Republic of the Philippines
SUPREME COURT
Manila

This is a petition for review on certiorari of the decision of the Court of Appeals ¹ affirming the decision of the Regional Trial Court, BRANCH XXV at Naga City ² finding herein petitioner guilty beyond reasonable doubt of homicide and imposing on him the indeterminate sentence of eight (8) years and one (1) day prison mayor as minimum to fourteen (14) years, eight (8) months and one (1) day of reclusion temporal as maximum. The appellate court modified the lower court's decision by increasing the indemnity payable to the victim's heirs to P30,000.

The prosecution version of the crime on which the courts below based their decisions are as follows: At around 10:00 o'clock in the morning of August 23, 1981, C2C Emmanuel Romero of the 244th Company of the Philippines Constabulary (PC) and Nicanor Lanuza, a member of the Constabulary Home Defense Force (CHDF), were riding on a passenger jeep from the PC headquarters at Concepcion Grande, Naga City to the patrol base at Antipolo, Minalabac Camarines Sur. Romero and Lanuza, who were both carrying armalite rifles were then seated opposite each other at the rear of the jeep nearest its running board with Romero seated on the left side. ³

The jeep, which contained around ten passengers stopped near the house of the barangay captain at Grejalvo (Grijalvo), San Fernando, Camarines Sur, to unload some passengers. From where he was seated, Lanuza saw petitioner Bernardo M. Cordial with nine other persons. ⁴ Then, Cordial, armed with an "improvised knife" ⁵ entered the jeep and stabbed Romero on the left side of the body. Lanuza fired his armalite rifle but the persons with Cordial got his and Romero's armalite rifles and stabbed him seventeen times. Lanuza failed to see what happened later to Romero as he became unconscious. ⁶

Romero died on the spot. The autopsy conducted immediately thereafter by the municipal health officer of San Fernando, Camarines Sur, revealed that Romero, who was then 22 years old, sustained a bullet wound described as "swinging" which penetrated his left arm, another 0.8 centimeter contused wound after a bullet entered his left nipple and exited at the scapular region, still another lacerated wound 2 inches in diameter caused by another bullet on the left side of the back at the mid-scapular region, and a stabbed wound on the right hypochondriac region. Romero also had abrasions on both legs. His death was attributed to "irreversible shock secondary to severe external and internal hemorrhage due to multiple gunshot wounds. ⁷

Eight months later or on April 26, 1982, Cordial was arrested by the police near the Tabuco bridge in Naga City while he was waiting for a ride to Beberon, San Fernando ⁸ From the city jail, he was brought to the PC headquarters allegedly by
Lanuza. ⁹ The following day, he was investigated by patrolman Eduardo Ginoo of the Investigation Section, 244th Constabulary Company/Police District III at Naga City. The investigation was conducted in the Bicol dialect but Cordial refused to sign his typewritten statement. ¹⁰ In his uncorroborated testimony Cordial stated that the answers to the questions propounded in the investigation "did not come from (him) but from Lanuza." ¹¹

The police filed a complaint for murder against Cordial and three John Does in the municipal circuit court of San Fernando-Pamplona, Camarines Sur. After the preliminary investigation, the second stage of which was waived by the accused, the provincial fiscal filed an information for murder against Cordial in the Court of First Instance of Camarines Sur.

On arraignment, Cordial pleaded not guilty to the offense charged. He interposed alibi as his defense. In his testimony, Cordial stated that he could not remember where he was on August 23, 1981 "because it was already a long time ago; ¹² that from June to November, 1981 he was employed as a truck laborer by Pepito Morano who owned a tobacco factory at the Naga City Subdivision and the Hotel Moraville at Dinaga Naga City; that his duty was to load gravel, sand and boulders in Ligao or Pawili for delivery to the construction site of Morano that he worked from five to seven days a week because there were times when the truck would be out of order and he would help in its repair, and that he worked from seven in the morning to seven in the evening even on Sundays when they disposed of tobacco waste from the Naga City Subdivision to Balatas Naga City. ¹³

Cordial swore that Lanuza testified in court that he was one of those who killed Romero and assaulted Lanuza because the latter told lies and "disreputed" persons like himself. ¹⁴ He came to know Lanuza because he used to go to San Fernando to help his parents prepare their land for planting. He could not remember if he went to San Fernando from June to November because "it was already so long a time" and his work and Romero were dead, they got their guns and armalite magazines and escaped towards Beberon where they went their separate ways to hide with Morano was continuous. ¹⁵

The defense presented two other witnesses. Femando Bicaldo, Jr. testified that he was a co-laborer of Cordial in the gravel and sand business of Morano for five months from June, 1981; that he and Cordial would work from seven in the morning to seven in the evening delivering gravel and sand from Pawili or Ligao to Moraville, and that they would work from five to six days a week.

Catalino Noora, the barangay captain of Beberon, testified that he had known Cordial since 1978; that Cordial was a resident of Naga City and he would go to Beberon only during the planting season to help his parents; that he knew Lanuza to be a CHDF member who would come to Beberon if he had someone to arrest; that Lanuza picked up Dominador Penaflor, one Bandola and Mamerto Peflaflor; that Lanuza brought these three persons to the PC Detachment at the boundary of Lupi, San Fernando and Antipolo and to the PC detachment in Tanmo and later they were brought back to Lupi; that when the three were back in Lupi, he heard gunshots and "there were spray of bullets" which he believed to have come from an armalite or machinegun because they were successive; and that after he heard the gunshots, the three were loaded in a jeep and brought to the municipal hall already dead.

Finding that the qualifying circumstances of treachery and evident premeditation were not proved, the lower court ruled that the crime committed was homicide and not murder as charged. Mitigating or aggravating circumstances being absent, the court imposed the aforementioned penalty. The sum of P12,000 it had imposed on the accused "for the fact of death" and the amount of P10,000 as reimbursement for the interment expenses were later increased by the appellate court to the total amount of P30,000.

His motion for reconsideration having been denied, Cordial appealed to the Intermediate Appellate Court. On April 2, 1986, the later court affirmed the lower court's decision.

The instant petition for review on certiorari is centered on petitioner's challenge to the credibility of the prosecution's sole eyewitnesses, Nicanor Lanuza, and his testimony.

In assailing the credibility of Lanuza as a witness, Cordial relies on the testimony of Catalino Noora specifically the following:

Through this testimony, petitioner attempts to convince the Court that Lanuza is not a credible witness because of moral turpitude. ¹⁷ Ranged against this contention are the trial court's finding that no proofs were adduced regarding Lanuza's participation in the operations which resulted in the "salvaging" of three youths, and its conclusion that these alleged "facts" were merely stated by defense witness Noora whose knowledge of said killings was based on rumors without any solid first hand evidence to back them up. ¹⁸

We are not persuaded that the defense's testimonial evidence on Lanuza's alleged moral depravity is sufficient to discredit him as a witness. Moral turpitude or depravity as a reason for exclusion of a witness is legally frowned upon mainly for the reason that any attempt to establish such an incapacity is met by two objections. One is that in rational experience, no class of persons can safely be asserted to be so thoroughly lacking in a sense of moral responsibility or so callous to the ordinary motives or veracity as not to tell the truth (as they see it) in a large or larger proportion of instances. The second objection is that, even if such a defect existed and were ascertainable, its operation is so uncertain and elusive that any general rule of exclusion would be as likely in a given instance to exclude the truth as to exclude falsities. ¹⁹

Moreover, impeachment of a witness must be confined to an r attack on his general character or reputation and on his character or reputation for truth and veracity. Such impeachment cannot be directed to any particular trait or character, or r particular facts of particular wrongful or immoral acts. ²⁰ Hence, the defense may not validly attack Lanuza's credibility through Noora's uncorroborated account of Lanuza's alleged participation in a rub-out, more so because Noora himself did not see it happen. In the same vein is Cordial's unsolicited information which has no factual basis that Lanuza usually speaks ill of other persons.

We need not belabor the point that findings of the trial court on the credibility of witnesses is entitled to great weight. ²¹ Suffice it to state that under Section 18, Rule 130 of the Rules of Court, even convicted criminals are not excluded from testifying in court so long as, having organs of sense, they "can perceive, and perceiving, can make known their perceptions to others."

Petitioner considers Lanuza's testimony as "not only contrary to common experience and observation of man" but also "inherently improbable. ²² He zeroes in on Lanuza's testimony that there was a lapse of "more or less five minutes" from the time he saw Cordial's group and the actual attack on Romero ²³ and that Lanuza had known Cordial for the past twenty years. ²⁴

Petitioner contends that the 5-minute lapse of time provided Lanuza with enough time "to prepare himself 'and "to forwarn the Victim ²⁵ and hence, the lower court erred in finding that the attack was sudden. Petitioner also avers that Lanuza could not have known Cordial for twenty years because the latter was only 23 years old at the time of the testimony.

We consider Lanuza's apparently erroneous reckoning or mis-estimation of time as too trivial and immaterial to discredit his testimony. ²⁶ On cross-examination, Lanuza testified that although upon seeing Cordial with a knife, he knew that he and Romero would be attacked, the assault was so sudden that he had no time to prepare himself or to forwarn Romero. Repeated questioning by both the defense counsel and the court failed to unflinch Lanuza to depart from his testimony on the suddenness of the attack which left him and Romero helpless. ²⁷

Lanuza's claim that he had known Cordial for twenty years is too insignificant to affect his testimony. What is material is the proven fact that being residents of the same province who frequently took the same passenger jeep in San Fernando, Lanuza could have familiarized himself with Cordial's physical features to recognize him as one of the assailants. In fact, Cordial himself admitted that he came to know Lanuza because his parents had a piece of land in San Fernando and he usually went there during the planting and harvesting seasons. ²⁸

Petitioner also labels as inherently improbable the appellate court's finding that he sat first inside the jeep, stood up and stabbed Romero. On this matter, the appellate court said:

Lanuza's ostensible confusion is explained by his earlier testimony that there was a "rumble" during the assault. ³² However, such confusion and seeming inconsistency in his testimony cannot be considered earmarks of prevarication. On the contrary, they indicate that the witness was unrehearsed. ³³

A witness is credible despite minor variances in his testimony where the testimony is consistent and natural on substantial matters and is corroborated by physical evidence. ³⁴ Shorn of the portions objectionable to petitioner, Lanuza's testimony is sufficient to pinpoint culpability on Cordial. That he was the sole eyewitness of the prosecution is of no moment. There is no law which required that the testimony of a single witness in a murder or homicide case has to be corroborated. The testimony of only one witness, if credible and positive, is sufficient to convict. ³⁵

The defense of alibi interposed by Cordial is unavailing in view of his positive Identification by Lanuza who had no proven motive to falsely accuse Cordial of a grave offense. ³⁶ Furthermore, the defense failed to prove that it was physically impossible for Cordial to be at the scene of the crime. ³⁷ August 23, 1981 was a Sunday and by Cordial's admission, Sunday was a rest day for him except when there was tobacco waste to be disposed of ³⁸ Also, as Cordial himself testified, Grijalvo is adjacent to Beberon where his parents resided. ³⁹ It was, therefore, not indubitably proven that he could not have been in Grijalvo on August 23, 1981 when a group of men ambushed Romero and Lanuza.

In the absence of qualifying circumstances, the courts below correctly ruled that the killing was a homicide punishable under Article 249 of the Revised Penal Code and not murder as charged. There being no aggravating and mitigating circumstances, the appellate court correctly imposed the aforementioned indeterminate penalty and the indemnity of P30,000.

WHEREFORE, the decision of the Intermediate Appellate Court (now Court of Appeals) is hereby affirmed. Costs against the petitioner.

SO ORDERED.

Footnotes