GR 48796; (June, 1981) (Digest)
G.R. No. L-48796 June 11, 1981
THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, plaintiff-appellee, vs. DIEGO OPERO Y COSIPAG et al., accused; DIEGO OPERO Y COSIPAG, defendant-appellant.
FACTS
Diego Opero, together with Reynaldo Lacsinto and Milagros Villegas, was charged with Robbery with Homicide. The victim, Liew Soon Ping, was found dead in her room at the House International Hotel, with her hands and feet tied and the room ransacked. Personal belongings valued at over P30,000 were stolen. Police investigation, including confessions and recovery of stolen items, implicated the accused. Opero admitted in a supplemental statement to planning the robbery and, with Lacsinto, subduing the victim by assaulting her, tying her up, and stabbing her.
The trial court convicted Opero and imposed the death penalty, which is subject to automatic review. Opero appealed, raising only the issue of the propriety of the death penalty. He argued that the trial court erred in not applying Article 4(1) and Article 49(1) of the Revised Penal Code to reduce his criminal liability and the penalty.
ISSUE
Whether the trial court erred in imposing the death penalty by not appreciating certain provisions of the Revised Penal Code that could mitigate the penalty.
RULING
The Supreme Court affirmed the conviction but modified the appreciation of circumstances, ultimately sustaining the death penalty. The Court clarified that Article 49 of the Revised Penal Code, which provides rules when the felony committed is different from that intended, applies only when the crime befalls a different person from the intended victim. This was not the case here, as the intended victim of the robbery was the very person killed. Therefore, Article 49 was inapplicable.
However, the Court found that the mitigating circumstance of “not having intended to commit so grave a wrong as that committed” under Article 13(3) of the Revised Penal Code was present. This circumstance, distinct from Article 49, was properly appreciable in favor of Opero, as the evidence showed the original plan was robbery, and the killing, though a consequence, may not have been initially intended to be of such gravity. This single mitigating circumstance offset one of the two aggravating circumstances present (superior strength and dwelling). With one aggravating circumstance remaining, the applicable penalty for the complex crime of Robbery with Homicide, which is reclusion perpetua to death, should be imposed in its maximum period—death. Thus, the penalty was affirmed.