Facts:

o This case is an automatic review of the judgment dated October 8, 1998, from the Regional
Trial Court (RTC) of Santa Cruz, Laguna, Branch 28 in Criminal Case No. SC-6670.
o The accused, Clemente John Lugod alias “HONASAN,” was charged with rape with
homicide.
o The incident occurred on September 16, 1997, in the municipality of Cavinti, Laguna.
o The accused allegedly had carnal knowledge with an eight-year-old girl named Nairube J.
Ramos against her will.
o After the rape, the accused dumped the victim in a grassy coconut plantation area, resulting in
her death due to shock secondary to vulvar laceration.
o RTC convicted him of the crime of Rape with Homicide and imposed upon him the supreme
penalty of death, hence the automatic review.

Issue:

Lugod claims that the alleged confession he made to the vice-mayor was not a confession.

He prays that the judgment of conviction of the RTC be reversed and that he be acquitted of the
crime charged

Ruling:

After a careful review of the case, we agree with the submission of accused-appellant and find that
the prosecution failed to prove his guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

In rendering its decision, the trial court disregarded accused-appellant's defense of denial and alibi
and relied on the following pieces of circumstantial evidence culled from the testimonies of the
prosecution witnesses to justify its judgment of conviction:

"(1) In the evening of September 15, 1997, Accused CLEMENTE JOHN LUGOD wearing a
pair of slippers and black T-shirt, had a drinking spree with the son of Pedro dela Torre
outside their house at Udia, Cavinti, Laguna;

(2) On the same evening, accused wearing the same pair of slippers and black T-shirt and
under the influence of liquor, entered the house of VIOLETA CABUHAT without her consent;

(3) On the same evening, LORETO VELORIA saw accused wearing the same pair of
slippers and black T-shirt;

(4) At about 12:30 in the early morning of September 16, 1997, father of the victim noticed
somebody going downstairs of their house;

(5) The pair of slippers were found near the door of the victim's house;

(6) The panty of the victim was found inside the premises of VILLA ANASTACIA at Cavinti,
Laguna;
 (7) In the early morning of September 16, 1997, Romualdo Ramos saw accused coming out
of from VILLA ANASTACIA barefoot and half-naked;

(8) Accused pointed to RICARDO VIDA and SPO2 ANTONIO DECENA the place where the
cadaver of the victim could be found;

(9) Accused confessed to the Mayor and the Vice- Mayor of Cavinti, Laguna, that he
committed the offense imputed against him; and

(10) Almost all eyewitnesses for the Prosecution positively identified the accused in open
court as CLEMENTE JOHN LUGOD."18

There is no question that at the time of his apprehension, accused-appellant was already placed
under arrest and was suspected of having something to do with the disappearance of Nairube. In
fact, the lower court declared that accused-appeIlant's warrantless arrest was valid based on Section
5 (b) of Rule 113 of the Rules of Court.19 However, at the time of his arrest, the apprehending
officers did not inform the accused-appellant and in fact acted in a blatant and wanton
disregard of his constitutional rights specified in Section 12, Article III of the Constitution,
which provides:

(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 shall be
inadmissible in evidence against him.

(4) The law shall provide for penal and civil sanctions for violations of this section as well as
compensation to and rehabilitation of victims of torture or similar practices, and their families.

Records reveal that accused-appellant was not informed of his right to remain silent and to
counsel, and that if he can not afford to have counsel of his choice, he would be provided
with one. Moreover, there is no evidence to indicate that he intended to waive these rights. Besides,
even if he did waive these rights, in order to be valid, the waiver must be made in writing and with
the assistance of counsel. Consequently, the accused-appellant's act of confessing to SPO2
Gallardo that he raped and killed Nairube without the assistance of counsel cannot be used
against him for having transgressed accused-appellant's rights under the Bill of Rights.20 This
is a basic tenet of our Constitution which cannot be disregarded or ignored no matter how brutal the
crime committed may be. In the same vein, the accused-appellant's act in pointing out the location of
the body of Nairube was also elicited in violation of the accused-appellant's right to remain silent.
The same was an integral part of the uncounselled confession and is considered a fruit of the
poisonous tree. Thus, in People vs. De La Cruz,21 we ruled that:

"Equally inadmissible, for being integral parts of the uncouselled admission - or fruits of the
poisonous tree - are the photographs of subsequent acts which the accused was made to do
 in order to obtain proof to support such admission or confession, such as (a) his digging in
the place where Virginia Trangia was allegedly buried, (b) his retrieving of the bones
discovered therein (c) his posinq before a photographer while executing such acts." 22

Even if we were to assume that accused-appellant was not yet under interrogation and thus not
entitled to his constitutional rights at the time he was brought to the police station, the acts of
accused-appellant subsequent to his apprehension cannot be characterized as having been
voluntarily made considering the peculiar circumstances surrounding his detention. His confession
was elicited by SPO2 Gallardo who promised him that he would help him if he told the truth.
Furthermore, when accused-appellant allegedly pointed out the body of the victim, SPO2 Gallardo,
the whole police force as well as nearly one hundred (100) of the townspeople of Cavinti escorted
him there. Ricardo Vida stated that the townspeople were antagonistic towards accused-appellant
and wanted to hurt him.23 The atmosphere from the time accused-appellant was apprehended and
taken to the police station up until the time he was alleged to have pointed out the location of the
body of the victim was highly intimidating and was not conducive to a spontaneous response. Amidst
such a highly coercive atmosphere, accused-appellant's claim that he was beaten up and maltreated
by the police officers raises a very serious doubt as to the voluntariness of his alleged confession.
The Vice-Mayor, who testified that when he visited accused-appellant in the jail cell, he
noticed that the accused-appellant had bruises on his face, corroborated accused-appellant's
assertion that he was maItreated.24

In addition, the records do not support the confession allegedly made by the accused-appellant to
the Mayor and Vice-Mayor of Cavinti. Records show that the Mayor of Cavinti did not testify in the
criminal trial. Moreover, the testimony of the Vice-Mayor with respect to the alleged confession made
by the accused-appellant is not conclusive. The Vice-Mayor's testimony reads as follows:

As can be seen from the testimony of the Vice-Mayor, accused-appellant merely responded to the
ambiguous questions that the Vice-Mayor propounded to him. He did not state in certain and
categorical terms that he raped and killed Nairube. In fact, the Vice-Mayor admitted that the
accused-appellant did not tell him that he raped and killed Nairube. In addition, we note the
contradiction between the testimony of the Vice-Mayor who stated that he was alone when he spoke
to the accused-appellant and that of SPO2 Gallardo who claimed that he was present when
accused-appellant confessed to the Mayor and Vice-Mayor.

Considering that the confession of accused-appellant cannot be used against him, the only
remaining evidence which was established by the prosecution is the fact that several persons
testified having seen accused-appellant the night before the murder of Nairube and on several other
occasions wearing the rubber slippers and black T-shirt found at the house of the victim and Villa
Anastacia respectively as well as the testimony of Romualdo Ramos, the tricycle driver who stated
that he saw accused-appellant in the early morning of September 16, 1997 leaving Villa Anastacia
without a T-shirt and without slippers. These pieces of evidence are circumstantial in nature.
Circumstantial evidence is that evidence which proves a fact or series of facts from which the facts in
issue may be established by inference.26 Under Section 4 of Rule 133 of the Rules on Evidence,
circumstantial evidence is sufficient for conviction if:

(a) There is more than one circumstance;

(b) The facts from which the inferences are derived are proven; and

(c) The combination of all the circumstances is such as to produce a conviction beyond
reasonable doubt.
Circumstantial evidence is sufficient to convict if the circumstances proven constitute an unbroken
chain which lead to one fair and reasonable conclusion pointing to the accused, to the exclusion of
all others, as the guilty person.27

In the present case, much emphasis was placed by the trial court on the discovery of the pair of
rubber slippers at the victim's house and the black T-shirt hanging on a guava twig near the cadaver
of Nairube which were allegedly worn by accused-appellant the day before Nairube's disappearance.
The trial court also relied on the fact that there was an eyewitness who saw accused-appellant
leaving Villa Anastacia, the place where the body of the victim was found, in the morning after the
disappearance of the victim. However, the combination of the above-mentioned circumstances
does not lead to the irrefutably logical conclusion that accused-appellant raped and murdered
Nairube. At most, these circumstances, taken with the testimonies of the other prosecution
witnesses, merely establish the accused-appellant's whereabouts on that fateful evening and places
accused-appellant at the scene of the crime and nothing more. The evidence of the prosecution
does not provide a link which would enable this Court to conclude that he in fact killed and raped
Nairube. It must be stressed that although not decisive for the determination of the guilt of the
accused-appellant, the prosecution did not present any evidence to establish that he was at any time
seen with the victim at or about the time of the incident. Neither was there any other evidence which
could single him out to the exclusion of any other as being responsible for the crime.

It may be argued that his presence at the scene of the crime was unexplained and gives rise to the
suspicion that the accused-appellant was the author thereof but this circumstance alone is
insufficient to establish his guilt. It is well settled that mere suspicions and speculations can never be
the bases of conviction in a criminal case.28

More important, it appears that the rubber slippers, which were found at the house of the victim on
the night Nairube disappeared, are an ordinary pair of rubber slippers without any distinguishing
marks to differentiate the same from any other. In People vs. De Joya,29 this Court ruled that:

"Rubber or beach walk slippers are made in such quantities by multiple manufacturers that
there must have been dozens if not hundreds of slippers of the same color, shape and size
as the pair that Herminia gave to appellant's wife. And even if conclusive identification of the
slippers had been offered, and it is assumed that appellant (rather than his wife) had worn
those slippers on that fatal afternoon, still the presence of that singular slipper did not clearly
and directly connect the appellant to the robbery or the slaying. At most, under that
assumption, the presence of that slipper in the house of the Valencias showed that the
accused had gone to the house of the Valencias and there mislaid the slipper. We note in
this connection, that appellant himself had testified that he did enter the house of the
Valencias that afternoon, but after the killing of Eulalia Diamse had been perpetrated, and
there found many persons in the house viewing the body."30

Likewise, in People vs. Mijares,31 this Court ruled that the fact that the accused was the last
person seen with the victim and that his slippers were found at the crime scene do not
necessarily prove that he killed the victim. This Court stated that:

"That the appellant was the last person seen with the victim on the night she disappeared
does not necessarily prove that he killed her. It was not established that appellant and the
victim were together until the crime was committed. It was not even shown that the appellant
proceeded to the crime scene, either by himself or together with the victim.

Likewise, the fact that the slippers which appellant borrowed from Elizabeth Oglos were
found near the victim's dead body does not necessarily prove that he was the perpetrator of
 the crime. Even if we were to conjecture that appellant went to the locus criminis and
inadvertently left them there, such supposition does not necessarily imply that he had
committed the crime. Indeed, it was not established whether appellant went to the place
before, during or after the commission of the crime, if at all. Moreover, the prosecution has
not ruled out the possibility that the slippers may have been brought by another person to the
crime scene, precisely to implicate him and thus exonerate the real culprit. Clearly, several
antithetical propositions may be inferred from the presence of the slippers at the crime
scene, and appellant's guilt is only one of them."32

WHEREFORE, in view of the foregoing, the appealed Judgment dated October 8, 1998 of the
Regional Trial Court of Branch 28 in Criminal Case No. SC-6670 finding the accused, Clemente
John Lugod alias "HONASAN", guilty of the crime of rape with homicide is
hereby REVERSED and SET ASIDE and accused-appellant is ACQUITTED of the crime charged on
the ground of reasonable doubt. He is ordered immediately RELEASED from confinement unless
held for some other legal cause.

No pronouncement as to costs. 1âwphi1.nêt

SO ORDERED.