G.R. No. L-38674 September 30, 1981
THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, plaintiff-appellee, vs. ALFREDO REGULAR and ARTURO DE LARA, defendants-appellants.

FACTS

Accused-appellants Alfredo Regular and Arturo de Lara, inmates at the New Bilibid Prison, were charged with murder and frustrated murder for the stabbing of fellow prisoners Felipe Ladoy and Emilio Esparza. The information alleged conspiracy, treachery, and evident premeditation. During their arraignment, with the assistance of counsel de oficio, both accused, after the information was read to them in Tagalog, voluntarily pleaded guilty. The trial court, after a brief colloquy where it warned them of the possible imposition of the death penalty, immediately rendered a judgment convicting them of murder and frustrated murder and initially imposing the death penalty for murder, later commuting it to reclusion perpetua due to the mitigating circumstance of a plea of guilty. However, following the doctrine in People vs. Flores, the court directed the prosecution to present evidence to determine the degree of culpability.
The prosecution evidence established that on November 16, 1970, while the victims were gathering camote tops, appellants, along with other members of the Sigue-sigue Sputnik gang, attacked them. Ladoy died from multiple stab wounds, while Esparza survived after parrying some blows and receiving treatment. The motive appeared to be gang rivalry. The trial court, after receiving this evidence, affirmed its judgment.

ISSUE

Whether the trial court correctly convicted the appellants of murder and frustrated murder based on their plea of guilty and the evidence presented.

RULING

No. The Supreme Court modified the conviction from murder and frustrated murder to homicide and frustrated homicide. The Court meticulously examined the evidence and found that the prosecution failed to prove the qualifying circumstances of treachery and evident premeditation alleged in the information. The attack was frontal and sudden, but the victims were engaged in a gang rivalry within the prison context; there was no evidence that the assailants employed means to ensure the execution without risk to themselves. The essence of treachery—the deliberate adoption of means to make the attack without danger to the assailant—was not established. Evident premeditation was also not proven, as no evidence showed when the plan was conceived or that the appellants clung to their determination to kill.
Consequently, the crimes committed were the lesser offenses of homicide and frustrated homicide. Furthermore, the Court applied Article 160 of the Revised Penal Code, which prescribes an additional penalty for a new felony committed by a person already serving a sentence. The penalty for homicide is reclusion temporal. Applying Article 160, the penalty must be imposed in its maximum period. The plea of guilty, an ordinary mitigating circumstance, could not offset this mandatory imposition of the maximum penalty under Article 160. Thus, each appellant was sentenced to an indeterminate penalty for homicide and a separate indeterminate penalty for frustrated homicide. All awards for damages were affirmed.