GR 77686; (May, 1989) (Digest)
G.R. No. 77686 May 4, 1989
PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, plaintiff-appellee, vs. SEDAN ALEGARBES, RICHARD AGBU, RAMIL CESAR, ALVIN UCAB and DODONG VEVARES, accused. SEDAN ALEGARBES, accused-appellant.
FACTS
On June 30, 1984, Nino Velez joined a drinking session on the lawn of accused Sedan Alegarbes’s house. Later that night, Velez returned home bleeding from multiple stab wounds. Before being taken to the hospital, he identified his assailants to his brother and father, naming “Sedan, Richard and others.” He died approximately two hours later. An autopsy revealed six stab wounds. Of the five accused charged with murder, only Alegarbes and Alvin Ucab were apprehended and tried. The trial court acquitted Ucab on reasonable doubt but convicted Alegarbes as a principal for murder, qualified by treachery, based primarily on the victim’s dying declaration. Alegarbes appealed, contesting the admissibility and reliability of this declaration.
ISSUE
The primary issue is whether the trial court erred in convicting appellant Sedan Alegarbes based on the victim’s dying declaration and the evidence presented.
RULING
The Supreme Court affirmed the conviction. The Court upheld the admissibility of the victim’s statements as a valid dying declaration under Rule 130, Section 31 of the Rules of Court. All requisites were met: the statements concerned the cause and circumstances of his death; he was competent to testify; and he made them under a consciousness of imminent death, which was substantiated by the gravity of his wounds and the fact he succumbed shortly after. The medical testimony confirmed that despite his injuries, the victim remained conscious and able to communicate for a period, which was consistent with his ability to walk home and speak. The Court found the declaration credible, noting the spontaneous and corroborative reaction of the victim’s father, who immediately sought the police and went to Alegarbes’s house upon hearing the identification. This sequence of events lent natural credibility to the declaration, as there was no evidence of fabrication.
The Court rejected Alegarbes’s defense of alibi as inherently weak and unsubstantiated. His claim of being indoors with his laboring wife was undermined by evidence that the child was born fourteen days later, and his proximity to the crime scene did not preclude his participation. The Court also found the qualifying circumstance of treachery to be sufficiently established, as the sudden and violent attack with bladed weapons ensured the victim had no opportunity to defend himself. The award of actual and moral damages to the heirs was sustained based on the evidence of hospital and funeral expenses, as well as the emotional suffering inflicted. Consequently, the penalty of reclusion perpetua and the damages awarded were affirmed in toto.