GR 32785; (May, 1973) (Digest)
G.R. No. L-32785 May 21, 1973
THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, plaintiff-appellee, vs. ALFREDO HERILA, defendant-appellant.
FACTS
The accused, Alfredo Herila, was charged with murder for the killing of Barrio Captain Matias Lalaguna on August 17, 1966, in Masbate. The information alleged that Herila, conspiring with Simon Alteza, attacked and stabbed the victim with bolos. Alteza pleaded guilty and was sentenced. Herila pleaded not guilty, and trial proceeded. The prosecution presented the victim’s widow, Benita Lalaguna, and their daughter, Nilda, who both positively identified Herila as one of the assailants. They testified that Herila and Alteza lay in wait beside a footpath. After Alteza initially hacked the victim on the head, the victim fell while fleeing. Herila then approached the fallen victim and slashed his right elbow with a bolo, inflicting a severe wound that severed major arteries. The victim died three hours later from hemorrhagic shock. The defense presented an alibi, claiming Herila was four kilometers away visiting his father-in-law at the time of the incident.
ISSUE
The core issue is whether the trial court erred in convicting Alfredo Herila of murder based on the eyewitness testimonies and in rejecting his defense of alibi.
RULING
The Supreme Court affirmed the conviction but modified the penalty. The Court upheld the trial court’s reliance on the clear, positive, and credible testimonies of Benita and Nilda Lalaguna, who had no ill motive to falsely accuse the appellant. Their identification was deemed reliable despite the defense’s challenge to Benita’s vantage point, as the record showed she witnessed the attack from her house window after being alerted by commotion. The defense of alibi was correctly rejected, as it cannot prevail over positive identification. Furthermore, the Court noted it was not physically impossible for Herila to be at the crime scene, given the mere four-kilometer distance from his claimed location.
However, the Supreme Court disagreed with the trial court’s appreciation of the mitigating circumstance of “no intention to commit so grave a wrong.” The nature of the attack—where Herila slashed the already fallen and helpless victim with a bolo—and the presence of treachery, demonstrated a clear intent to kill. With treachery as the qualifying circumstance and no other modifying circumstances, the proper penalty for murder is reclusion temporal maximum to death. Applying the rules of the Indeterminate Sentence Law in the absence of aggravating or mitigating circumstances, the penalty is imposed in its medium period, which is reclusion perpetua. The decision was modified to increase the penalty to reclusion perpetua and the civil indemnity to P12,000.00.