United States vs. Perez

When a homicide is committed on the occasion of or by reason of a robbery, the two offenses are merged into a single indivisible complex crime of robbery with homicide under Article 503, No. 1, of the Penal Code; the offense may not be divided into separate crimes of robbery and homicide or murder, the liability of the participants may not be divided between the two acts, and the treachery attending the killing is absorbed in the complex crime and may be appreciated only as a generic aggravating circumstance.

The accused were residents of Hagonoy, Bulacan, while the victims, Damaso Valencia and Miguela Sibug, were a married couple who operated a fishery in the barrio of Lawa, Lubao, Pampanga. The charge was laid under Article 503, No. 1, of the Penal Code — formerly Article 516, subarticle 1, of the Penal Code of Spain — which punishes robbery committed by the use of violence or intimidation upon persons with cadena perpetua or death when a homicide is committed in consequence of or on the occasion of the robbery. The provision's structure, which joins the two offenses under a single definition and a single special penalty, supplies the statutory backdrop against which the classification of the crime was litigated.

Severino Perez, Abdon de Leon, Faustino Mañago, and Lorenzo Reyes were charged by the fiscal of Pampanga with robbery with murder committed against the spouses Damaso Valencia and Miguela Sibug at their fishery in the barrio of Lawa, Lubao, Pampanga, in the early morning of July 4, 1912. The prosecution's account, drawn principally from the widow and from Reyes, who was discharged from the complaint to testify for the State, established the following sequence.

Between three and four o'clock that morning, Perez, De Leon, Mañago, and Julio de los Santos, since deceased, together with Reyes, arrived at the fishery in two small bancas after crossing from Hagonoy, Bulacan; three carried bolos, and Perez carried a revolver as well as a bolo. Perez hailed the inmates of the house, saying that he and his companions wished to buy fish, and Valencia came out and told them that he was not selling any because he had not yet made a catch. A few moments later, while Valencia was about to urinate with his back turned toward the visitors, Abdon de Leon struck him with a bolo, and Faustino Mañago, Julio de los Santos, and Severino Perez immediately joined the assault and pursued him to the other side of the house, where Perez fired a shot at him with his revolver. Reyes, standing on the pilapil about four meters away in bright moonlight, saw De Leon deliver the first bolo blow and Perez fire the shot, but lost sight of the pursuers thereafter.

De Leon and Mañago then entered the house. De Leon made a light, bound Miguela Sibug, and with Mañago took her to the upper floor, the other two remaining below. Holding her by the hair and gesturing as if to cut her throat with his bolo, De Leon broke open a closed trunk with the weapon and took about P300 in paper money, P50 in silver coin, and jewelry valued at approximately P600 belonging to the spouses. The two men then brought Miguela back downstairs. When she asked about her husband, they told her he was in the banca; she went there to look for him and, not finding him, continued searching until just at daybreak, when she found him wounded and dead among the bacawan trees on a pilapil in front of the lot on which the house stood. Dr. Julio Layog examined the body at seven o'clock in the morning of July 5, 1912 and found thirty-eight wounds in the neck, face, abdomen, thigh, and groin, all of which affected the bones and were necessarily mortal except one just above the navel that was slight and superficial; all were caused by a bolo or pointed cutting instrument except one in the cheek inflicted by a bullet.

Miguela Sibug testified that she heard the men outside calling to buy fish, that her husband went out, and that shortly afterward she heard a noise like persons running; peering from a window beside her bed, she heard her husband cry out and saw, the night being clear, four men pursuing and striking him with a cutting instrument, and heard a loud report like that of a revolver. She called for help, but the fishery watchman, Camilo Fabia, ran away in fear and jumped into the water. Moments later De Leon and Mañago entered the house and took her, bound, to the upper floor; she identified both at trial. Below she saw the other men, and when she was taken to the banca she counted five, though she recognized only the two who stood in front of the light and Severino Perez, whom she had seen near the fishery before the crime. Among the five she also saw Lorenzo Reyes, who spoke up for her, telling the others that they ought not to kill a woman like her because she did not resist. Reyes himself testified that he had been invited to go along to buy fish without knowledge of any intent to assault or rob; that he remained on the pilapil; that he saw De Leon strike Valencia and Perez fire at him; that the four men entered the house, two remaining below and two going up; and that they later gave him P23 of the money taken.

After warrants of arrest had issued and before the complaint was filed, the four men were sighted on August 19, 1913 in the sitio of Sapangbalot, in a mangrove swamp between Hermosa and Orani, Bataan, by Valeriano Calma, a secret service agent of the Constabulary, and a corporal who had gone there in search of them. The men resisted and fired a shot, and the Constabulary returned fire, seriously wounding Julio de los Santos and Abdon de Leon; De los Santos died in the hospital and De Leon was taken to Hermosa. Two revolvers, a talibon, and a dagger were seized and turned over to the Constabulary captain of Bataan. Perez was later arrested by a Constabulary detachment, and before the end of August 1913 Mañago surrendered to the chief of police of Hagonoy. Lieutenant Cristobal Cerquella testified that on August 24, 1913 Mañago, while detained at the municipal building of Hagonoy, voluntarily stated that he had gone with Perez, De Leon, De los Santos, and Reyes to Valencia's house, that he and Reyes stayed in the banca while the others proceeded to the house, and that De Leon struck Valencia and Perez shot him once. Municipal president Francisco Sebastian and municipal policeman Eustasio Martin likewise testified that Mañago freely and voluntarily admitted to them his participation and named his companions.

The three accused, testifying in their own behalf, denied all participation in the acts charged and asserted that the prosecution's witnesses had not told the truth. Severino Perez and Abdon de Leon claimed that Lorenzo Reyes bore them a grudge: Reyes had sought admission to the katipunan society to which De Leon belonged and which Perez was organizing for the revolution expected in 1912, and had been excluded because he had admitted committing an assault and killing a person, whereupon he implicated them in this case. De Leon and Mañago sought to prove alibi through Januaria Bautista and Ambrosio de Leon, who testified that De Leon did not leave Hagonoy on July 4, 1912, and through Aguedo Trillana, who testified that he saw Mañago in his barrio in Hagonoy on that day and that Mañago slept in his house that night. The trial court found that the prosecution's evidence established the guilt of the three accused beyond reasonable doubt and that the killing was attended by treachery, was committed in the nighttime, and took place in the dwelling of the offended party, with no extenuating circumstance in their favor.

• Sufficiency of the Evidence: Appellants assigned as error the trial court's holding that their guilt was established beyond all reasonable doubt.
• Classification of the Crime: Appellants contended that they should be sentenced for the crime of robbery independently of murder, and not for the crime of robbery with murder.
• Treachery: Appellants contended that treachery should be taken into account as a qualifying circumstance — that is, to classify the violent killing of Damaso Valencia as murder and to punish that crime independently of the robbery, or conjointly therewith as a necessary means for the commission of the robbery.
• Denial, Enmity, and Alibi: Appellants denied all participation in the acts charged and asserted that the testimony of the prosecution's witnesses was untrue; Perez and De Leon claimed that Lorenzo Reyes was moved by enmity arising from his exclusion from the katipunan society; and De Leon and Mañago set up alibi, presenting witnesses to show that they did not leave Hagonoy on July 4, 1912.

• Sufficiency of the Evidence: Whether the guilt of the accused was established beyond reasonable doubt.
• Classification of the Crime: Whether the killing of Damaso Valencia on the occasion of the robbery constitutes the single complex crime of robbery with homicide under Article 503, No. 1, of the Penal Code, or two separate crimes of robbery and homicide or murder.
• Treachery: Whether treachery may be taken into account as a qualifying circumstance to classify the killing as murder and punish it independently of, or conjointly with, the robbery.
• Aggravating Circumstances and Penalty: Whether the aggravating circumstances of band, nighttime, and dwelling may be appreciated against the accused, and whether the greater indivisible penalty of death was properly imposed.

• Sufficiency of the Evidence: Yes. The prosecution established beyond reasonable doubt the direct and positive participation of each accused through the testimony of Miguela Sibug, corroborated by Lorenzo Reyes and by the extrajudicial confession of Faustino Mañago, while the defenses of alibi and enmity were without value.
• Classification of the Crime: Robbery with homicide under Article 503, No. 1, of the Penal Code. The killing preceded the robbery and the idea that prompted the crime was the robbery itself, so that the two offenses form one single indivisible complex crime that cannot be divided.
• Treachery: No. Treachery cannot be taken as a qualifying circumstance to classify the killing as murder or to punish it independently of the robbery; it is absorbed in the complex crime and may be appreciated only as a generic aggravating circumstance.
• Aggravating Circumstances and Penalty: Yes. Band, nighttime, and dwelling were properly appreciated as generic aggravating circumstances; with no extenuating circumstance in their favor, the greater of the two indivisible penalties provided by Article 503, No. 1 — death — was imposed.

• Sufficiency of the Evidence: The testimony of Miguela Sibug was clear and conclusive as to the violence committed against her, the seizure of the money and jewelry, and the presence of that property in the trunk, and no contrary evidence was offered. Lorenzo Reyes, though an accomplice or at least an accessory after the fact for having shared in the proceeds to the extent of P23, was competent and his testimony deserved credence because his accusations were corroborated by the facts proven and especially by Miguela's testimony and by the physical evidence: the body bore a bullet wound in the cheek and thirty-seven other wounds produced by a pointed cutting instrument, a number that could only have been inflicted by more than one person. The extrajudicial confession of Faustino Mañago, made voluntarily to Lieutenant Cerquella, to the municipal president, and to a municipal policeman, was credible and admissible against him and, being corroborated by Miguela and Reyes, was likewise credible and admissible against his co-defendants as an accusation of their participation. The apparent discrepancy between Reyes and Miguela as to whether Perez entered the house was explained by the two-storey structure of the building: while De Leon and Mañago were upstairs with Miguela, Perez and De los Santos could have entered the lower part, which accounts for Miguela finding them below when she came down and for Reyes seeing Perez and De los Santos leave the house with her. The alibi of De Leon and Mañago was worthless because it did not exclude the possibility that they left Hagonoy late on the night of July 3 or early on July 4, traveled by banca to Lawa, committed the acts charged, and returned to Hagonoy early the same morning without their absence being noticed; nor was it credible that the alibi witnesses had the accused constantly in sight. The claim of enmity on the part of Reyes appeared nowhere except in the testimony of the accused themselves.

• Classification of the Crime: The evidence showed that the purpose of the accused and their companion in going to the fishery was to commit robbery, and that to carry out that purpose they first killed Valencia and immediately thereafter, by threats and violence upon his wife while she was still inside the house adjoining the fishery, seized the money and jewelry from a closed trunk they broke open. There was a direct relation and close connection between the robbery and the death because the killing preceded the robbery and the idea that prompted the crime was the robbery, for the perpetration of which the malefactors began by killing the victim. Following the decision of the Supreme Court of Spain of December 17, 1875, construing Article 516, subarticle 1, of the Spanish Penal Code — now Article 503, subarticle 1, of the Penal Code in force in the Islands — the provision disregards the separate existence of the two crimes and unites them into a special complex crime, one single indivisible crime, by connecting them through the phrase "in consequence or on the occasion of the robbery." The criminal acts therefore cannot be divided into two separate crimes, nor can the criminal liability of the participants be divided between one act and the other.

• Treachery: The killing was treacherous: the accused pretended that they wanted to buy fish, and by that pretense induced Valencia, notwithstanding the unseasonable hour, to come down from his house and place himself within their power, whereupon, taking advantage of the moment when he had turned his back, they suddenly and unexpectedly assaulted him with their weapons, pursued him, and left him dead near the house — means and forms that directly and especially tended to insure the killing without risk to themselves from any defense he might have made. Treachery could not, however, be taken into account as a qualifying circumstance to classify the killing as murder and punish it independently of the robbery, nor conjointly therewith as a necessary means for the commission of the robbery, because the offense under prosecution is a special complex crime composed of two distinct crimes and converted into one single indivisible crime under a definition of its own, provided for by a special penalty.

• Aggravating Circumstances and Penalty: The facts proved constitute robbery with homicide under Article 503, No. 1, of the Penal Code, not robbery with murder as the lower court and the complaint had classified it, and the three accused are criminally liable as perpetrators by direct participation. In the commission of the crime, apart from treachery as a generic aggravating circumstance, account must be taken of the generic aggravating circumstances that the crime was committed (1) by a band, since the three accused and their companion De los Santos, all armed with bolos and one of them also with a revolver, took part in its perpetration; (2) in the nighttime, which was purposely chosen and taken advantage of by the malefactors to execute their criminal designs; and (3) in the dwelling of the offended persons, where the crime was completely consummated without provocation on the part of the victims. With no extenuating circumstance in their favor, the greater of the two indivisible penalties provided for the crime must be imposed, together with the accessory penalties specified in Article 53 of the Penal Code in case the penalty is not executed by reason of pardon, and the pecuniary liabilities arising from the criminal liability incurred.

• Complex crime of robbery with homicide — When a homicide is committed in consequence of or on the occasion of a robbery, the two offenses are not treated as separate crimes but are united by the statute into a special complex crime, one single indivisible crime governed by its own definition and its own special penalty under Article 503, No. 1, of the Penal Code. The definition connects the offenses through the phrase "in consequence or on the occasion of the robbery"; absent that consequence or occasion, the offenses might be divisible. Because the crime is single and indivisible, it cannot be split into two distinct offenses, nor may the criminal liability of those who participated in its commission be divided between the killing and the taking. The Court applied the doctrine because the killing of Damaso Valencia preceded the robbery and the very idea that prompted the crime was the robbery, for the perpetration of which the malefactors began by killing the victim.

• Requisites of the complex crime as applied — The Court found (a) a robbery committed by the use of violence or intimidation upon persons, effected by breaking open a trunk and seizing money and jewelry from the bound wife of the victim; and (b) a homicide committed on the occasion of and by reason of that robbery, the victim having been killed before the taking precisely to carry out the robbery. These two elements, joined by the statutory phrase, produced the single complex crime.

• Treachery in a complex crime — Treachery attending the killing is not a qualifying circumstance that converts the homicide into murder for separate punishment, nor may it be considered conjointly with the robbery as a necessary means for its commission; it is absorbed within the single indivisible complex crime and may be appreciated only as a generic aggravating circumstance. The Court found treachery present — the pretense of buying fish induced the victim to come down from his house and place himself within the accused's power, whereupon he was suddenly assaulted from behind — but limited its effect to that of a generic aggravating circumstance.

• Alibi — Alibi is of no value where it does not prove that the accused could not have been at the scene of the crime at the time of its commission. The defense must exclude the physical possibility of the accused's presence at the locus criminis; a showing that the accused was seen in his own town on the day of the crime does not suffice where the distance could be covered by night travel by banca and the accused could have returned before his absence was noticed.

• Testimony of an accomplice — The testimony of an accomplice, or of one who may be deemed at least an accessory after the fact, is admissible and may be accorded full credence where it is corroborated by other evidence and by the proven facts of the case. Reyes's participation in the proceeds of the robbery to the extent of P23 did not disqualify him, his accusations being corroborated by the widow's testimony and by the physical evidence on the victim's body.

• Extrajudicial confession and its use against co-defendants — A confession voluntarily made is worthy of credence and admissible against the confessant; the accusation of co-defendants contained in that confession is likewise credible and admissible against them when corroborated by the testimony of other witnesses and confirmed by the other evidence in the record.

• "There is a direct relation and close connection between the robbery and the death of Damaso Valencia, inasmuch as the latter preceded the former and as the idea that prompted the crime was that of the robbery for the perpetration of which the malefactors began by first killing the victim." — This is the ratio decidendi for treating the killing and the taking as one complex crime rather than two separate offenses, and it supplies the factual test of "direct relation and close connection" between the homicide and the robbery.
• "disregards the fact that two crimes exist which are provided for and punished separately in other articles of the Code, but, entirely ignoring the separate classification that might have been given to both offenses, it has united them, thus constituting and creating a special complex crime that makes of the two offenses one single, indivisible crime, for the definition of the statute connects them by the phrase in consequence or on the occasion of the robbery; so that if this consequence and this occasion were not present they might be divisible, always, however, with due regard to the circumstances of the case." — Quoting the Supreme Court of Spain's decision of December 17, 1875, the passage supplies the canonical formulation of the statutory mechanism by which Article 503, No. 1, fuses robbery and homicide into a single indivisible crime.
• "The element of treachery cannot, however, be taken into account in this case as a qualifying circumstance, that is, to classify as murder the crime of the violent killing of Damaso Valencia and to punish this crime independently of that of robbery, as the defense contends, nor conjointly therewith considering it as a necessary means for the commission of the robbery, because, as aforesaid, the offense under prosecution is a special, complex crime, composed of two distinct crimes and converted into one single indivisible crime under a definition of its own and provided for by a special penalty in the Penal Code." — This states the rule governing the treatment of treachery in complex crimes and explains why the offense was robbery with homicide rather than robbery with murder.
• "Such evidence in support of an alibi is of course of no value whatever. It does not prove that the said two defendants were not in the barrio of Lawa, of the pueblo of Lubao, Pampanga, between 3 and 4 o'clock in the morning of July 4, 1912, because they could have left Hagonoy at a late hour on the night of the 3d or at an early hour of the 4th, as the evidence shows that they did, embark in the two bancas aforementioned and, after performing the acts mentioned in the first part of this decision, they could have returned to the same pueblo of Hagonoy, as they did do, also according to the evidence, very early that same morning, without their absence from the pueblo being noticed." — This articulates the standard for evaluating alibi: the defense must exclude the physical possibility of the accused's presence at the scene, which the alibi witnesses' testimony failed to do.

• Supreme Court of Spain, Decision of December 17, 1875 — The controlling authority relied upon by the Court in construing Article 516, subarticle 1, of the Spanish Penal Code (Article 503, subarticle 1, of the Penal Code then in force in the Islands). The Spanish decision held that the provision disregards the separate existence of the two crimes and unites them into a special complex crime — one single indivisible crime — by connecting them through the phrase "in consequence or on the occasion of the robbery," so that the offenses cannot be divided and the liability of the participants cannot be apportioned between them.

• Article 503, No. 1, Penal Code — Punishes any person guilty of robbery by the use of violence or intimidation upon any person with cadena perpetua or death when, in consequence of or on the occasion of the robbery, a homicide is committed. The Court applied this provision to classify the offense as robbery with homicide rather than robbery with murder, and to impose the greater of the two indivisible penalties.
• Article 516, subarticle 1, Penal Code of Spain — The antecedent provision, cited through the Supreme Court of Spain's decision of December 17, 1875, and identified in the text as the source of Article 503, subarticle 1, of the Penal Code in force in the Islands; it supplied the statutory language "in consequence or on the occasion of the robbery" on which the complex-crime ruling rests.
• Article 53, Penal Code — Governs the accessory penalties to be imposed when the principal penalty is not executed by reason of pardon. Pursuant to it, the Court decreed that if the death penalty were remitted, the accused would suffer absolute perpetual disqualification and subjection to the vigilance of the authorities for the remainder of their lives, unless those accessory penalties were also remitted in the pardon.
• Acts Nos. 451 and 1577 of the Philippine Commission — Govern the execution of the death penalty; the Court ordered that the penalty of death be executed in conformity with their provisions.

Arellano, C.J., Torres, Johnson, Carson, and Trent, JJ., concurred.