GR 110397; (August, 1997) (Digest)
G.R. No. 110397 August 14, 1997
PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, plaintiff-appellee, vs. ARMANDO BINAMIRA y ALAYON, accused-appellant.
FACTS
Accused-appellant Armando Binamira was convicted of robbery with homicide by the Regional Trial Court. The prosecution’s case rested on circumstantial evidence and an extrajudicial confession. On October 2, 1985, the victim, Jessie Flores, was found dead in Magallanes Village. Security guards, alerted to the incident, saw Binamira walking fast nearby. Upon approach, he was found with blood-soaked clothing in his bag. He was arrested and turned over to police investigator Wilfredo Cruz.
The following day, during custodial investigation, Binamira was informed of his rights and provided with Atty. Romeo Parcon from the Citizen’s Legal Assistance Office (CLAO). With Parcon present, Binamira executed a confession admitting to the robbery and killing. The trial court found this confession, coupled with the circumstantial evidence of his discovery near the crime scene with bloodied clothes, sufficient to convict.
ISSUE
The core issues were: (1) the admissibility of the extrajudicial confession obtained during custodial investigation, and (2) the sufficiency of the circumstantial evidence to sustain a conviction for robbery with homicide.
RULING
The Supreme Court ACQUITTED accused-appellant Armando Binamira. The extrajudicial confession was rendered inadmissible. While the confession was extracted on October 3, 1985, before the 1987 Constitution ’s effectivity, the Court applied the constitutional right to counsel retroactively, as the case was pending review when the new Charter took effect. The right to counsel means the right to one’s own counsel. The offer of a CLAO lawyer, without ascertaining if appellant desired his own counsel or was willing to accept the provided attorney, constituted a violation of his right to counsel of choice. Consequently, the confession was excluded as evidence.
With the confession invalidated, only the circumstantial evidence remained. To sustain a conviction based thereon, the evidence must form an unbroken chain leading to one reasonable conclusion: guilt beyond reasonable doubt. Here, the circumstances—appellant’s presence near the crime scene and possession of bloodied clothes—were insufficient. They did not exclude every reasonable hypothesis of innocence. The blood on the clothes was not conclusively proven to be the victim’s, and mere presence and possession, without more, do not equate to criminal participation. The evidence failed to meet the required moral certainty, thus upholding the constitutional presumption of innocence.