People of the Philippines vs. Wilson Lab-eo

An Information for murder is sufficient if it recites the qualifying circumstances that raise the killing to murder, even if those circumstances are placed in a separate paragraph or designated as “aggravating” rather than “qualifying,” provided the Information as a whole enables a person of common understanding to know the charge and the court to render judgment properly.

Wilson Lab-eo and Segundina Cay-no were nephew and aunt. Cay-no sold rummage goods at the dap-ayan or barangay hall in front of the Tadian Public Market, Mountain Province. The killing was prosecuted under Article 248 of the Revised Penal Code, as amended by RA No. 7659, which punishes murder with reclusion perpetua to death when committed with attendant circumstances such as treachery, abuse of superior strength, or evident premeditation. The Rules on Criminal Procedure on sufficiency of information supplied the procedural framework for the charge.

Segundina Cay-no sold rummage goods at the dap-ayan or barangay hall in front of the Tadian Public Market, Mountain Province. On the morning of October 21, 1996, her son Jerry Cay-no displayed the goods before she arrived; after she arrived, he left to clean their new boarding house. At about 9 o’clock that morning, Nancy Gaoan and Julie Dangla came to be massaged by Cay-no. At about 11:20 a.m., Nelson Apyoten arrived to wait for a ride to Masla and sat with them. Before noontime, while Nancy and Julie were plucking white hair strands from Cay-no, appellant Wilson Lab-eo, her nephew, approached and sat in front of her. He spoke softly; Nancy had moved about two meters away, and Julie could not make out the conversation because of a running motor engine. They heard Cay-no say loudly and angrily, “koma-an ka tay baka mahigh bloodac” (“you get out because I might suffer high blood”). Appellant left.

Appellant proceeded to the market place, about five meters away, where he saw a 15-inch knife with a 9-inch blade at the butcher’s shop of a certain Gaskiw. He took it and returned to the dap-ayan about three to five minutes later. Cay-no was sitting on a low rattan stool, with her back to appellant, showing Nancy and Julie how to repair and put garter on pants. They did not notice his return. Julie saw appellant approach Cay-no from behind and thought he would merely box her because she did not see the knife, which was wrapped in his blue jacket. Appellant suddenly made a thrusting motion and stabbed Cay-no on the left portion of her back. He ran away, leaving the knife at the victim’s back with the jacket hanging by the knife’s handle. The entire length of the 9-inch blade had penetrated the victim’s body. Julie removed the knife and jacket; Nancy, Nelson, and other people shouted for help.

Nelson, together with Mario Talicwad and other people, chased appellant and saw him enter the office of Inspector Leonardo Cea, the Chief of Police of Tadian Police Station. Appellant surrendered, and the police took custody of him; the surrender was entered in the police blotter as Entry No. 21, page 86. Police Officer Angelito Beddy proceeded to the crime scene and recovered the knife wrapped with the jacket, which bore a hole from the knife. Julie ran to the boarding house and informed Jerry of what happened. When they returned to the dap-ayan, Cay-no was already aboard a Dolidoan Trans vehicle en route to the Luis Hora Memorial Hospital in Abatan, Bauko, Mountain Province. Jerry, Nelson, and others packed the dry goods and followed.

At the hospital, Dr. Milagros Inhumang found a 2.5 cm stab wound at the back, left scapula, which penetrated the left lung. X-ray revealed massive bleeding in the thorax cavity. Before Cay-no could be transferred to the Baguio General Hospital for more specialized treatment, she died in the morning of October 22, 1996. The cause of death was determined to be “hypovolemic shock secondary to massive hemorrhage.”

The defense version diverged only in the circumstances leading to the stabbing. Appellant did not deny stabbing Cay-no. He testified that he was teasing Cay-no that he be her baggage boy for the clothes she was vending; Cay-no got mad and berated him in front of many people, telling him to go away because she did not want to see his face. He felt bad and humiliated, left, returned to where Cay-no was selling, and stabbed her at the back; thereafter, he surrendered to the Chief of Police. He maintained that neither treachery nor evident premeditation attended the killing and that the crime should only be homicide. The prosecution eyewitnesses and the attending physician placed the wound at the back, and the police blotter and Inspector Cea confirmed appellant’s surrender on the day of the incident.

• Sufficiency of Information: Petitioner argued that the Information, although captioned as murder, alleged only homicide because the qualifying circumstances were placed in a separate paragraph and designated merely as generic aggravating circumstances, not as part of the recital of facts constituting the offense.
• Treachery: Petitioner maintained that treachery did not attend the stabbing.
• Mitigating Circumstances: Petitioner argued that passion and obfuscation and sufficient provocation should be appreciated in his favor.
• Indeterminate Sentence Law: Petitioner faulted the lower court for failing to apply the Indeterminate Sentence Law.

• Sufficiency of Information: Respondent countered that the Information sufficiently charged murder because it recited the qualifying circumstances; the two paragraphs must be read in their entirety, and the designation of the circumstances as aggravating did not remove the Information from the purview of Article 248 of the Revised Penal Code.
• Treachery: Respondent argued that treachery attended the commission of the crime because appellant stabbed the victim from behind, without warning and without an opportunity to defend herself.

• Sufficiency of Information: Whether the Information sufficiently charged murder, not homicide, where the qualifying circumstances were alleged in a separate paragraph and designated as aggravating circumstances.
• Treachery: Whether treachery attended the killing, qualifying it to murder.
• Mitigating Circumstances: Whether passion and obfuscation and sufficient provocation should be appreciated in appellant’s favor.
• Indeterminate Sentence Law: Whether the Indeterminate Sentence Law should apply to appellant convicted of murder punishable by reclusion perpetua to death.
• Damages: Whether the award of actual damages should be reduced and moral damages awarded.

• Sufficiency of Information: Yes. The Information sufficiently charged murder; qualifying circumstances need only be recited in the Information, regardless of paragraph placement or designation as aggravating, and the Information as a whole complied with Section 6, Rule 110.
• Treachery: Yes. Treachery attended; the appellant stabbed the victim from behind without warning, leaving her defenseless; abuse of superior strength and craft were absorbed in treachery.
• Mitigating Circumstances: No as to passion and obfuscation and sufficient provocation; the victim’s shout was not an unlawful or sufficient stimulus, and the provocation was not proportionate. Voluntary surrender, however, was appreciated as mitigating.
• Indeterminate Sentence Law: No. The Indeterminate Sentence Law does not apply to offenses punishable by death or life imprisonment, including reclusion perpetua.
• Damages: Actual damages were reduced to ₱82,500; civil indemnity of ₱50,000 and moral damages of ₱50,000 were awarded.

• Sufficiency of Information: Article 248 of the Revised Penal Code, as amended by RA No. 7659, punishes murder when the killing is attended by treachery, abuse of superior strength, evident premeditation, or other enumerated circumstances. It does not use the terms “qualifying” or “aggravating”; it refers to them as attendant circumstances. The Information’s first paragraph alleged the date, place, acts constituting the offense, and the victim; the second paragraph alleged that evident premeditation, treachery, abuse of superior strength, and craft attended the commission of the offense. Read in its entirety, the Information recited the qualifying circumstances. Placing them in a separate paragraph was a matter of form or style, and describing them as aggravating did not take the Information out of Article 248. Section 6, Rule 110 of the 1985 Rules on Criminal Procedure required the name of the accused, designation of the offense, acts or omissions constituting the offense, name of the offended party, approximate date, and place; the Information complied. The test of sufficiency is whether it enables a person of common understanding to know the charge and the court to render judgment properly. Qualifying circumstances must be pleaded to satisfy the accused’s constitutional right to be informed, but appellant never claimed that he was deprived of that right. Even under Sections 8 and 9, Rule 110 of the New Rules on Criminal Procedure, which require both qualifying and aggravating circumstances to be specifically alleged, the Information remained sufficient because three circumstances enumerated in Article 248 were alleged. People vs. Diaz and People vs. Cawaling were cited on the rule that alleged qualifying circumstances raise a killing to murder; Jumawan vs. Eviota supplied the sufficiency test; and People vs. Sala was cited on the right to be informed.
• Treachery: Article 14, paragraph 16 of the Revised Penal Code defines treachery as the employment of means, methods, or forms in the execution of a crime against persons that tend directly and specially to insure its execution without risk to the offender arising from the defense the offended party might make. Two conditions must concur: the employment of means of execution that tend directly and specially to insure the accomplishment of the crime without risk to the assailant from the defense the victim might make, and a deliberate or conscious adoption of those means. A sudden attack by the assailant, whether frontally or from behind, is treachery if deliberately adopted to deprive the victim of a chance to fight or retreat. An unexpected attack from behind, depriving the victim of any opportunity to defend himself, constitutes alevosia. Dr. Milagros Inhumang found the wound at the back, left scapula; Nancy Gaoan testified that appellant came from behind the victim and stabbed her at the back. Appellant used a 15-inch knife with a 9-inch blade and hid it under his jacket. The victim had her back to appellant and was not warned. The entire blade penetrated her body. These facts showed a deliberate and determined assault with intent to kill, leaving the victim defenseless. Abuse of superior strength was absorbed in treachery, and craft was likewise absorbed because appellant deliberately hid the knife as a means of accomplishing his treacherous plan. People vs. Real, People vs. Serzo, People vs. Velaga, Jr., People vs. Lacao, Sr., Ingles vs. People, People vs. dela Cruz, People vs. Valdez, and People vs. Sakam were cited on these points.
• Mitigating Circumstances: For passion and obfuscation, two elements must concur: an act both unlawful and sufficient to produce the condition of mind, and the act that produced the obfuscation was not far removed from the commission of the crime by a considerable length of time during which the perpetrator might recover normal equanimity. There must first exist an unlawful act that would naturally produce an impulse sufficient to overcome reason and self-control. The victim’s act of asking appellant to leave was not unlawful. There was no proof that appellant was utterly humiliated or that the victim made the remark in an insulting and repugnant manner. The utterance was not the overwhelming stimulus required by jurisprudence. As to sufficient provocation, the evidence showed that it was appellant who provoked the victim; the witnesses testified that when appellant initially approached the victim, he said something that prompted her to raise her voice at him. The provocation sufficient to mitigate an offense must be proportionate to the gravity of the retaliatory act. People vs. Leonor rejected the plea that a push and “bad words” justified retaliation with a knife. Here, the victim merely shouted at appellant and asked him to leave; stabbing her to death was hardly proportionate. However, voluntary surrender was duly proven. Shortly after the incident, appellant went to the municipal hall and surrendered to the authorities; Inspector Cea, Chief of Police of the Tadian Police Station, admitted that appellant voluntarily surrendered on the day of the incident. Treachery qualified the killing to murder, punishable by reclusion perpetua to death. With the mitigating circumstance of voluntary surrender and no aggravating circumstance, Article 63 of the Revised Penal Code required the lesser of the two indivisible penalties, reclusion perpetua.
• Indeterminate Sentence Law: Section 2 of the Indeterminate Sentence Law states that it shall not apply to persons convicted of offenses punishable by death or life imprisonment. People vs. Aquino held that the Indeterminate Sentence Law does not apply to persons convicted of offenses punishable with reclusion perpetua. The lower court therefore did not err in not applying the Indeterminate Sentence Law.
• Damages: Civil indemnity of ₱50,000 for the death of Segundina Cay-no was awarded without need of proof other than the commission of the crime and the consequent death of the victim. Actual damages must be proven with a reasonable degree of certainty, upon competent proof and the best evidence obtainable. The receipts presented in evidence totaled only ₱82,500, so the lower court’s award of ₱125,500 was reduced to ₱82,500. Moral damages of ₱50,000 were awarded for the wounded feelings and moral shock of the heirs, as testified to by Jerry Cay-no, son of the deceased. Because an appeal in a criminal proceeding throws the whole case open for review, the Supreme Court corrected the award even though it was not assigned as error. People vs. Oliano, People vs. Aguilar, and People vs. Juachon were cited on these points.

• Sufficiency of Information for Murder — An Information is sufficient if it recites the qualifying circumstances that raise a killing to murder, regardless of whether the circumstances are designated as aggravating or qualifying, or placed in a separate paragraph; the Information must be read in its entirety. Applied to sustain the murder charge against Lab-eo.
• Qualifying Circumstances Under Article 248 — Article 248 of the Revised Penal Code does not use the terms “qualifying” or “aggravating”; it refers to attendant circumstances. When treachery, evident premeditation, or abuse of superior strength is present and alleged, it qualifies the killing to murder. Applied to hold that the Information correctly charged murder.
• Right to Be Informed — Qualifying circumstances must be properly pleaded in the Information to satisfy the accused’s constitutional right to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation. Applied; no violation was found because appellant did not claim deprivation.
• Treachery (Alevosia) — Two conditions must concur: (1) the employment of means of execution that tend directly and specially to insure the accomplishment of the crime without risk to the assailant arising from the defense the victim might make; and (2) a deliberate or conscious adoption of the means of execution. A sudden attack from behind, without warning, is treacherous. Applied to the stabbing of Cay-no.
• Absorption of Abuse of Superior Strength and Craft in Treachery — Abuse of superior strength is absorbed in treachery. Craft may be absorbed in treachery if deliberately adopted as the means, method, or form for the treacherous strategy; it may co-exist independently only when both circumstances are adopted for different purposes. Applied because appellant hid the knife under his jacket as part of his treacherous plan.
• Passion and Obfuscation — The elements are: (1) an unlawful and sufficient act producing the condition of mind; and (2) the act was not far removed from the crime by a considerable length of time during which the perpetrator might recover normal equanimity. Applied; not appreciated because the victim’s shout was not unlawful or sufficient.
• Sufficient Provocation — The provocation must be sufficient and proportionate to the gravity of the retaliatory act. Applied; the victim’s shout and request to leave were not proportionate to stabbing her to death.
• Voluntary Surrender — Voluntary surrender is a mitigating circumstance. Applied because appellant surrendered to the Chief of Police shortly after the incident.
• Indeterminate Sentence Law — The Indeterminate Sentence Law does not apply to persons convicted of offenses punishable by death or life imprisonment, including reclusion perpetua. Applied to deny appellant its benefits.
• Actual Damages — Actual damages must be proven with reasonable degree of certainty, upon competent proof and the best evidence obtainable. Applied; receipts totaled ₱82,500, so the award was reduced to that amount.
• Moral Damages — Moral damages may be awarded for wounded feelings and moral shock. Applied; ₱50,000 was awarded.
• Appellate Review in Criminal Cases — An appeal in a criminal proceeding throws the whole case open for review, and the appellate court may correct errors not assigned. Applied; actual damages were reduced and moral damages awarded.

• “The Information is not just the first, second or third paragraph of the prosecutor's sworn accusation taken individually or separately, but all the allegations made therein taken together in their entirety.” — States the ratio for reading the Information as a whole in determining sufficiency.
• “The fact that the circumstances were described as "aggravating" instead of "qualifying" does not take the Information out of the purview of Article 248 of the Revised Penal Code.” — Holds that labels do not control; the recital of attendant circumstances is what matters.
• “To constitute treachery, two conditions must concur: (1) the employment of means of execution which tend directly and specially to insure the accomplishment of the crime without risk to the assailant arising from the defense the victim might make; and (2) a deliberate or conscious adoption of the means of execution.” — Canonical formulation of treachery.
• “The essence of treachery is that the attack is deliberate and without warning, done in a swift and unexpected manner, affording the hapless, unarmed and unsuspecting victim no chance to resist or escape.” — Defines the essence of treachery applied to the stabbing from behind.

• People vs. Diaz, 320 SCRA 168 (1999) — Cited for the rule that when evident premeditation, treachery, or abuse of superior strength is present and alleged in the Information, it qualifies the killing to murder.
• People vs. Cawaling, 293 SCRA 267 (1998) — Cited to the same effect on qualifying circumstances raising a killing to murder.
• Jumawan vs. Eviota, 234 SCRA 524 (1994) — Cited for the test of sufficiency of Information: whether it enables a person of common understanding to know the charge and the court to render judgment properly.
• People vs. Sala, 311 SCRA 301 (1999) — Cited for the requirement that qualifying circumstances be properly pleaded in the Information to avoid violating the accused’s right to be informed.
• People vs. Real, 242 SCRA 671 (1995) — Cited for the rule that a sudden attack by the assailant, whether frontally or from behind, is treachery if deliberately adopted to deprive the victim of a chance to fight or retreat.
• People vs. Serzo, 274 SCRA 553 (1997); People vs. Velaga, Jr., 199 SCRA 518 (1991); People vs. Lacao, Sr., 201 SCRA 317 (1991) — Cited for the two conditions of treachery.
• Ingles vs. People, 269 SCRA 122 (1997) — Cited for the rule that an unexpected attack from behind, depriving the victim of any opportunity to defend himself, constitutes alevosia.
• People vs. dela Cruz, 291 SCRA 164 (1998) — Cited for the essence of treachery as a deliberate, swift, and unexpected attack leaving the victim no chance to resist or escape.
• People vs. Valdez, 304 SCRA 611 (1999) — Cited for the rule that abuse of superior strength is absorbed in treachery.
• People vs. Sakam, 61 Phil 27 (1934) — Cited for the rule that craft may be absorbed in treachery if deliberately adopted as the means, method, or form for the treacherous strategy, and may co-exist independently only when both circumstances serve different purposes.
• People vs. Leonor, 305 SCRA 285 (1999) — Cited to reject the claim that a push and “bad words” justified retaliation with a knife, because the provocation was insufficient.
• People vs. Aquino, 284 SCRA 369 (1998) — Cited for the rule that the Indeterminate Sentence Law does not apply to persons convicted of offenses punishable with reclusion perpetua.
• People vs. Oliano, 287 SCRA 158 (1998) — Cited for the requirement that actual damages be proven with reasonable degree of certainty, competent proof, and the best evidence obtainable.
• People vs. Aguilar, 292 SCRA 349 (1998) — Cited for the award of moral damages.
• People vs. Juachon, 319 SCRA 761 (1999) — Cited for the rule that an appeal in a criminal proceeding throws the whole case open for review.

• Article 248, Revised Penal Code, as amended by RA No. 7659 — Defines murder and imposes reclusion perpetua to death when the killing is committed with attendant circumstances including treachery, abuse of superior strength, and evident premeditation. Applied to hold that the Information correctly charged murder.
• Article 14, Revised Penal Code — Defines aggravating circumstances; paragraph 16 defines treachery (alevosia). Applied to find that treachery attended the stabbing.
• Article 63, Revised Penal Code — Provides the rules for applying indivisible penalties; when two indivisible penalties are prescribed and a mitigating circumstance is present with no aggravating circumstance, the lesser penalty is applied. Applied to impose reclusion perpetua instead of death.
• Section 6, Rule 110, 1985 Rules on Criminal Procedure — Requires the Information to state the name of the accused, designation of the offense, acts or omissions constituting the offense, name of the offended party, approximate date, and place. Applied to find the Information sufficient.
• Sections 8 and 9, Rule 110, New Rules on Criminal Procedure — Require both qualifying and aggravating circumstances to be specifically alleged in the Information. Applied hypothetically; the Information remained sufficient because three Article 248 circumstances were alleged.
• Section 2, Indeterminate Sentence Law (Act No. 4103, as amended by Act No. 4225) — States that the law does not apply to persons convicted of offenses punishable by death or life imprisonment. Applied to deny appellant its benefits.
• Constitutional right to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation — Cited as the reason qualifying circumstances must be pleaded in the Information; no violation was found because appellant did not claim deprivation.

Melo, Vitug, Panganiban, and Sandoval-Gutierrez, JJ., concur.