[ G.R. No. L-1749. April 02, 1949 ] 83 Phil. 267
[ G.R. No. L-1749. April 02, 1949 ]
THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF AND APPELLEE, VS. LUCAS GEMPES, MARCELINO BOSTILLO, AND PROCESO ROCERO, DEFENDANTS AND APPELLANTS. D E C I S I O N
TUASON, J.:
Found guilty of murder by the Court of First Instance of Mindoro, Lucas Gerapes was sentenced to reclusion perpetua and Marcelino Bostillo and Proceso Rocero to an indeterminate penalty of from 10 years and 1 day of prision mayor to 17 years 4 months and 1 day of reclusion temporal. The three accused were also sentenced to pay the heirs of the deceased, jointly and severally, the sum of P2,000 and each to pay a proportionate share of the costs. Eleuterio Escorpizo, co-accused with the appellants, was acquitted for lack of sufficient evidence.
Sabino Almendras was picked up at his home in barrio Pinagsabañgan, municipality of Naujan, province of Mindoro, by a group of nine men on the night of July 28, 1943, and murdered before dawn of the next day in sitio Viga in the same municipality. By their admission, the defendants formed part of the band but denied that they took part or were present in the actual killing.
The evidence for both sides is wholly oral Jose Nuñez, one of the participants in the crime, gave the main evidence for the prosecution as government witness. The salient points of his testimony are these:
He was a guerrilla. On July 28, 1943, at about 6:30 in the afternoon, he and other members of his outfit were ordered by Sgt. Gempes to accompany him to Sabino Almendras’ place, where they arrived at about 10 o’clock p. m. There were nine of them altogehter, among them being Proceso Rocero, Marcelino Bostillo, Eleuterio Escorpizo and Gempes. Upon reaching Sabino Almendras’ house, Gempes told him and his other companions to get Almendras. He did not go up the house, but saw Rocero, Crispulo Cantos and Melquiades Madula bring Almendras down, bound with a piece of rope. Gempes was at the foot of the stairs. He (witness) was armed with a rifle, Sgt. Gempes with a .45 caliber pistol, Marcelino Bostillo a shotgun, Eleuterio Escorpizo a Chinese rifle and Proceso Rocero an automatic rifle. While Almendras was being led downstairs, an old woman, Almendras’ wife, with a lamp followed. From that place Almendras, with his hands tied behind his back, was carried to Mapalo, Naujan, Mindoro, where their camp was located, reaching the camp about one o’clock a. m. It was Proceso Rocero who held the loose end of the rope and who, at the camp, tied Almendras to a post. Lucas Gempes was with the band in returning to the camp walking at the head thereof. Once Almendras was tied to a post, Sgt. Gempes told Marcelino Bostillo to get a pick and a shovel and dig a grave near the Viga river. Marcelino Bostillo obeyed and when he returned reported to Gempes that the grave was ready. Then Gempes ordered the witness to kill the prisoner, but he refused and was scolded. Thereupon Gempes assigned Crispulo Cantos and Melquiades Madula to carry out the order, and Almendras was dragged by Proceso Rocero to the place where he was to be killed followed by Gempes, Bostillo, Escorpizo and the witness. That place was about 200 yards from the camp. At the execution the witness mounted guard near the road. Beside the grave Almendras was made to kneel by Gempes. When Almendras was in this position, Gempes gave the order to kill him, and Padilla struck him with the butt of a rifle in the head. Almendras fell into the grave, after which he was given a finishing blow by Crispulo Cantos with a fixed bayonet. This was about four o’clock in the morning. He had been under Gempes for two days when Almendras was executed, and four days after that Captain Adeva arrived and he rejoined that officer.
Romana Añil, Sabino Almendras’ widow, 49 years old, testified that at about 10 o’clock p. m. on July 28, her “husband was taken by one of our enemies.” Of the men who came she recognized only Lucas Gempes; the latter was at the foot of the stairs. She heard Gempes give the order to bring her husband downstairs. Her husband and Lucas Gempes were political leaders of opposing candidates before the war and were not on speaking terms. Her husband belonged to the faction of Jose Basa and Gempes to that of Cirilo Gaba. During the occupation both Gempes and her husband were guerrilleros but Almendras was only a food collector.
Contradicting the most damaging details of the foregoing testimony, Lucas Gempes said that he was a mess sergeant in the guerrilla unit quartered in Mapalo, Naujan. The highest officer of that outfit was Lt. Roel Beloncio. Next in rank to Beloncio was Sgt. Jimenez from whom he received orders. As mess sergeant, his sole duty was to procure foodstuff for the outfit. On July 28, 1943, he was invited by Sgt. Jimenez to point to him the house of Sabino Almendras." With him were Padilla, Porong, Melquiades, Bostillo, Sgt. Jimenez, Nuñez and two others whom he no longer remembered. After pointing to Jimenez Almendras’ house he was ordered by Jimenez to find food and he separated from him, returning to the camp the following morning with rice and chickens. It was only upon his return to the camp that he was informed Sabino Almendras had been taken to Viga. Jose Nuñez, he said, lied, when he declared that he (Gempes) was responsible for the seizure and murder of Almendras. He said Jose Nuñez was “angry with him” because Nuñez had made love to his (Gempes’) daughter and tried to kiss, embrace, and elope with her, When he heard, from his daughter, of what Nuñez had done to her, he sent Nuñez away and told him “it was useless to continue his advances with my daughter.” When he left, Nuñez warned, him, “You will have your day.” Outside of the camp he was not authorised to carry firearm. He was never assigned to go on patrol. He denied having threatened. Romana Añil with bodily harm when she refused to give his soldier sugar. He said he never asked sugar from her. He said that he and Sabino Almendras belonged to the same Basa faction ever since he became an elector. He denied that he and Almendras were political enemies.
Jose Nuñez’s and Romana Añil’s testimony is cogent, couched in simple and natural language, and free from any sign of falsehood or exaggeration. That Nuñez made an attempt to abuse Gempes’ daughter, if true,—and it does not sound true—should have been a cause for atonement, and apology instead of revenge. It is to be noted moreover that Nuñez testified, not against Gempes alone but also against the other defendants with whom he is not alleged to have had any unpleasantness.
It can not have been a mere coincidence that the men on whom the accused pin the blame for Almendras’ death are either dead or fugitives from justice. Quite apart from this, the imputation of the crime to Jimenez is completely devoid of any color of verisimilitude. It has not been shown that Jimenez had any resentment against Almendras. In fact nothing was said about his antecedents, his assignments in the guerrilla organization, or his relation and attitude towards Almendras. Granting that Almendras was a Japanese collaborator, Roel Beloncio, the commanding officer of the outfit would have been the man to decide on what should be done with him for his treason. One might well imagine that he would at least be consulted in such a matter of high policy and of vital concern to the underground resistance. The killing of Almendras was riot an emergency affair demanding prompt action.
Considering all the circumstances, there was little likelihood that Gempes went only as far as Almendras’ house to .point the place to the murderers. Almendras appears to have been a prominent inhabitant of his barrio. Certainly no guide was needed to locate his home in such a small community. With respect to the other defendants, it takes more than a strange tale of accused to overcome the positive testimony of eyewitnesses. It would have been strange if after walking 28 kilometers both ways to kidnap Almendras these defendants had abstained from going at least to the place of execution which was within a stone’s throw from the camp.
Unlike Jimenez, Gempes had a personal motive to slay Almendras. We believe the testimony of Almendras’ widow that the relation between the two men was bitter. There is nothing in that testimony which has any legitimate tendency to impeach her truthfulness and sincerity. Gempes’ denial has not shaken the conviction that he and the deceased were political enemies. His statement that he and the deceased had supported the same candidate for mayor could have been easily corroborated, and his failure to present such corroboration may properly be considered as affecting his credibility. On the other hand, we do not believe Romana Añil would dare make a false assertion on a matter of public knowledge, such as defendant’s political affiliation and activities, which she knew could easily be disproved.
Marcelino Bostillo invokes the benefits of Amnesty Proclamation No. 8. In this connection witnesses for the defendants, but not any of these, gave testimony to the effect that the deceased had a pro-Japanese leaning.
Feliciano Garing testified that he was mayor of Naujan in 1943; that during that year Almendras was a leader of the neighborhood association and was briefed by him on his duties as such; that “some reports came to me that Sabino Almendras violated the instruction of the guerrilleros;” that the guerrilleros asked him how he “could amend the idea of Almendras, because he was advising the people not to give foodstuff to bogus guerrillas, even an egg.”
Dominador Buhat, 23 years of age, testified that Julian de Alva requested him to transport two cavanes of palay on a sledge to the guerrilla camp; that he was not able to obey this order because Almendras later stopped him saying that he was going to give the cereal to the Japanese; that Japanese came and carried the palay while he and Almendras were still conversing.
Esteban Beloncio testified that he was a guerrilla captain in 1943 with camp at Mapalo, Naujan, of which the highest officer in charge was Roel Beloncio; that “since 1942 he (Almendras) had a leaning towards the Japanese which had been subsequently supported by the reports of some of my soldiers”. He said that in 1942, when he was in hiding on his land in Pinagsabañgan he “was repeatedly warned by his men to move his camp somewhere for the simple reason that there were persons there who had been once in a while reporting his presence in that place to the Japanese,” Almendras being one of them; that when the enemy garrison was transferred to the crossing at Naujan, they had. an encounter with the Japanese in Halauan; and that before; the encounter he was already aware that Almendras had been frequenting and staying in the garrison and Japanese had been visiting him in his house.
This charge of collaboration is far from satisfactory, let alone convincing. Almendras’ widow denied that her husband was ever a neighborhood association leader, and she ought to have known if he had been appointed or acted as such. As to Buhat he is biased. It happened that this witness was married to Gempes’ daughter, the girl Jose Nuñez is alleged to have abused. Without any corroboration from a neutral source Buhat’s testimony is not worthy of credence. In fact the testimony on its face is unbelievable. It is highly unbelievable that, living with his family in a barrio far from a Japanese garrison and without Japanese or police protection, a barrio to which the guerrillas had full access, Almendras could have told guerrillas in their face that they could not have his rice because it was intended for the enemy. No man in his right senses would have committed and said a thing so suicidal. As to Beloncio’s testimony, the same is vague, general, or hearsay. It does not ring true. We are persuaded that, not only is Almendras’ alleged collaboration with the Japanese a fabrication out of whole cloth but that he, too, was identified with the guerrilla activities.
None of the defendants or their witnesses testified that Almendras was liquidated on account of his alleged pro-Japanese attachment and sympathy. Admitting for the purpose of this decision that Almendras was a collaborationist, it does not necessarily follow that this was the motive for his execution. Motives are a state of the mind. The accused better than any other know the emotion that prompted their action. Since this is a matter that lies peculiarly with their knowledge and since moreover this is an affirmative defense, the burden is oil them to prove, or at least to state, which they could easily do personally or through witnesses, that they killed the deceased in furtherance of the resistance movement. That the killing was perpetrated with this aim in view can not be left to inference from the mere fact that the deceased was disloyal or was suspected of disloyalty to his country. This is specially true where there is convincing and positive proof that a long standing animosity existed between the principal accused and Almendras and that the deceased was not, as a matter of fact, a pro-Japanese. It is not enough to cast a hint or create a room for speculation that cooperation with the Japanese might have been behind the crime, when the defendants by their plea indirectly but clearly state the contrary. Neither does it suffice to show merely that the victim was a traitor unless treason was in and of itself sufficient justification or excuse for killing traitors.
Gempes’ testimony that as a mess sergeant he had nothing to do with the military phase of the guerrilla movement, and was not even allowed to carry arm outside the camp, explodes the insinuation that Almendras’ slayer was prompted by his fraternizing with and giving aid to the Japanese, Execution of a prominent citizen for treason is not decreed or carried out by a mere sergeant, much less a mess sergeant whose assignments were confined to looking for and preparing food for the men. Counsel for Gempes and Rocero must have realized the untenableness and futility of this theory when, in a well written brief, they reduced their plea for reversal to the proposition that their clients did not participate in the concluding part of the crime.
The judgment will be affirmed with costs, except that the indemnity will be increased to P6,000. It is so ordered.
Moran, C.J., Pablo, Bengzon, Briones, and Montemayor, JJ., concur.