Republic of the Philippines

SUPREME COURT
Manila

FIRST DIVISION

G.R. No. 80042 March 28, 1990

PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, plaintiff-appellee,

The Office of the Solicitor General for plaintiff-appellee.

Citizens Legal Assistance Office for accused-appellants.

CRUZ, J.:

On June 30, 1986, the bodies of three men were found in a wooded area in barangay Tuaco, Basud,
Camarines Norte. The corpses were in a state of decomposition and bore various contusions, stab and
bullet wounds, and other injuries indicating foul play. The victims were later positively identified as
Alexander Sy, Augusto Gabo and Frisco Marcellana.

In due time, an information for robbery with multiple homicide was filed against Adolfo Quiñones, Alfredo
Aban, Zaldy Civico, Ronilo Canaba, Amado Conda, Jr., Santiago Solarte, Armando Buitre and one John
Doe. 1

On their arraignment on November 13, 1986, Quiñones, Canaba, Aban, Civico and Conda pleaded not guilty.
On November 20, 1986, Conda, Canaba, and Quiñones withdrew their plea of not guilty and entered a plea of
guilty.   On April 1, 1986, Conda was allowed to withdraw his former plea of guilty and substitute the same With not
2

guilty.   Solarte escaped and is presently at large while Buitre was killed in an encounter with the Manila police.
3 4

Judge Luis D. Dictado of the Regional Trial Court of Daet, Camarines Norte directed the prosecution to present
evidence also against Quiñones and Canaba despite their plea of guilty, which they maintained even after being
informed of its possible consequences, including the death penalty. After trial, judgment was rendered convicting all
the accused (except Solarte, who had not yet been arrested, and Buitre).  5

The evidence for the prosecution established that the three victims were riding in a dark blue Mitsubishi car at about
seven o'clock in the evening of June 27 or 28, 1986, when they were intercepted along the Maharlika Highway in the
above-named barangay by the accused, who had placed sacks on the road to block the way. The three were taken
to the nearby woods where they were killed.   According to his brother, Napoleon, Alexander Sy was at that time
6

carrying P300,000.00, representing the weekly collections of his business, a necklace with pendant worth
P20,000.00, a P10,000.00 diamond ring, and a licensed .22 caliber handgun.   All this, together with the other
7

articles belonging to the victims, were taken by the accused, who also used the car in fleeing to Sapang Palay,
where it was recovered without the stereo and the spare tire.  8

The first to be picked up for questioning was Conda, who implicated the other accused and led a police team to the
house of Sonny Tabalan, where Solarte was hiding, Inexplicably, Conda and Solarte both escaped. However, the
police found in Tabalan's house one live grenade, one .38 caliber pistol, a defective air rifle with magazine, and a
wooden rifle which he said had been brought there by Solarte and Quiñones. In separate extra-judicial
statements,   both Quiñones and Canaba identified these weapons as the ones used in the commission of the
9

crime.  10

Testifying for the prosecution, Francisco Bariuan declared that on July 7, 1986, Solarte came to his house and
asked him to pawn a watch for P300.00. Solarte returned the following day with Canaba and Conda. They were
carrying guns and a grenade. Solarte informed him that they were the ones who, together with Buitre, Quiñones and
Aban, had killed Sy and his companions. He and Solarte left later to hire jeep and Canaba and Conda stayed
behind, warning him that they would blow up his house if he squealed on them.  11

But the case for the prosecution really depended on the statements of the accused themselves, principally
Quiñones and Canaba. Both were informed of their constitutional rights before their investigation and were actually
assisted by Atty. Santiago Ceneta when they gave their separate confessions.   Both confessed to the crime
12

charged and narrated in detail their participation in its commission.

Quiñones later testified that he had been subjected to torture to force him to admit the killing and robbery,   but as
13

the trial judge noted, no proof of such coercion was ever presented in court. Moreover, the witness' narration of the
commission of the offense substantially jibed with the testimony of the other accused, thus negating the suspicion
that it had been merely concocted. Understandably, Quiñones sought to minimize his participation in this crime by
claiming that he stayed in the car when the three victims were forcibly taken to the woods where they were robbed
and slain.   This is another indication that the had not been manhandled into signing the confession.
14

lt is important to note that when asked at the trial if he was affirming his extra-judicial statement, he categorically
said he was,   thus in effect reiterating his detailed account of the conduct of the several accused, including their
15

escape to Manila in the stolen car and their distribution of the loot among themselves. This was now a judicial
confession. Interestingly, Quiñones also admitted to two other hold-ups and his membership in another gang of
robbers headed by one Kapitan Mitra, an unnecessary embellishment that lent further credence to his confession.  16

Canaba's own statement corroborated Quiñones' confession and provided more elaboration. Like Quiñones, he
admitted that they had placed sacks on the load and forced the three victims to go with them to the parke where
they were unclothed and killed, two by Buitre and the third by Solarte. Quiñones remained in the car. Afterwards, the
accused distributed the cash among themselves, each receiving P10,000.00, with Solarte and Buitre getting the
weapons also. Using Sy's car, they proceeded to Sapang Palay after leaving the weapons with Sonny Tabalan in
his house in Tigbinan.  17

Conda also gave an extra-judicial confession, but this was not made with the assistance of counsel and so must be
rejected. It is totally worthless and inadmissible against him. Such a confession is anathema in a free society. It was
not recognized even during the era of martial law under the 1973 Constitution as interpreted by the Court in People
v. Galit.   And it is also scorned under the present Constitution, which is more deeply committed to the protection of
18

the rights of the accused.

Civico also gave an extra-judicial confession, likewise without the assistance of counsel.   But testifying on his
19

behalf, he purged it of invalidity when he freely affirmed it on the stand in the presence of the judge himself and with
the assistance of defense counsel.   By so testifying, he in effect reiterated but validly this time — his earlier
20

narration, replete with all the damming details, of the commission of the crime.

The Court is satisfied that the evidence against the accused is sufficient to justify their conviction. The declarations
of the prosecution witnesses — and more so of defendants Quiñones and Canaba, both of whom had pleaded guilty
— are telling enough to toll their guilt. The seized weapons and the other exhibits offer strong corroboration that has
not been refuted. The state of the cadavers — of the swollen scrotums and the protruding tongues — tell a tale of
their own of the defendants' perverted ruthlessness.

By contrast, the defense was practically one of mere denial. Even the claimed maltreatment of Quiñones has not
been established.

It is clear from the evidence on record that there was a conspiracy among the perpetrators of the crime to rob and
slay. A conspiracy exists when two or more persons come to an agreement concerning the commission of a felony
and decide to commit it. This need not be established by direct evidence but may be proven through the series of
acts done by each of the accused in pursuance of the common unlawful purpose.  21

Proof of conspiracy in the case at bar was supplied, paradoxically enough, mainly by defendants Quiñones and
Canaba themselves. From the time they blocked the road to waylay their prey to the killing and robbing in the
woods, to the distribution of the loot and their escape in the stolen car, all the accused were acting in concert and in
accordance with their common plan.

It is argued that Civico and Aban were not part of the conspiracy and that Quiñones himself categorically said so in
answer to a question from the prosecution. Interpreting this merely as a gesture of loyalty or perhaps goodwill or
charity toward his fellow criminals, we dismiss it as a falsity. On the other hand, Civico himself admitted his own
participation in the offense, and in his sworn confession (which he affirmed in court) also implicated Aban. And there
is also Bariuan's testimony that Aban was one of the armed group, including the other accused, that went to his
house on July 8, 1986, and talked of their commission of the crime. These declarations are enough to place the two
defendants within the conspiracy together with the other defendants.

In a conspiracy, the act of one is the act of all and every one of the conspirators is guilty with the others in equal
degree. Hence, every member of the group that perpetrated the killing and robbery of the three victims must suffer
the same penalty prescribed by law even if they had different modes of participation in the commission of the
crime. 22

The trial judge found all the accused guilty as charged and sentenced each of them to serve the triple penalty
of reclusion perpetua and to pay actual and compensatory damages in the amount of P380,000.00 to the heirs of
Alexander Sy, P50,000.00 to the heirs of Augusta Gabo, and P50,000.00 to the heirs of Frisco Marcellana. The
firearms were also confiscated in favor of the State.

The Court finds that the accused were incorrectly charged with robbery with multiple homicide and so were also
incorrectly sentenced by the trial court. The reason is that there is no crime of robbery with multiple homicide under
the Revised Penal Code. The charge should have been for robbery with homicide only regardless of the fact that
three persons were killed in the commission of the robbery. In this special complex crime, the number of persons
killed is immaterial and does not increase the penalty prescribed in Article 294 of the said Code. As held in People
v. Cabuena:  23

But it was error to sentence the appellants to three life imprisonments each as if 3 separate crimes
had been committed. The complex crime of robbery with homicide is not to be multiplied with the
number of persons killed. As was said by this Court in People vs. Madrid (88 Phil. 1), "the general
concept of this crime does not limit the taking of human life to one single victim making the slaying of
 human being in excess of that number punishable as separate individual offense or offenses. All the
homicides or murders are merged in the composite, integrated whole that is robbery with homicide
so long as the killings were perpetrated by reason or on the occasion of the robbery.

The penalty prescribed for the crime of robbery with homicide is reclusion perpetua, to be imposed only once even if
multiple killings accompanied the robbery. Furthermore, the discussion by the trial court of the attendant
circumstances was unnecessary because Article 63 of the Code provides that when the law prescribes a single
indivisible penalty, it shall be applied without regard to the mitigating or aggravating circumstances that may have
attended the commission of the crime.

The civil indemnity for each of the three victims is reduced to P30,000.00, to be paid to their respective heirs. The
heirs of Alexander Sy are also awarded the additional sum P330,000.00, representing the value of the articles taken
from him by the accused.

WHEREFORE, the conviction of all the accused-appellants is AFFIRMED, but each of them is sentenced to only
one term of reclusion perpetua for the crime of robbery with homicide. The monetary awards are also modified in
accordance with the preceding paragraph. It is so ordered.

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

Footnotes

1 Rollo, p. 6.

2 Records, pp. 54, 60, 65.

3 Ibid., p. 178.

4 Rollo, p. 53.

5 Ibid., p. 18.

6 Records, p. 39.

7 TSN, January 28, 1987, p. 5.

8 TSN, March 19, 1987, p. 7.

9 Records, pp. 28, 36.

10 TSN, November 27, 1986, pp. 47-48.

11 TSN, March 24, 1987, pp. 6-12.

12 Records, pp. 28, 36.

13 TSN, April 1, 1987, pp. 21-23.

14 Records, p. 29.

15 TSN, April 1, 1987 p. 54.

16 Records, pp. 32-34.

17 Ibid., pp. 37-38.

18 135 SCRA 465.

19 Records, p. 9.

20 TSN, April 8, 1987, pp. 11-13.

21 People v. Pineda, 157 SCRA 71.

22 People vs. Salvador, 163 SC RA 574.

23 98 Phil. 919.