[ G. R. No. 16717. December 22, 1921 ] 42 Phil. 569
[ G. R. No. 16717. December 22, 1921 ]
THE UNITED STATES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. BERNARDINO MANABAT AND DOMINGO SIMEON, DEFENDANTS. DOMINGO SIMEON, APPELLANT. D E C I S I O N
OSTRAND, J.:
On May 23, 1919, the laborers in the car house, machine shop, power plant, and transportation departments of the Manila Electric Railroad and Light Company, a corporation operating the Manila street car system, declared a strike against that corporation. The strikers numbered nearly five hundred and all were members of a society for mutual support called “Nagsumakit” which consisted exclusively of employees of said corporation, and of which one Pedro Angeles was president. In the course of the strike several acts of violence were committed by the strikers culminating on June 20th at about 4:30 p. m., in the explosion on Plaza Goiti of a quantity of powder contained in a cardboard box placed under one of the seats of a street car by the defendant, Bernardino Manabat, one of the strikers. In depositing the box, Manabat, by means of a lighted cigarette ignited a fuse connected with the powder, whereupon he immediately left the car. Before the fuse reached the powder the conductor of the car discovered the box, with its burning fuse, and threw it out of a window of the car and into the street. It was there picked up by a newsboy, Leonardo Sacramento, in whose hands it exploded, inflcting wounds upon him from the effects of which he died the following morning. A number of other persons were also injured through the explosion. Manabat was recognized by several persons and was captured a few minutes after the explosion within a short distance of the place where it occurred. He was at once taken to the headquarters of the Manila secret service where he at first denied his guilt, but after having been closely examined by several secret service men “more or less continuously” (see testimony of John W. Green) for about twenty-three hours, made a confession in which he implicated the defendant, Domingo Simeon, claiming that the latter had given him the bomb, with instructions to take it aboard a street car and there explode it. Domingo Simeon was thereupon arrested, brought to secret service headquarters and there confronted with Manabat, who, in his presence, repeated the story that Simeon had furnished the bomb and given him the instructions mentioned. As some importance has been attached to the point, we may here mention that while Manabat told his story, Simeon showed no excitement or emotion, and did not interrupt or even look at him. However, as soon as asked by the chief of the secret service, Simeon emphatically denied the truth of Manabat’s statement.
An information was filed by the prosecuting attorney of the city charging both Manabat and Simeon with murder and lesiones (physical injuries). The two accused were tried separately. Manabat pleaded guilty but sentence was withheld until the termination of the trial of Simeon. The latter, after a lengthy trial, was found guilty of homicide and lesiones, and sentenced to twenty years of reclusion temporal. Manabat was given the benefit of article 11 of the Penal Code and sentenced to twelve years and one day of reclusion temporal. The case is now before this court on appeal taken by Simeon.
In addition to the facts above stated, the record shows that the “Nagsumakit” was affiliated with the Congreso Obrero, a federation of labor associations and of which Potenciano Salita was president and Domingo Simeon, secretary. When dissatisfaction arose among the laborers of the Street Car Company, Pedro Angeles, as president of the “Nagsumakit” and feeling unequal to the task of directing a strike, sought the assistance of the Congreso Obrero. A petition directed to Mr. Rockwell, vice-president of the Street Car Company, and containing a number of peremptory demands was thereupon prepared. The petition was signed by Potenciano Salita, as president of the Congreso Obrero, and countersigned by Simeon as secretary. The company being unwilling to treat with outsiders in regard to its relations with its employees, the strike above-mentioned was at once declared.
“Labor Hall,” the headquarters of the Congreso Obrero also became the headquarters of the strike. Simeon, who in addition to being secretary of the Congreso Obrero, was also the treasurer of the Printers’ Union, had his office in a room adjoining the assembly room of Labor Hall and separated therefrom, in the daytime, by swinging halfdoors of wire cloth. In the same room several other persons had their offices or desks, among them the treasurer and the secretary of the Cigarmakers’ Union.
At the beginning of the strike, Salita was a candidate for member of the Municipal Council and as his time was taken up with the electoral campaign, the management of the strike devolved upon Simeon until June 8th, when the elections being over, Salita assumed the management. On that date a meeting of the strikers and their sympathizers was held at the Zorrilla Theater, which meeting was opened by Simeon and afterwards presided over by Salita. At the meeting one Crisanto Evangelists made an inflammatory speech in which he criticised the Government for protecting the “scabs” with Constabulary guards and secret service men, and stated that in other countries such repressive measure led to violence on the part of strikers. He finally, however, advised the audience to remain peaceful while justice took its course.
At the same meeting several committees were appointed, among them a committee on finance of which Simeon was made chairman. As such chairman, he had charge of the collection of funds from the public for the benefit of the strikers and also of the distribution of such funds. The greater part of the funds were used for the purchase of food, and meals were served the strikers daily at the Labor Hall. Among the persons so receiving meals was Manabat, who sometimes was accompanied by his wife, and Simeon came to know both of them. Manabat testifies that from the beginning of the strike he went to Labor Hall nearly every day and that a large number of the other strikers did likewise.
The facts here related as to Simeon’s close connection with the strike and his silence when confronted with Manabat in the office of the chief of the secret service are relied on by the prosecution as corroboration of Manabat’s statements inculpating Simeon. A critical .examination of these circumstances will, however, show that they are of little, if any, corroborative value, and that Simeon’s conviction depends entirely on the credibility of the, on this point, practically uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice. Such testimony coming, as it does, from a polluted source must be accepted with extreme caution and its inherent probability must be carefully tested. This is especially so when, as in the present case, we have only the testimony of one man without any means of comparing and verifying it with other testimony to the same effect. The cases in which the uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice has been held sufficient to convict of grave offenses have been very rare indeed. Upon this subject Bishop, in his new Criminal Procedure, second edition, section 1169, says:
“So manifest is the danger of convicting men on evidence from a source confessedly corrupt and delivered by the witness to shield himself from merited punishment, that the judges, while explaining to the jury their right to convict on it alone, by way of caution advise them not to return a verdict of guilty unless it is corroborated by evidence from a purer source. Yet they are not as of law required to give this advise.”
And again, in section 1170:
“* * * corroborating evidence must tend to prove the defendant’s guilt, not merely the credibility of the accomplice.”
The rule stated by Bishop is based on wisdom and experience and while it may not have been formally adopted in our local jurisprudence, it is, nevertheless, of great persuasive force.
Now, what corroboration is there as to Simeon’s complicity? That he had his office at Labor Hall and that Manabat also was present in the building between the hours of 2 and 3 o’clock in the afternoon of June 20th, as testitified to by two secret service men? There is nothing strange in this; where else would both Simeon and Manabat be more likely to be at that hour? Neither is Simeon’s silence and his failure to show agitation or emotion when first confronted with Manabat’s charge, inconsistent with his entire innocence. He would, perhaps, have been quite as likely to make a display of resentment if he were guilty and had been betrayed by Manabat. If this incident proves anything at all, it indicates a degree of self-control which makes his participation in Manabat’s illconsidered and reckless exploit all the more improbable. Neither can Simeon’s participation in the management of the strike be regarded as a corroborating circumstance of the character required by the rule above quoted; there were many persons similarly circumstanced and who, in addition, had a pecuniary interest in the strike which Simeon lacked. The record contains ample corroboration of Manabat’s confession of his own guilt; as to Simeon’s complicity it is singularly deficient.
We therefore have to fall back on the testimony of Manabat. He testifies that he arrived at Labor Hall at 8 o’clock in the morning of June 20th and remained there until 4 o’clock in the afternoon; that he, at this later hour, was covering with a number of other strikers of whom about fourteen were present outside of the door of Simeon’s office, when a person whom he did not know came out of Simeon’s office and asked for Bernardino Manabat; that upon his, Manabat, stepping forward, this person told him that Simeon wanted to see him; that he thereupon entered the office where he found Simeon alone; that he asked Simeon what he wanted of him and that Simeon then asked him “Do you see that thing on the chair?” He further states that he asked Simeon what it was and was told that it was only a firecracker for the street car. When asked if he was willing to explode it in a car, he answered that he was afraid on account of his family and was told to have no fear for the family as he would be protected in the event he was arrested. He further states that the so-called firecracker was in a white paste-board box about 12 inches long, 4 inches wide, and 4 1/3 inches high; that he was curious to see what was inside the box, but that Simeon told him not to open it; that after some further discussion, lasting altogether about twenty-five minutes, he put the box under his left arm and in that manner carried it out of Simeon’s office and through the hall and all the way from there to the corner of Calles Dasmariiias and Rosario where he, after waiting a couple of minutes, boarded a street car bound for Plaza Goiti where the “firecracker” was exploded. He asserts that he did not think the “firecracker” was dangerous but simply would frighten the public from using the street cars.
When it is considered that Labor Hall was a public place, frequented by many people, that Simeon’s desk was visible not only through the half-doors separating his office from the hall, but also open to public view from the outside through the windows, and that both Simeon and the strikers knew that Labor Hall was being watched by the secret service, Manabat’s story certainly challenges our credulity. It is highly improbable that Simeon, an intelligent, and as the record shows, self-possessed man, should, without any previous conversation have intrusted a man he had known casually only for a few weeks with such a desperate venture and should have delivered to this man, practically in public view, such a conspicuous object as the box in question.
In addition to its inherent improbability, Manabat’s story is further weakened by being contradicted in important details by the testimony of fairly credible witnesses. It is, for instance, conclusively proven that instead of being in Labor Hall during the forenoon of June 20th, he was at the Bureau of Labor as a witness in an investigation conducted by that Bureau. It must also be regarded as proven that there were at least two other persons present in Simeon’s office at the time of the alleged delivery of the cardboard box to Manabat It is hardly likely that the delivery could have been made without being noticed by them. It is furthermore significant that Manabat did not know any of the men with whom he was talking when he was called into Simeon’s office, and that he, apparently, has been unable to so describe them as to lead to their identification. It is also remarkable that he has been unable to give any clue to the identity of the person who called him into the office.
It has been intimated that if Manabat had not been telling the truth he could not have adhered to his story under cross-examination. To this we may say that the story was relatively simple, the witness fairly intelligent and the cross-examination was not very searching. There are hints in the record that the testimony before the court differed materially from the confession made to the secret service, but as the confession has not been presented in evidence we cannot take this into consideration.
It has also been suggested that Manabat could have had no motive for implicating Simeon. As to this, we are not left entirely to conjectures. Two witnesses testify that on one occasion Manabat was highly offended at Simeon’s reluctance to lend him a peso out of the funds collected for the strikers and that he, on leaving Simeon’s office, expressed his dissatisfaction in strong terms. There is also some probability of his having resented the attentions shown his wife by Simeon. That Simeon on being questioned at the time of his examination by the secret service failed to recall, on the spur of the moment, any cause for resentment on Manabat’s part is not as strange as it at first blush may seem. Being in charge of the distribution of the strike funds, he was peculiarly exposed to suspicions of unfairness. The strikers were numerous and the funds scant; he could not very well satisfy everyone, and, nwittingly, may have made many enemies. Even if aware of the enmity he might easily forget individual instances. Manabat being, as the evidence shows, a man of a morose and aggressive temperament might easily have taken umbrage at comparatively slight incidents. Furthermore, when it is remembered that he was captured almost in the act of the commission of the crime and that the evidence against him was overwhelming, it requires no wide stretch of the imagination to conclude that the lengthy examination by the secret service was directed not so much towards establishing his guilt as towards ascertaining whether he had any accomplices, and being a fairly intelligent man (he was a machinist by trade and had studied two years in the Manila Trade School) it could not have taken him long to realize what was wanted. By governing himself accordingly and implicating one of the leaders of the strike he succeeded in creating the impression that he himself was merely the ignorant tool of a more intelligent person. He was consequently convicted of manslaughter instead of murder and given the benefit of article 11 of the Penal Code, thereby shortening his term of imprisonment by eighteen years less one day. Men have committed perjury for less.
Much as we abhor the crime committed, we cannot convict men on evidence as flimsy as that against the defendant Domingo Simeon in the present case, and as to him the sentence of the lower court is therefore reversed, and it is hereby ordered that the complaint against him be dismissed and that he be discharged from the custody of the law with the costs de oficio. So ordered.
Araullo, C. J., Avancena, Villamor, Johns, and Romualdez, JJ., concur.
Johnson, J., dissents.