER:
  Witness went down from the witness stand and approaching to the group of persons and witness
pointing to a man wearing maroon T-shirt and when asked to identify himself he gave his
name as LENIDO LUMANOG.
x x x x
PROS. CHUA CHENG:
Q: This #2 which you referred to in the picture if he is inside the courtroom, will you please
point him to us?
INTERPRETER:
  Witness stepping down from the witness stand and approaching the group of people and pointed
at a man wearing printed polo shirt and when asked to identify himself he gave his name as
RAMESES DE JESUS.
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ATTY. CORPUZ:
   May we make it of record that the person pointed to by the witness who answered the
name as RAMESES DE JESUS even transferred his position from the group of the
suspects to the right side of the audience and that is also true with accused LENIDO
LUMANOG that before the identification was made he transferred his sitting position and
even used eye glasses, your Honor.
x x x
INTERPRETER:
  Witness stepping down from the witness stand approaching the group of people and pointed
at a man and when asked to identify himself he gave his name as LORENZO DELOS
SANTOS.
x x x
INTERPRETER:
  Witness stepping down from the witness stand approaching the group of people and pointed
at a man and when asked to identify himself he gave his name as AUGUSTO SANTOS.
x x x
INTERPRETER:
  Witness stepping down from the witness stand approaching the group of people and pointed at
a man and when asked to identify himself he gave his name as CESAR FORTUNA.13

F
Neither did the fact that Alejo’s initial sworn statement had described
only two suspects dent his credibility, considering that he did not at all
state or declare therein that he could
_______________

13 TSN, August 20, 1995, pp. 49-63.

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not describe the other suspects. On the other hand, he asserted that he
could do so when required.
G
That Alejo had the full opportunity to take in the circumstances of
the killing of the victim and should be accorded the highest reliance is
beyond question. He had a close proximity to the vehicle of the victim
and to the accused. His vantage point from his elevated position inside
the guardhouse gave him a frontal view of the commission of the crime.
The circumstances played out like a scene from an action-packed
movie right before his very eyes, as confirmed by the trial court’s
ocular inspection of the scene of the crime. His boldness in looking at
what was happening in his presence until finally forced at gunpoint to
look away was made plausible by his being a security guard then on
duty in that area.
The insinuation that Alejo could not have observed enough and thus
could not reliably recall the persons and events in view of the fleeting
character of the encounter was at best speculative. We should not
ignore that Alejo was a security guard who had undergone some
professional training that included how to respond to a crime
committed within his area of responsibility. With his training investing
him an appreciation of the crucial importance of identification and
discernment, he was not likely affected by the excitement of the
startling situation, unlike an untrained observer.
H
For his part, Mr. Justice Abad similarly assails the credibility of
Alejo as an eyewitness able to reliably identify the perpetrators of the
crime. He rejects an outright reliance on the factual findings of the trial
court mainly because the trial judge who penned the decision had not
been the same judge who had heard the testimony of Alejo and had thus
observed his demeanor. He urges, instead, that the place to start is
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Alejo's lack of ill motive in testifying against the accused, which, if
true, would render him trustworthy enough. He states that Alejo did not
lack ill motive, in light of the revelation that the family of the victim
had sheltered him and had extended financial benefits to him, thereby
tainting his testimony.
I take a contrary view.
 That the judge who wrote the decision had not heard all the
testimonies of the prosecution witnesses did not taint or disturb the
decision,  or did not necessarily render it assailable, for, after all, he
14 15

had before him the records of the trial, including the transcripts of the
stenographic notes (TSNs). This, among others, explains why all trial
courts are required to be courts of record. 16

The validity of a decision is not impaired when its writer only took
over from another judge who had earlier presided at the trial, unless
there is a clear showing of grave abuse of discretion in the appreciation
of the facts.  No such grave abuse of discretion was shown herein. The
17

trial records demonstrate, on the contrary, that the factual findings of

the trial court and the assessment of the credibility of Alejo as an
eyewitness rested on a most careful and thorough study of the evidence
adduced by both parties. Indeed, although he did not observe the
demeanor of Alejo as a witness, the writing judge (Judge Jaime N.
Salazar) was not entirely deprived of a proper sense of Alejo’s
demeanor considering that the TSNs
_______________

14 People v. Ulzoron, G.R. No. 121979, March 2, 1998, 286 SCRA 740, 748.
15 People v. Sorrel, G.R. No. 119332, August 29, 1997, 278 SCRA 368, 377; citing People v. Hatani,
G.R. Nos. 78813-14, November 8, 1993, 227 SCRA 497, 508.
16 People v. Tamayo, et al., G.R. No. 138608, September 24, 2002, 389 SCRA 540, 551-552.
17 See note 15; citing People v. Sadiangabay, G.R. No. 87214, March 30, 1993, 220 SCRA 551.
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were replete with the detailed manifestations on Alejo’s appearance,
behavior, deportment, disposition, and mien during the many days of
his testimony that the various counsel of both parties zealously put on
record for memorialization. 18

Indeed, a decision rendered by a judge who has not himself received

the evidence during the trial and has relied on the TSNs of the trial is as
good and binding as one rendered by a judge who has seen and heard
the witnesses as they testified in court. It is up to the party disagreeing
with the dispositions contained in the former’s decision to establish that
the rendering judge ignored some facts or misappreciated material
evidence. A mere generalized attack against such decision should not
diminish its value as a judicial adjudication. Otherwise, we would
frequently have the undesirable situation of the accused forcing the trial
judge receiving the evidence and observing the demeanor of the
witnesses to self-inhibit from the case once the State completed the
presentation of its evidence in order to prevent another judge from
rendering the proper judgment against the accused.
I
Mr. Justice Abad imputes to Alejo the ill-motive to fabricate his
testimony in order to favor the Prosecution and the family of the victim
due to the latter’s sheltering him and extending to him some financial
or economic benefits. He implies that Alejo not only disregarded his
earlier physical descriptions of the two armed men involved in the
commission of the crime, but actually enhanced his impression of the
actual shooting in consideration of his intervening affinity with the
victim’s family.
The mere imputation of ill-motive without proof was speculative at
best. To start with, that the family of the victim
_______________

18 At one point, more than ten lawyers were collectively involved in the prosecution/defense of this
case.
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might have extended economic or financial support to Alejo did not
necessarily warrant the presumption of bias on the part of Alejo as a
witness. There was no evidence showing that anysuch support was for
the purpose of unduly influencing his testimony. Likelier than not, the
support was only an expression of the family’s appreciation for his
cooperation in the public prosecution of the culprits, or for his resolve
to ensure the successful prosecution of the perpetrators.
 J
Mr. Justice Abad contends that Alejo’s eyewitness account was
further suspect in light of the following observations: (a) Alejo did not
take any steps to anticipate and prevent trouble despite having observed
two strangers walking to and fro in front of the establishment he was
then guarding; (b) Alejo did not see what was happening on the street
because he was seated inside the guardhouse with his back slightly
turned towards the street; (c) Alejo did not see which of the four
strangers stood at which side of the car of the victim, because his
attention was already focused on De Jesus and the latter’s gun poked at
his face; (d) Lumanog could not possibly hold a gun in one hand and
grab the victim’s neck with the other, and still manage to reach for the
clutch bag of the victim inside the car; (e) Alejo could not focus his
attention on De Jesus and still simultaneously examine the faces of the
other four perpetrators who were standing by the car of the victim in a
short span of time; (f) Alejo identified all the accused as the
perpetrators of the crime through photographs and while the accused
were already in custody; and (g) the accused could not have turned to
face Alejo in unison as if posing for a class picture.
I disagree.
On the failure to make any preemptive move upon noticing the two
strangers walking to and fro in front of the establishment he was then
guarding, Alejo clarified during his cross examination that he became
more alert after noticing
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the two strangers,  but he explained why he did not confront the two
19

strangers, to wit:
ATTY. BUTED (to the witness)
Q Did you confront these 2 men?
A No sir.
Q And since you consider it unusual and you are a security guard, why did you not confront
these 2 men?
 x x x
A I can’t do that sir because according to the law of security guards you cannot ask passersby
or any person for that matter who haven’t done anything unlawful.
x x x
Q Were you not apprehensive that these 2 men would do something to you or to the establishment?
ATTY. CORPUZ
  Already answered your Honor please, because the security guard answered he became
alert when he noticed these 2 men walking to and fro.20
On the implausibility of Alejo actually seeing what was happening
on the street due to his back being then slightly turned towards the
street while he was seated inside the guardhouse, I submit that this
attempt to discredit emanates from a wrong interpretation of tagilid
ang upo, Alejo’s description of his position inside the guardhouse.
How good a vantage point did Alejo have when he witnessed the
crime was ascertained during the ocular inspection of the scene of the
crime conducted by the trial judge on September 26, 1996. The ocular
inspection confirmed that the car of the victim was not directly in front
of the guard house, but
_______________

19 TSN, August 21, 1996, p. 22.

20 Id., at pp. 23-24.
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a few meters further down the road to the right; and that Alejo’s stool,
relative to the front portion of the store facing Katipunan Avenue,
positioned him at an angle towards the car of the victim and the
southbound direction, i.e., White Plains/Blue Ridge area. With himself
taking the position of Alejo inside the guardhouse, the trial judge then
observed for the record that he “can see the car very clearly even if the
car would be moved back by another segment also xxx and the Court
observes that from the guard post the faces of the persons beside the car
are very clear.”  The trial judge also recorded that even if Alejo had
21

been tagilid ang upo,  the means to observe the goings-on for anyone
22

in that position of Alejo were still unhampered, thus:

COURT:
   The Court observed that from where witness Alejo was he can still see the whole car as it
has been moved back per the directive of Major Villena.23
x x x
INTERPRETER:
  Witness demonstrating how suspect No. 1 took the clutch bag from the front passenger
seat by leaning his body forward into the car over the body of the victim slumped on the
steering wheel, and after the taking of the clutch bag, the witness puts his right arm
around the victim’s neck while standing on the left side of the victim as both face the front
of the car.
COURT:
  After the demonstration while witness Alejo was demonstrating how he got the clutch bag
and how he grabbed the neck of the driver of the black car,
_______________

21 TSN, September 26, 1996, pp. 21-22.

22 Id., at p. 23.
23 Id., at p. 38.
 
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the Judge was at the guard post [house] and saw for himself that he clearly saw the taking of
the clutch bag even if the untinted windows were closed and the pulling of the driver of the
black car.24
Next, to insist that Alejo could not have noticed where the four
assailants had stood in relation to the car of the victim due to his
(Alejo) attention being already focused on De Jesus and the gun that De
Jesus had poked at Alejo’s face was, again, to speculate. The records do
not contain any factual foundation for such insistence. Instead, the
sequence of events indicated that Alejo had the ample opportunityto
commit to memory the facial descriptions of the perpetrators.
Moreover, it is noted that Alejo had first noticed the presence of the
two strangers walking to and fro nearly an hour prior to the shooting of
the victim, which means that his observation of them was ample
enough. This belied the unsupported claim that he had only a mere
fleeting glance of De Jesus and his cohorts.
It is also clear that Alejo continued to watch the unfolding scene and
the various persons involved. He had ignored the first shouted
command for him to get down (dapa) and had continued to observe
until the second command for him to get down, with the gun poked
directly in his face, was harshly shouted at him.
On the impossibility of Alejo’s claim that Lumanog held a gun with
one hand and grabbed the victim by the neck with the other, while also
reaching for the victim’s clutch bag, inside the car, it seems that
Lumanog was being simplistically projected to have simultaneously
done all such actions.
I cannot accept such simplistic projection. It is evident that Lumanog
executed his acts in sequence. His sequential execution was easy for
him to do, for the victim’s upper torso, including the neck and face, had
by then been riddled with bul-
_______________

24 Id., at p. 69.
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lets, leaving the already lifeless victim slumped over the steering wheel
of his own car. Obviously, Lumanog became confident enough to open
the car door in order to reach for the clutch bag of the victim with his
right hand, having transferred his gun to his left hand. His reaching
right hand had to curve around the slumped body of the victim.
Describing the situation during his cross examination, Alejo recalled
not anymore seeing the gun in Lumanog’s right hand at the point when
Lumanog reached in for the clutch bag of the victim. Understandably,
25

Lumanog was holding the gun with his left hand because there was no
more need for him at that point to hold the gun with his right hand. In
the course of the ocular inspection conducted on September 26, 1996,
Alejo demonstrated how Lumanog had stood at the left side of the
victim (with both Lumanog and the victim facing the front of the car)
and how in that position Lumanog had curved his right arm around the
victim’s neck in order to pull the victim’s body partly out of the car and
onto the pavement, when he had then delivered a final shot to the
head.  Without any resistance from the lifeless victim, Lumanog had
26

then easily reached for the clutch bag with his right hand.
The thing about all the accused improbably turning in unison towards
Alejo as if posing for a class photograph did not reflect what is in the
trial records.
The records proved that Alejo’s ample personal observation of what
each of the attackers backstopped the reliability of his identification of
the attackers. It was definitely not as if his observation occurred in an
“infinitesimal second,” as Mr. Justice Abad has put it. We note that the
others turned towards Alejo’s direction by reflex upon hearing
the loudly shouted
_______________

25 Id., at p. 69.
26 See note 19.
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command of De Jesus for Alejo to lie low in his guardhouse. The
following excerpt from Alejo’s testimony bears it out:
ATTY. BUTED (to the witness)
Q Because you were not nervous and you were not scared?
A Yes sir.
Q When for the second time when he said “dapa”, what did you do?
A When he shouted at me “dapa” his companions faced me because of his loud voice.
Q Whom do you mean companions?
A The one that was at the right rear side, another one at the left rear side and another one
was at the right front side.
Q So that’s all?
A No sir there was another one, one of the 2 men who were earlier walking to and fro who
was at the corner also faced me and pointed the gun at me.27
Indeed, the loudly shouted command of De Jesus made his cohorts
instantaneously turn towards Alejo’s direction, because it was there
where the shout had come from. Their facing towards that direction
was reflexive, because De Jesus had been the lookout designated to
ensure their safety. Their common reaction of looking in his
direction further enabled Alejo to have a good look at their faces,
which were not concealed by masks or other disguises, as the trial
judge noted in the order dated January 25, 2000, thus:
13. Indeed, the court is impressed with the brazenness that the
shooters/gunmen and the look-out had displayed during the actual
ambush incident as they did not even cover their faces with masks
or bonnets so as to conceal their identities considering the time and
place. It is not surprising, therefore, that they were not also smart
enough
_______________

27 Id., at p. 76.
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but had the audacity to go on their daily routine as if nothing petrifying
had happened.28
I
Mr. Justice Abad contends that the presence of any of the accused at
the scene of the crime was not established because “none of the
fingerprint marks on [the hijacked] vehicle (KIA Pride) matched any of
those of the accused.”29

The contention has no basis.

Worth clarifying is that the Defense did not present in this
case any credible evidence, exculpatory or otherwise, on the
fingerprints. Although the Defense presented Mrs. Remedios
Dedicatoria, a fingerprints expert, to testify on the fingerprints lifted
from the vehicles involved in this case, her testimony on the matter
turned out to be untrustworthy in view of her admission on cross
examination that she had not been present or involved in the lifting of
the fingerprints from either the hijacked KIA Pride or the victim’s
Honda Accord. In fact, she had had no contact with the vehicles, as the
following excerpt of her testimony indicated:  
30

ATTY. CORPUZ:
   Are you sure, Madam witness you were present when all those fingerprints were lifted
Madam witness?
x x x
ATTY. CORPUZ:
  Are you sure you were present when the fingerprints were lifted, allegedly taken from
the two (2) cars, Honda Accord car and KIA pride (sic) Madam witness?
_______________

28 Order dated January 25, 2000 (Criminal Case Nos. 96-66679-84, p. 7).
29 Additional Reflection, p. 6.
30 TSN, January 9, 1998, pp. 140-141.
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WITNESS:
  I was not the one who lifted the latent prints. I was not present sir.
ATTY. CORPUZ:
  In short, you were not present when all those fingerprints were taken from these cars,
Honda Accord and Kia Pride Madam witness?
WITNESS:
  Yes sir. 
Moreover, Mrs. Dedicatoria was exposed as a lying witness. In a
clear attempt to conceal from the trial court her failure to personally lift
the fingerprint marks off the hijacked KIA Pride, she professed to know
the whereabouts of the vehicle. On cross examination, however, her
prevarication was exposed, viz.:
ATTY. CORPUZ:
  Is it not a fact that Madam witness, that car KIA Pride car was found at the Police
station near 10th Avenue or another street, not in Katipunan Avenue, is it not Madam
witness?
WITNESS:
  It was at Katipunan Road, sir.
ATTY. CORPUZ:
  Where in Katipunan Madam witness?
WITNESS:
  At Project 4 sir.
ATTY. CORPUZ:
  Which place in Project 4, in relation to this Honda Accord car Madam witness?
WITNESS:
  Bayanihan Street sir.
 x x x190
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ATTY. CORPUZ:
  How far was that KIA Pride to the Honda Accord when you lifted latent prints, how
many meters away when you lifted that latent prints Madam witness?
WITNESS:
  About fifteen (15) to twenty (20) meters away sir. 31

As the records reveal, the perpetrators had abandoned the hijacked

KIA Pride on Aguinaldo Street in Project 4, Quezon City, near its
intersection with J.P. Rizal Street. The vehicle was, therefore, nowhere
on Katipunan Avenue; neither was it anywhere near the Honda Accord
of the victim, least of all a mere 15-20 meters away from the latter
vehicle. 32

Nonetheless, even assuming that Mrs. Dedicatoria was a competent

witness, certain factors might still render her testimony on the absence
of fingerprints inconclusive, namely:
(a) Fingerprints made on smooth surfaces (like the exterior of the
vehicles) could easily be wiped off, or erased;
(b) If the fingerprints of the victim and of Lumanog were not found
on the door handle of the victim’s car,  the simple explanation was
33

that the victim and Lumanog possibly lifted the handle from its
underside. It is notable that, as Mrs. Dedicatoria admitted, no
examination was made on the underside of said handle; and
(c) No thorough examination for fingerprints was done on the cars,
considering that even the victim was said not to have left any
fingerprints on the Honda Accord despite his having owned and
driven it on the fatal day.34 
_______________

31 Id., at pp. 135-139.

32 See note 11 of the Decision, p. 5.
33 Id.,  at pp. 124-125.
34 Id., at p. 128.
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In fine, the Dactyloscopy Report and the expert testimony of Mrs.
Dedicatoria were inconclusive, and should not be relied upon to
disprove the actual presence of the accused in the place and scene of
the crime at the time of its commission.
K
Mr. Justice Abad states that the slug recovered from the body of the
victim matched the slug taken from a “known victim of the Alex
Boncayao Brigade (ABB) of the New People’s Army.” He then
concludes that those responsible for the murder of the victim were also
from the ABB. Hence, he deduces that because “none of the accused
had been identified with the ABB, they could not have been involved in
that killing.”
The concern about the slug extracted from the victim being
ballistically similar to the slug extracted from a known victim of the
ABB is devoid of factual justification and deserves no consideration.
In his order dated January 25, 2000 denying the motion for
reconsideration and/or new trial filed by the accused grounded on the
same concern, the trial judge explained very well why the concern was
unfounded, thus:
 
9. The transference of responsibility to the ABB for the ambush-
slay of the victim is based on alleged news reports. Said news
reports are hearsay and not admissible in evidence. The
requisites on the applicability of the rule on declaration against
interest, as an exception to the hearsay rule, were not
convincingly shown before this court as being present in such
alleged press statements by the ABB;
10. While the records do not indicate that accused were ABB
operatives, the same records do not bear
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that they are not. Anyone can simply claim that he is not the one
who he is or who he is not xxx. 35

It is relevant to remind that the Court itself has already affirmed the
propriety of the aforecited order dated January 25, 2000 in Lumanog, et
al. v. Hon. Salazar, Jr. 36

L
The urging to take judicial notice of the fact that the victim was a
natural target of the ABB for being the former head of the Metropolitan
Command Intelligence and Security Group (MISG) of the Philippine
Constabulary during the Marcos regime is unwarranted.
The victim’s heading the MISG was not material to the question of
whether or not the State established beyond reasonable doubt the guilt
of all the accused herein for the crime charged. Taking judicial notice
that the victim was a natural target of the ABB is even improper,
considering that such fact could not be reasonably inferred from his
having headed the MISG during the Marcos regime. For sure, that the
victim was a natural target of the ABB was neither a matter of public
knowledge, nor capable of unquestionable demonstration, nor ought to
be known to judges by reason of their judicial functions.  Lastly, the 37

Court no less, albeit on another occasion, already declared that 38

“appellations or opprobriums” would not sway it against the victim,

Col. Rolando N. Abadilla, observing:
“The Court is not unaware that accused-respondent Abadilla, rightly or
wrongly, is identified with the violent arm of the past regime. To many, he is
regarded with unusual ease and facility as the
_______________

35 Order dated January 25, 2000, p. 6.

36 G.R. No. 142065, September 7, 2001, 364 SCRA 719.
37 Section 2, Rule 129, Rules of Court.
38 People v. Asuncion, G.R. No. L-80066, May 24, 1988, 161 SCRA 490, 499.
  
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“hit man” of that regime. The Court, however, is not swayed by appellations or
opprobriums. Its duty, as a temple of justice, is to accord to every man who
comes before it in appropriate proceedings the right to due process and the equal
protection of the laws.”

Conclusion
In our resolution of this appeal, we should be guided only by the
weighty and competent evidence on record. We should resolve with
objectivity and detachment. We should eschew speculation and
passion. We should not allow angles or theories not supported by the
evidence on record to distract us.
Convinced that the presumption of innocence in favor of the accused
was sufficiently overcome by the State, I vote to dismiss the
consolidated petitions of the accused, and to affirm their conviction for
the felony of murder.
DISSENTING OPINION
ABAD, J.:
I concur with Mr. Justice Antonio T. Carpio’s powerful dissent. I
would, however, add a few thoughts that deeply bothered me while
pondering the question of whether or not to join the ponencia of Mr.
Justice Martin Villarama, Jr. that affirms the lower courts’ judgments
of conviction against the accused.
The ponencia has to rely solely on the testimony of just one witness,
Freddie Alejo, the private security guard who happened to be on the
sidewalk of Katipunan Avenue in Quezon City when gunmen
ambushed Col. Rolando Abadilla, former head of an intelligence and
security unit of the defunct Philippine Constabulary, while driving his
car. The trial court found Alejo’s testimony straightforward,
categorical, and convincing, unaffected by any possible ill-motive. His
testimony, said the trial court, obliterated the denials and alibis of all
the accused. Further, like the CA and the RTC, the ponen-
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cia downplayed as inconclusive the physical evidence that the defense
offered in the case.
The Issue Presented
Inevitably, the ultimate issue in this case is whether or not Alejo’s
testimony is sufficiently credible to support the finding of guilt of all of
the accused beyond reasonable doubt.
Arguments
The ponencia would defer to the factual findings of the trial court
given that it had the advantage of hearing the evidence in the case first
hand from Alejo’s lips. But this would be a false start since the Judge
who sat at the trial when Alejo took the witness stand was then Judge
Jose C. Mendoza,  not Judge Jaime N. Salazar, Jr., who eventually
1

weighed the evidence and passed judgment on the accused. Judge

Salazar was just as deprived as the members of this Court of the
advantage of observing Alejo’s demeanor as he claimed having
witnessed how the accused gunned down Col. Abadilla in cold blood.
Justice Mendoza, who personally heard Alejo’s testimony, is of
course now a member of the Court. But he cannot join his colleagues in
their deliberation and contribute whatever insight he might have
acquired when he listened to Alejo testify. For, first, that would mean
bringing into the deliberation matters that are not of record. It would
mean depriving the parties of their right to confront by cross
examination evidence not adduced at the trial but considered by this
Court on appeal.
 And, second, it would not be fair to query Justice Mendoza regarding
his assessment of Alejo’s credibility at the trial minus the responsibility
of conscience that every judge who renders the decision in a criminal
case must bear when pass- 
_______________

1  Now a member of this Court.

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ing upon such question. Justice Mendoza would merely be required to
speculate on what his views would be if he had the chance to decide the
case. Therefore, like Judge Salazar, the Court must rely solely on the
cold record of the case in assessing witness Alejo’s testimony.
As already stated, the following discussions are on top of what
Justice Carpio already covered in his separate dissenting opinion:
The place to start is Alejo’s supposed lack of ill motive in testifying
against the accused. Doubtless he had nothing but good motive when
he described to the police, shortly after the shooting of Colonel
Abadilla, all that he saw. The Court can at that point trust his
unembellished story.
But something weighs heavily against the version he delivered at the
trial. The police apprehended several suspects, including the accused in
this case, and built up evidence against them. Unfortunately, perhaps
convinced by the police that these men were Colonel Abadilla’s
assailants and desiring to ensure a successful prosecution, his family
took and sheltered Alejo and another security guard, Merlito Herbas,
paying them allowances to make up for their lost earnings.
Called by the defense, Herbas testified that the Abadillas housed
Alejo and him (together with Melissa Villasin, the latter’s live-in
partner) somewhere in Quezon City.  Parenthetically, the defense
2

presented Herbas who testified that none of the accused was involved
in the ambush. But the RTC rejected Herbas’ testimony because he
admitted having previously received, together with Alejo, money and
economic benefits from the Abadillas. And, when the latter were
unable to fulfill their promise to him, Herbas instead testified for the
defense.
The trial court’s rejection of Herbas’ testimony may be correct but
the grant by the Abadillas of financial benefit to Alejo
_______________

2 TSN, February 20, 1998, p. 67.

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equally tainted the latter’s testimony. Indeed, economic benefit and the
sense of obligation that it created appear to have induced him to
disregard his initial physical descriptions of the two armed men who
prevented him from intervening in the shooting of Colonel Abadilla. At
the trial, Alejo pointed to two of the accused who did not fit his prior
description of the two armed men. He also enhanced his impression of
the actual shooting of the victim by claiming that he had the
opportunity, no matter if as brief as a camera’s flash, to see and
remember the faces of each of all four men who shot the colonel down
the middle of Katipunan Avenue.
The Government has a witness protection program designed to secure
vital witnesses from threats or harm. Apparently, the public prosecutor
chose instead to allow the Abadillas, who had an interest in Alejo’s
testimony, to make him dependent on them for his livelihood at least
for the duration of the trial of the case. Knowing this, I cannot but
hesitate to swallow everything that Alejo said at the trial.
Consider Alejo’s testimony, culled from the ponencia’s summary. He
testified that on June 13, 1996 he was assigned as security guard at 211
Katipunan Avenue. He went on duty at 7:00 a.m. At about 7:30 a.m.,
he noted two men, whom he later identified as Joel de Jesus and
Lorenzo delos Santos suspiciously walking to and fro by his outpost,
which stood between the building he was guarding and the street.
 Alejo recalled witnessing at about 8:40 a.m. four men fire their guns
at the driver of a black car that had stopped on the street before his
outpost. One of the two men on the sidewalk, Joel de Jesus (marked as
No. 5 in Exhibit H) pointed his hand gun at Alejo and ordered him to
go down his post (“Baba!”) but he did not budge. Alejo then saw
Lenido Lumanog (marked as No. 1 in Exhibit H), standing on the car’s
left door, grab the victim by the neck, reach for the latter’s clutch bag
in the car, and pull the bloodied body out of the car, dropping him on
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Alejo claimed that at this point he heard Lumanog fire another shot,
evidently at the victim. Just then, Joel de Jesus, one of the two men
with Alejo on the sidewalk, shouted, “Dapa… walang makikialam!” At
this point, the rest of the shooters on the street, namely, Rameses de
Jesus (No. 2); Cesar Fortuna (No. 3); and Augusto Santos (No. 4)
turned their faces towards Alejo, enabling him to make a mental note of
their identities. Next, delos Santos, the second man on the sidewalk,
pointed a gun at Alejo, prompting the latter to lower his body and hide
behind the covered half of the guard post. Less than a minute after the
shooting had stopped, Alejo stood up. The assailants were gone,
leaving the window of the victim’s car shattered.
The police later interviewed Alejo and brought him and another
security guard to Camp Karingal.
In addition to what Justice Carpio pointed out in his separate
dissenting opinion, Alejo’s testimony does not inspire belief for the
following reasons—
1. Alejo said that he noticed earlier that morning de Jesus and delos
Santos walking to and fro by his guard post. Since the behavior of the
two men seemed to Alejo unusual, his trained mind did not put them
down in the category of ordinary pedestrians waiting for a ride or
companions. Innocent pedestrians did not walk to and fro on the same
place on the sidewalk for an extended period (more than an hour)
without inviting suspicion. Yet, Alejo did not, as his training would
have made him, take any step to anticipate some trouble like informing
the establishment he was guarding about it or writing a note on his
logbook of the description of the two men.
2. Alejo claimed that he actually saw four men shoot at the driver
of a black car on the street facing his building. But this is doubtful
since, admittedly, he was seated at his guard
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post with his back slightly turned towards the street.  He said,
3

“tagilid ang upo ko,”  and demonstrated this during the ocular
4

inspection.  As a matter of fact, he confessed that “at the start of the
5

shooting, I did not see because I was still seated and the next gun
reports I stood up and then I saw.”  Alejo claimed then seeing the four
6

accused already in the position described in Exhibit H.

7

Clearly, then, Alejo did not see the men fire their guns at Colonel
Abadilla. If Alejo were to be believed, the shots alerted him to the
trouble and it was their noise that made him turn towards the street at
the direction of the shooting. Indeed, he said that as he looked what he
saw were the four assassins standing two at each side of the car’s front
seats. The shooting had stopped.
3. Besides, Alejo said that he looked in the direction of the ambush
after he heard the volley of shots. But this could not be accurate
because it was right after those shots were fired that Joel de Jesus
pointed a gun at him and told him to get out of the outpost and go down
from it. How could Alejo see which of four other accused stood at what
side of Colonel Abadilla’s car when his attention was at Joel de Jesus
who was threatening to shoot him if he did not come out of his outpost?
Alejo of course claimed that he was not intimidated. He did not
budge and continued to watch what was going on. His courage is
surprising, however, since guns had been fired so close to him at
someone in a car on the street and now he sees a gun pointed directly at
him. Since Alejo chose not to fight back, it seems odd that he would
dare one of the men to shoot
_______________

3 TSN, September 4, 1996, p. 9.

4 TSN, September 26, 1996, p. 23.
5 Id.
6 TSN, September 4, 1996, p. 20.
7 Id.
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him for not obeying the order for him to step out of the out post.
4. Alejo claimed that Lumanog grabbed Colonel Abadilla by the
neck, reached out for the latter’s clutch bag in the car, and pulled the
colonel out of the car before dropping him on the pavement. But if
Lumanog held a gun with one hand and held the colonel’s neck by the
other, what hand did he use to reach out for the clutch bag in the car?
5. Alejo testified that when Joel de Jesus, one of the two men on
the sidewalk, pointed a gun at him and cried out: “Dapa, walang
makikialam!,” all four men who fired their guns at Colonel Abadilla
turned their faces towards Alejo on the sidewalk, enabling the latter to
see their faces clearly. But this is a strained scenario. How could Alejo
in such infinitesimal second pay attention to de Jesus pointing a gun at
him and commanding him to go out of his guard post and lie face down
on the ground and at the same time examine the faces of each of the
four men surrounding Colonel Abadilla’s car, one after the other, to
remember their identities?
6. At best, Alejo had but a glimpse of those who took part in
shooting down Colonel Abadilla. But the police remedied this. After
arresting the several accused in the case, the police first took their
pictures at the police headquarters. Now, rather than call Alejo to make
a direct identification of the accused from a police lineup and rule out
any possibility of suggestion and mistake, the police investigators first
showed him the pictures of the men they nabbed. This is admission that
the police needed to prepare Alejo with those pictures before showing
to him the accused who had been in their custody all along.
It is very well known that the police, bent on their theory of a case,
would sometimes falsely tell the supposed eyewitness that those in the
pictures had already confessed to the crime. It takes little subtle
convincing to make a witness believe that the person or persons on the
pictures were the ones he saw commit the crime and that, unless he
identified them, they
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would walk out free. Naturally, later at the police lineup, the witness
when asked would unhesitatingly identify the men he saw on the
pictures. His point of reference would be the men on the pictures rather
than his recollection of the persons he saw or did not see at the crime
scene.
7. It was rush hour when the incident happened and Katipunan
Avenue was filled with traffic. It was most unlikely for the assassins
who surrounded Colonel Abadilla’s car to pose exclusively for Alejo,
turning their faces towards him in unison as if he was going to take a
class picture of them from the sidewalk. The street was teeming with
other cars and people in them. The assassins had enough to watch out
for, the least of which was the sidewalk where they knew they had
lookouts protecting them from any kind of interference.
Being housed and paid allowances by the victim’s family enabled
Alejo to substantially alter the previous descriptions he gave to the
police of some of the accused. Further, he got to look with plenty of
time at the faces of those who fired their guns at Colonel Abadilla and,
despite the threats to his life by two men on the sidewalk who had their
guns on him, he could remember with remarkable details the shooting
of the victim on the street.
 8. The assassins fled on a hijacked vehicle. When this was
recovered, none of the fingerprint marks on that vehicle matched any of
those of the accused. Men would lie but object evidence like
fingerprints would not.
9. One cannot ignore the fact that, based on the ballistics report, a
slug recovered from the body of Colonel Abadilla matched a slug
recovered from the body of a known victim of the Alex Boncayao
Brigade (ABB) of the New People’s Army. This is clear evidence of
the truth of the ABB’s claim, told the media, that they were the ones
responsible for Colonel Abadilla’s death. Again, physical evidence
cannot lie; it is a silent witness that could not be housed and bought.
Since
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none of the accused had been identified with the ABB, they could not
have been involved in that killing.
The Court should also have taken judicial notice of the fact that, as
former head of the dreaded Metropolitan Command Intelligence and
Security Group of President Marcos’ Philippine Constabulary, Colonel
Abadilla had always been a natural target of the communist’s death
squad, the ABB. Indeed, there had been reports of its previous attempts
to kill him.
I have more than reasonable doubt for not being taken in by Alejo’s
testimony. Those who saw the daylight shooting of Colonel Abadilla
did not know the assassins by face. How the police got to identify and
pick up the particular accused in this case from their homes or places of
work to be shown to the witnesses as their prime suspects is a mystery
that the prosecution did not bother to tell the trial court. I can only
assume that this is the handy work of police informers, those who made
a living of snitching on criminals and saving the police from the shame
of having another crime, a crime called to such tremendous public
attention because of the identity of the slain victim, left unsolved.
 I vote to GRANT the appeals and ACQUIT all the accused.
Petitions dismissed, judgment affirmed with modifications.
Note.—The judicial determination of his guilt or innocence
necessarily starts with the recognition of his constitutional right to be
presumed innocent of the charge he faces. (People vs. Rodrigo, 564
SCRA 584 [2008])
——o0o——