People vs. Lorenzo

A statement by an accused acknowledging the killing of the victim, made spontaneously upon surrender and before any custodial investigation, is admissible as an admission; the corroboration required by Section 3, Rule 133 of the Rules of Court goes to the extrajudicial confession itself and not to the testimony of the person to whom the confession was made, the corroborative evidence required being proof of the corpus delicti.

Agapito Lorenzo and Dolores Lorenzo y Corsino were spouses residing in Looban, Barangay 12, Balzain, Tuguegarao, Cagayan, where their neighbors included Barangay Captain Isabelo Liban, Romeo Racheta, and Robert Santos. Dolores was a policewoman (PO1) of the Tuguegarao PNP Station, the same unit to which SPO1 Jose Eclipse belonged. The case arose against the statutory backdrop of Article 246 of the Revised Penal Code, which penalizes parricide with reclusion perpetua to death, and of Section 12(1), Article III of the Constitution, which governs the admissibility of statements taken from persons under investigation for an offense.

Agapito Lorenzo and Dolores Lorenzo y Corsino were spouses residing in Looban, Barangay 12, Balzain, Tuguegarao, Cagayan, where their neighbors included Barangay Captain Isabelo Liban, Romeo Racheta, and Robert Santos. Dolores was a policewoman of the Tuguegarao PNP Station. On 30 March 1992, an information was filed with the Regional Trial Court of Tuguegarao, Cagayan, charging her with parricide and alleging that on or about 30 July 1990, in Tuguegarao, Cagayan, armed with a bolo and a fan knife, with intent to kill, with evident premeditation and with treachery, she wilfully, unlawfully, and feloniously attacked, assaulted, stabbed, hacked, and chopped Agapito Lorenzo, her own husband, inflicting upon him several injuries on different parts of his body which caused his death; the information further alleged the aggravating circumstance of cruelty.

According to the prosecution, SPO1 Jose Eclipse of the Tuguegarao PNP Station was at his post in Balzain, Tuguegarao, Cagayan, on the night of 30 July 1990. At about a little past 10:00 o'clock that evening, a tricycle driver reported to him a stabbing incident in Barangay 12. Eclipse rushed to the reported crime scene and, on his way, met PO1 Dolores Lorenzo, a policewoman of his own station, who immediately surrendered to him a blood-stained bolo and a fan knife and told him, "I killed my husband." The two proceeded to where the victim was, and in front of the store of Barangay Captain Isabelo Liban, Eclipse saw Agapito sprawled on the ground with blood all over his body. Eclipse called for Liban to come out of his house, and in the presence and within the hearing of the barangay official, Lorenzo again said, "I'm surrendering because I killed my husband." Eclipse ordered somebody to get a tricycle to bring the lifeless body to a funeral parlor while he and Lorenzo went to the Tuguegarao PNP Station, where he turned over Lorenzo together with the bolo and knife to the Desk Officer, SPO3 Urbano Aquino, and orally made his report, which was noted down in the police blotter.

The defense painted a different picture, its theory being that it was not Lorenzo but Robert Santos who killed Agapito. According to Lorenzo, in the afternoon of 30 July 1990, Agapito and Santos were in the former's house passing the time over a bottle of beer grande. When she arrived home from work, Agapito, in Santos's presence, met her with intemperate questions: "Your mother's cunt, why do you arrive only now? Where did you come from?" To avoid further scandal, she kept quiet, changed her clothes, and proceeded to the kitchen to prepare supper. Finding nothing to cook, she asked permission to go to market, and after returning and beginning to cook, she heard a heated exchange of words between Santos and her husband in the sala pertaining to some bullets and a hand grenade the latter had given Santos. She went to the sala to pacify the quarreling men only to meet Santos running out of the house with a bolo, chased by Agapito who was holding a knife and whose clothes were splattered with blood. When Agapito overtook Santos, a struggle for possession of the bolo ensued; while wrestling, Agapito dropped his knife, which Lorenzo picked up and tried to use to stab Santos, but she was so overwhelmed by nervousness that she collapsed into unconsciousness. Seconds later she regained consciousness and found herself beside her dying husband; she stood, picked up the knife and bolo, and it was at that precise time that Eclipse arrived at the scene. She gave the knife and bolo to Eclipse, who invited her to go with him to the police station; she obliged. When they arrived, Eclipse, in her presence, reported to the desk officer that she had killed her husband, and because she had not yet fully recovered her composure, she said nothing.

The trial court gave full faith and credit to the testimonies of the prosecution witnesses, finding nothing on record showing that their impartiality had been vitiated or compromised or that they had any motive to falsely impute the commission of the crime upon the appellant. It declared that when she surrendered the knife and bolo to SPO1 Eclipse and volunteered the information that she had killed her husband, she made an extrajudicial confession, and that nothing more was needed to prove her culpability; the confession was admissible because it was not made in violation of paragraph 1, Section 12, Article III of the Constitution, the appellant being neither under police custody nor under investigation in connection with the killing of her husband. The trial court rejected the defense version as "palpably a put-up scenario....[A] story which runs against the grain of ordinary reality, controverts logic and assails common sense," citing five reasons: her failure to correct or protest the report and the police blotter entry; her failure to tell Eclipse and Liban of Santos's role and to file a criminal case against Santos; her failure to file a counter-affidavit during the preliminary investigation; the implausibility of her account, since Agapito was already bloodied yet allegedly chased and wrestled with Santos, who allegedly left his bolo behind; and the variance between her testimony and that of her witness Romeo Racheta as to how Agapito caught up with Santos. The autopsy established that the victim sustained nine chop wounds, thirteen stab wounds, and nine incised wounds on different parts of his body, with abrasions and multiple contusions as well. Although the appellant heard Eclipse's report to the desk officer, she did not protest, and she implicated Santos as the alleged killer only when she testified on 21 January 1993, or after the lapse of nearly two and one-half years after the incident.

• Credibility of Prosecution Witnesses: The appellant contended that the trial court erred in giving credence to the testimonies of prosecution witnesses Isabelo Liban and SPO1 Jose Eclipse.
• Inconsistency Between Liban and Eclipse: The appellant asseverated that the testimonies of Liban and Eclipse were inconsistent on material points, for while Liban declared in court and stated in his sworn statement that he came out of his house and heard the appellant confess to Eclipse that she killed her husband, Eclipse testified that Liban did not come out of his house; one of them did not tell the truth, and Liban's presence was necessary to corroborate Eclipse's testimony on the alleged confession, which would be devoid of any evidentiary value without corroboration.
• Improbable and Irresolute Testimony: The appellant pleaded that both witnesses be discredited because Liban's testimony was improbable while Eclipse's "was not so firm and resolute as to what was actually allegedly told to him by the accused," he having declared at one time that the appellant told him she "accidentally injured her husband" and at another that she told him she "killed her husband."
• Police Blotter Entry: The appellant argued that the police blotter entry showed Eclipse to have disclosed that she "voluntarily surrendered and asked him to bring her to the police station because she allegedly killed her husband named Agapito Lorenzo, Jr. together with Robert Santos who first stabbed him," yet in his testimony in court he pinned down only the appellant and mentioned nothing about Santos.
• Suppression of Evidence: The appellant charged the prosecution with suppression of evidence in not presenting as a witness another police officer who Eclipse said accompanied him to the scene of the crime and who used a vehicle which they rode in going to the police station.
• Failure to Correct the Police Blotter: The appellant asserted that it was error for the trial court to hold her failure to correct the entry in the police blotter against her, since nothing in the records clearly showed that she heard Eclipse making the report to the desk officer and that she saw the entry.
• Failure to File a Complaint Against Santos: The appellant contended that the trial court erred in making capital of her alleged failure to file a criminal complaint against Robert Santos, since it was the police's duty to arrest and prosecute Santos, Eclipse having known of Santos's killing of her husband; besides, she was in detention all throughout and suffering from trauma.
• Non-Filing of a Counter-Affidavit: The appellant averred that the trial court erred in holding against her her failure to file a counter-affidavit, since that was not obligatory and her non-filing was in accord with her constitutional right to remain silent.
• Speculative Conclusions: The appellant contended that the conclusions drawn by the trial court in its evaluation of her testimony and that of her witnesses were mere speculations.
• Guilt Not Proved Beyond Reasonable Doubt: The appellant maintained that the trial court erred in not holding that her guilt was not proved beyond reasonable doubt.

• Affirmation of the Conviction: The appellee agreed with the findings of fact and conclusions of the trial court and prayed that the challenged decision be affirmed.

• Credibility of Witnesses: Whether the trial court erred in giving credence to the testimonies of prosecution witnesses Isabelo Liban and SPO1 Jose Eclipse.
• Admission or Confession and Corroboration: Whether the appellant's statement that she had killed her husband was an extrajudicial confession requiring corroboration, and whether the testimony of another person who heard the statement was necessary to corroborate the testimony of the officer to whom it was made.
• Suppression of Evidence: Whether the prosecution's failure to present the other police officer who allegedly accompanied Eclipse constituted suppression of evidence warranting the presumption that the evidence would be adverse if produced.
• Circumstantial Evidence: Whether the circumstantial evidence was sufficient to establish the appellant's guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
• Voluntary Surrender and Penalty: Whether the mitigating circumstance of voluntary surrender should be appreciated in the appellant's favor and what penalty should accordingly be imposed.

• Credibility of Witnesses: No. Findings of the trial court on the credibility of witnesses are binding on appeal absent a showing that it plainly overlooked facts of value which, if considered, might affect the result of the case, and no such showing was made.
• Admission or Confession and Corroboration: The declaration was an admission, not an extrajudicial confession, but it was admissible in either case; the corroboration required by Section 3, Rule 133 of the Rules of Court is evidence of the corpus delicti, not the testimony of another person who heard the statement.
• Suppression of Evidence: No. The testimony of the unproduced policeman would be merely corroborative and was equally available to the defense; the presumption under Section 3(e), Rule 131 of the Rules of Court does not apply.
• Circumstantial Evidence: Yes, it was sufficient. The concurrence of circumstances formed an unbroken chain leading to one fair and reasonable conclusion pointing to the appellant, to the exclusion of all others, as the guilty person, satisfying Section 4, Rule 133 of the Rules of Court.
• Voluntary Surrender and Penalty: Yes, voluntary surrender was appreciated as a mitigating circumstance; since the penalty for parricide consists of two indivisible penalties, the lesser penalty of reclusion perpetua was imposed pursuant to Rule 3, Article 63 of the Revised Penal Code.

• Credibility of Witnesses: The well-entrenched rule is that when the issue is the credibility of witnesses, appellate courts will generally not disturb the findings of the trial court, considering that the latter is in a better position to decide the question, having heard the witnesses themselves and observed their deportment and manner of testifying during the trial, unless certain facts of value have been plainly overlooked which, if considered, might affect the result of the case. The trial court has the singular opportunity to observe potent aids in understanding and weighing testimony, such as the emphasis, gesture, and inflection of the voice of the witnesses while on the witness stand; as these are not incorporated into the record, the appellate court cannot avail of them and must rely on the good judgment of the trial court. The appellant failed to convince the Court that the trial court plainly overlooked proved facts or circumstances which, if considered, might affect the result; the assessment of the evidence was therefore accepted as correct and binding, there being no showing that it was reached arbitrarily. On the merits, the Court agreed that SPO1 Eclipse told the truth when he declared under oath that the appellant surrendered to him a blood-stained bolo and a fan knife and told him that she had killed her husband. Eclipse happened to be on his way to the scene of the stabbing incident reported to him by a tricycle driver while he was in the performance of his official duty at his assigned post in Barangay Balzain, Tuguegarao, Cagayan, and both he and the appellant belonged to the same police unit. Nothing in the records, and more specifically in the cross-examination of Eclipse and the direct examination of the appellant, suggested even remotely that Eclipse had any improper motive to implicate a fellow police officer in the commission of a serious crime, or the slightest bias against the appellant which would blemish his objectivity and truthfulness. If there was any bias, it should logically have been in favor of the appellant because of esprit de corps, but Eclipse did not allow that sentiment to compromise his official and public duty as a peace officer. The absence of evidence as to an improper motive strongly tends to sustain the conclusion that none existed and that the testimony is worthy of full faith and credit, for if an accused had nothing to do with the crime, it would be against the natural order of events and of human nature and against the presumption of good faith for a prosecution witness to falsely testify against the accused. The appellant's emphasis on the alleged inconsistency in Eclipse's testimony as to whether she told him she "injured" or "killed" her husband was misplaced, the latter word having been used when the court asked him for the precise term used by the appellant.

• Admission or Confession and Corroboration: The Court did not agree with the trial court's characterization of the appellant's declaration that she had killed her husband as an extrajudicial confession; it was only an admission. Sections 26 and 33, Rule 130 of the Rules of Court distinguish an admission from a confession: in a confession there is an acknowledgment of guilt, while admission is usually applied in criminal cases to statements of fact by the accused which do not directly involve an acknowledgment of guilt of the accused or of the criminal intent to commit the offense with which he is charged. Wharton defines a confession as an acknowledgment in express terms, by a party in a criminal case, of his guilt of the crime charged, while an admission is a statement by the accused, direct or implied, of facts pertinent to the issue, and tending, in connection with proof of other facts, to prove his guilt; an admission is something less than a confession and is but an acknowledgment of some fact or circumstance which in itself is insufficient to authorize a conviction and which tends only to establish the ultimate fact of guilt. Underhill distinguishes a confession as an acknowledgment of guilt of the crime charged or of the facts which constitute the crime, but it is an admission and not a confession if the facts acknowledged raise an inference of guilt only when considered with other facts, and Wigmore describes a confession as an acknowledgment in express words, by the accused in a criminal case, of the truth of the guilty fact charged or of some essential part of it. Nevertheless, whether it was a confession or an admission, it was admissible against the appellant and, having been duly proved, together with the other facts and circumstances, the burden of the evidence shifted to the appellant to disprove by strong evidence that she made the admission or, admitting it, to prove that she was not guilty of killing her husband. The claim that Liban's testimony had to corroborate Eclipse's testimony on the confession since without such corroboration Eclipse's testimony would have no probative value could only be a product of a misunderstanding of Section 3, Rule 133 of the Rules of Court, which provides that an extrajudicial confession made by an accused shall not be sufficient ground for conviction unless corroborated by evidence of corpus delicti. What must be corroborated is the extrajudicial confession and not the testimony of the person to whom the confession is made, and the corroborative evidence required is not the testimony of another person who heard the confession but the evidence of corpus delicti. Except when expressly required by law, as in treason cases under Article 114 of the Revised Penal Code, the testimony of a single person, if credible and positive and if it satisfies the court as to the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt, is sufficient to convict; in determining the value and credibility of evidence, witnesses are to be weighed, not numbered. As to the corroborative evidence of corpus delicti, the appellant herself did not question its presence, it having been overwhelmingly established. Corpus delicti is the body (material substance) upon which a crime has been committed, such as the corpse of a murdered man or the charred remains of a house burned down; in a derivative sense, it means the substantial fact that a crime was committed, and it is made up of two elements: (a) that a certain result has been proved, for example that a man has died or a building has been burned, and (b) that some person is criminally responsible for the act. Section 3, Rule 133 does not mean that every element of the crime charged must be clearly established by independent evidence apart from the confession; it means merely that there should be some evidence tending to show the commission of the crime apart from the confession, otherwise the utility of the confession as a species of proof would vanish if it were necessary, in addition to the confession, to adduce other evidence sufficient to justify conviction independently of it. The other evidence need not, independently of the confession, establish the corpus delicti beyond a reasonable doubt. Since the corroboration of Liban's testimony was unnecessary, the Court did not need to discuss its intrinsic merits, more especially on its alleged inconsistencies vis-a-vis the testimony of Eclipse, which inconsistencies were in any event found to be on minor matters; minor inconsistencies do not affect the credibility of witnesses and may even tend to strengthen rather than weaken their credibility because they erase any suspicion of rehearsed testimony.

• Suppression of Evidence: The claim of suppression of evidence had no merit. The testimony of the other policeman whom Eclipse requested to get a vehicle could only be corroborative in some respects but not of the fact of the surrender of the blood-stained bolo and fan knife and of the appellant's telling Eclipse that she had killed her husband, since it was not explicitly shown that he was with Eclipse at the precise time of the surrender. The prosecutor and the defense counsel asked no further questions of Eclipse to elicit more on the presence of the other policeman, and even if the latter were present, his testimony would only be corroborative. Furthermore, it was never shown that the policeman was not available to the defense. The presumption laid down in Section 3(e), Rule 131 of the Rules of Court that evidence willfully suppressed would be adverse if produced does not apply when the testimony of the witness not produced would only be corroborative, or when the witness is available to the defense, because then the evidence would have the same weight against one party as against the other.

• Circumstantial Evidence: Even granting for the sake of argument that the appellant only surrendered a blood-stained bolo and a fan knife but did not admit that she had killed her husband, several circumstances existed whose concordant combination and cumulative effect pointed to the appellant, to the exclusion of all others, as the guilty party: (a) a tricycle driver reported to Eclipse a stabbing incident and the latter immediately proceeded to where it took place; (b) Eclipse met the appellant who had with her a blood-stained bolo and a fan knife; (c) the appellant surrendered to Eclipse the blood-stained bolo and the fan knife; (d) the appellant's husband lay dead nearby with nine chop wounds, thirteen stab wounds, and nine incised wounds on different parts of his body, with abrasions and multiple contusions as well; (e) Eclipse accompanied the appellant to the police station and, in her presence, reported to the desk officer that she surrendered to him and told him that she had killed her husband, which report was entered in the police blotter; (f) although the appellant heard the report, she did not protest to Eclipse or except to the report; and (g) the appellant never asked the police authorities to investigate Robert Santos for his complicity in the killing of her husband, and despite unhampered opportunities to denounce Santos as the alleged killer, she implicated him only when she testified on 21 January 1993, or after the lapse of nearly two and one-half years after the incident. These circumstances constituted an unbroken chain leading to one fair and reasonable conclusion pointing to the appellant, to the exclusion of all others, as the guilty person, and the requirements of Section 4, Rule 133 of the Rules of Court on the sufficiency of circumstantial evidence to convict were present. The five reasons enumerated by the trial court to support its conclusion that the defense story was a put-up scenario were founded on or inferred from facts duly established by the prosecution or were otherwise solidly based on common experience, logic, and common sense. The appellant demonstrated her penchant for falsehood when, to refute the trial court's statement that she should have protested or corrected the police blotter entry, she asserted in her brief that nothing in the record clearly showed that she heard Eclipse making the report or read the entry, conveniently forgetting that on cross-examination she admitted having heard Eclipse making the report but claimed that she did not protest because she was not in her right senses and was in a state of shock at the time. Her failure to assert, at any part of the entire event, from the time she went with Eclipse to the police station up to the time she was committed to jail and even thereafter until she took the witness stand, that it was not she who killed her husband, only served to reinforce and strengthen the trial court's finding that her story that it was not she but Robert Santos who did her husband in was shot; it was incredible that a peace officer and a wife of the victim would not forthwith denounce or reveal the identity of the assailant if it were true that it was not she who killed her husband.

• Voluntary Surrender and Penalty: To be appreciated in the appellant's favor was the mitigating circumstance of voluntary surrender. The penalty for parricide under Article 246 of the Revised Penal Code is reclusion perpetua to death, which are both indivisible penalties. In the light of the mitigating circumstance, the proper penalty which should be imposed upon the appellant should be reclusion perpetua, pursuant to Rule 3, Article 63 of the Revised Penal Code. The challenged decision was then in accordance with the facts and the applicable laws.

• Admission distinguished from confession — An admission is the act, declaration, or omission of a party as to a relevant fact which may be given in evidence against him, while a confession is the declaration of an accused acknowledging his guilt of the offense charged, or of any offense necessarily included therein. In a confession there is an acknowledgment of guilt; admission is usually applied in criminal cases to statements of fact by the accused which do not directly involve an acknowledgment of guilt or of the criminal intent to commit the offense charged. An admission is something less than a confession and is but an acknowledgment of some fact or circumstance which in itself is insufficient to authorize a conviction and which tends only to establish the ultimate fact of guilt. In this case, the appellant's statement that she had killed her husband, made spontaneously upon surrendering the weapons, was held to be an admission rather than an extrajudicial confession, the trial court's characterization having been rejected; but the Court held that whether confession or admission, the statement was admissible and, having been duly proved together with the other facts and circumstances, shifted to the appellant the burden of evidence to disprove it or to prove that she was not guilty.

• Corroboration of extrajudicial confession; corpus delicti — Under Section 3, Rule 133 of the Rules of Court, an extrajudicial confession made by an accused shall not be sufficient ground for conviction unless corroborated by evidence of the corpus delicti. What must be corroborated is the extrajudicial confession itself, not the testimony of the person to whom the confession is made; the corroborative evidence required is not the testimony of another person who heard the confession but the evidence of the corpus delicti. Corpus delicti is the body (material substance) upon which a crime has been committed, or, in a derivative sense, the substantial fact that a crime was committed; it consists of two elements: (a) that a certain result has been proved, such as the death of a man or the burning of a building, and (b) that some person is criminally responsible for the act. The rule does not require that every element of the crime be clearly established by independent evidence apart from the confession; it means merely that there should be some evidence tending to show the commission of the crime apart from the confession, and such other evidence need not, independently of the confession, establish the corpus delicti beyond reasonable doubt.

• Single-witness rule; witnesses weighed, not numbered — Except when expressly required by law, as in treason cases under Article 114 of the Revised Penal Code, the testimony of a single person, if credible and positive and if it satisfies the court as to the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt, is sufficient to convict. In determining the value and credibility of evidence, witnesses are to be weighed, not numbered. The Court applied this rule in rejecting the appellant's claim that Liban's testimony was indispensable to corroborate Eclipse's account of the admission.

• Appellate deference to the trial court's credibility findings — When the issue is the credibility of witnesses, appellate courts will generally not disturb the findings of the trial court, which is in a better position to decide the question, having heard the witnesses themselves and observed their deportment and manner of testifying during the trial, unless certain facts of value have been plainly overlooked which, if considered, might affect the result of the case. The trial court has the singular opportunity to observe the emphasis, gesture, and inflection of the voice of witnesses, which are not incorporated into the record. The exception was not applied because the appellant failed to show that the trial court plainly overlooked proved facts or circumstances or that its assessment was reached arbitrarily.

• Minor inconsistencies do not impair credibility — Minor inconsistencies do not affect the credibility of witnesses; on the contrary, they may even tend to strengthen rather than weaken their credibility because they erase any suspicion of rehearsed testimony. The alleged inconsistencies between the testimonies of Liban and Eclipse were found to be on minor matters.

• Suppression of evidence under Section 3(e), Rule 131 — The presumption that evidence willfully suppressed would be adverse if produced does not apply when the testimony of the witness not produced would only be corroborative, or when the witness is available to the defense, because then the evidence would have the same weight against one party as against the other. The Court applied this exception to the prosecution's failure to present the other policeman who allegedly accompanied Eclipse.

• Circumstantial evidence; requisites for conviction — Under Section 4, Rule 133 of the Rules of Court, 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. The Court found all three requisites present, the concurrence of circumstances forming an unbroken chain leading to one fair and reasonable conclusion pointing to the appellant, to the exclusion of all others, as the guilty person.

• Voluntary surrender as a mitigating circumstance; penalty for parricide — Parricide under Article 246 of the Revised Penal Code is punishable by reclusion perpetua to death, both indivisible penalties. Where a mitigating circumstance obtains and the penalty prescribed is composed of two indivisible penalties, the lesser penalty must be imposed pursuant to Article 63, Rule 3 of the Revised Penal Code. Voluntary surrender was appreciated in the appellant's favor, and reclusion perpetua was accordingly imposed.

• Admissibility of spontaneous statements made outside custodial investigation — A statement volunteered by an accused upon surrender, made before she was under police custody or under investigation in connection with the killing, is not covered by the requirements of paragraph 1, Section 12, Article III of the Constitution on the rights of persons under investigation, and is admissible in evidence.

• "Note that what must be corroborated is the extrajudicial confession and not the testimony of the person to whom the confession is made, and the corroborative evidence required is not the testimony of another person who heard the confession but the evidence of c orpus delicti." — This passage states the ratio decidendi on the corroboration requirement under Section 3, Rule 133 of the Rules of Court and disposes of the appellant's claim that Liban's testimony was indispensable to corroborate Eclipse.

• "In a confession, there is an acknowledgment of guilt. Admission is usually applied in criminal cases to statements of fact by the accused which do not directly involve an acknowledgment of guilt of the accused or of the criminal intent to commit the offense with which he is charged." — This is the Court's canonical formulation of the distinction between an admission and a confession under Sections 26 and 33, Rule 130 of the Rules of Court, on which the recharacterization of the appellant's statement rested.

• "In determining the value and credibility of evidence, witnesses are to be weighed, not numbered." — This aphorism encapsulates the single-witness rule applied by the Court in holding that the testimony of one credible witness suffices to convict absent a legal requirement of corroboration.

• "These circumstances constitute an unbroken chain which leads to one fair and reasonable conclusion that points to the appellant, to the exclusion of all others, as the guilty person." — This passage applies the third requisite of Section 4, Rule 133 of the Rules of Court and is the Court's conclusion on the sufficiency of the circumstantial evidence.

• People vs. Francisco, 213 SCRA 746 [1992]; People vs. Florida, 214 SCRA 227 [1992]; People vs. Matrimonio, 215 SCRA 613 [1992] — Cited as the line of controlling precedents for the rule that appellate courts will generally not disturb the trial court's findings on the credibility of witnesses absent a showing that it plainly overlooked facts of value which, if considered, might affect the result of the case.
• U.S. vs. Macuti, 26 Phil. 170 [1913]; People vs. Kyamko, 222 SCRA 183 [1993] — Cited for the principle that the trial court has the singular opportunity to observe aids to evaluating testimony, such as emphasis, gesture, and inflection of voice, which are not incorporated into the record; Kyamko was also cited for the single-witness rule.
• People vs. Santito, 201 SCRA 87 [1991]; People vs. Garcia, 209 SCRA 164 [1992] — Cited in support of the binding character of the trial court's assessment of the evidence where there is no showing that it was reached arbitrarily.
• People vs. Lase, 219 SCRA 584 [1993] — Cited for the rule that the absence of evidence as to an improper motive on the part of a prosecution witness strongly tends to sustain the conclusion that none existed and that the testimony is worthy of full faith and credit; also cited, with People vs. Jumamoy and People vs. Ducay, for the rule on minor inconsistencies.
• People vs. Romero, 119 SCRA 234 [1982]; People vs. Luces, 125 SCRA 813 [1983]; People vs. Canada, 144 SCRA 121 [1986]; People vs. Villalobos, 209 SCRA 304 [1992]; People vs. Balajadia, 225 SCRA 22 [1993] — Cited for the rule that in determining the value and credibility of evidence, witnesses are to be weighed, not numbered.
• People vs. Barlis, 231 SCRA 426 [1994] — Cited for the rule that the other evidence corroborating an extrajudicial confession need not, independently of the confession, establish the corpus delicti beyond a reasonable doubt.
• People vs. Pablo, 213 SCRA 1 [1992]; People vs. Casinillo, 213 SCRA 777 [1992] — Cited for the exceptions to the presumption under Section 3(e), Rule 131 of the Rules of Court on willfully suppressed evidence.
• U.S. vs. Corrales, 28 Phil. 362 [1914] — Cited for the distinction between an admission and a confession.
• U.S. vs. Lio Team, 23 Phil. 64 [1912] — Cited in connection with the definitions of confession and admission drawn from Wharton, Underhill, and Wigmore.
• People vs. Boduso, 60 SCRA 60 [1974] — Cited for the rule that the testimony of the accused is not credible where he adopted an attitude of indifference relative to the crime he is accused of and failed to inform the police authorities and the fiscal during the investigation that it was not he but somebody else who committed the murder.
• People vs. Viernes, (unreported), 99 Phil. 1045 [1956] — Cited for the principle that the concordant combination and cumulative effect of circumstances may establish the guilt of the accused.
• People vs. Tiozon, 198 SCRA 368 [1991] — Cited in connection with the sufficiency of circumstantial evidence under Section 4, Rule 133 of the Rules of Court.

• Article 246, Revised Penal Code — Defines and penalizes parricide with reclusion perpetua to death. The Court applied it in holding that the penalty prescribed consists of two indivisible penalties, which constrained the penalty to be imposed in light of the mitigating circumstance.
• Article 63, Rule 3, Revised Penal Code — Governs the application of indivisible penalties when a mitigating circumstance is present, requiring the imposition of the lesser penalty. The Court applied it in imposing reclusion perpetua instead of death.
• Article 114, Revised Penal Code — Penalizes treason and is cited by the Court as the example of a case in which the law expressly requires corroboration, illustrating the exception to the rule that the testimony of a single credible witness suffices to convict.
• Section 12(1), Article III, 1987 Constitution — Guarantees the rights of any person under investigation for the commission of an offense to be informed of the right to remain silent and to have competent and independent counsel, preferably of his own choice, which rights cannot be waived except in writing and in the presence of counsel. The trial court held that the appellant's statement did not violate this provision because she was neither under police custody nor under investigation in connection with the killing of her husband.
• Section 3, Rule 133, Rules of Court — Provides that an extrajudicial confession made by an accused shall not be sufficient ground for conviction unless corroborated by evidence of corpus delicti. The Court construed it as requiring corroboration of the confession itself through evidence of the corpus delicti, not through the testimony of another person who heard the confession.
• Section 4, Rule 133, Rules of Court — Provides that 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. The Court found all three requisites satisfied by the circumstances established in the case.
• Section 26, Rule 130, Rules of Court — Provides that the act, declaration, or omission of a party as to a relevant fact may be given in evidence against him. The Court cited it in distinguishing an admission from a confession and in holding the appellant's statement admissible as an admission.
• Section 33, Rule 130, Rules of Court — Provides that the declaration of an accused acknowledging his guilt of the offense charged, or of any offense necessarily included therein, may be given in evidence against him. The Court cited it in the same disquisition on the admission-confession distinction.
• Section 3(e), Rule 131, Rules of Court — Establishes the presumption that evidence willfully suppressed would be adverse if produced. The Court held the presumption inapplicable where the testimony of the witness not produced would only be corroborative or where the witness is available to the defense.

Padilla (Chairman), Bellosillo, Quiason, and Kapunan, JJ., concur.