G.R. No. L-28485 October 30, 1979
THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, plaintiff-appellee, vs. DATU OMBRA KIRAM, ET AL., defendants, ESMAEL KUDANDING and MAGANDINGAN GUIAMAN, defendants-appellants.

FACTS

The appellants, Esmael Kudanding and Magandingan Guiaman, were convicted by the Court of First Instance of Cotabato for the complex crime of kidnapping with murder and sentenced to death. The prosecution evidence established that on September 9, 1966, Eduardo Ong was last seen leaving with three individuals. His disappearance was reported, and a ransom demand of P10,000 was later communicated by one Cabalona Salik, who implicated the appellants and others. On September 10, a corpse identified as Eduardo Ong was found along the Linek Awang airport road. The body was buried nearby but was exhumed and removed by unidentified persons the following night.
The appellants were apprehended on September 14, 1966. They executed separate extrajudicial confessions before the Clerk of Court, with the contents interpreted from English to Maguindanao, wherein they admitted their participation in the kidnapping and killing. They affirmed the truth of their statements, affixed their thumbmarks, and swore to the affidavits. Subsequently, they were medically examined, with no signs of violence found, and they re-enacted the crime at the scene.

ISSUE

The core issue is whether the extrajudicial confessions of the appellants are admissible and sufficient to sustain their conviction for kidnapping with murder.

RULING

The Supreme Court affirmed the conviction but modified the penalty. The Court upheld the admissibility and voluntariness of the extrajudicial confessions. The appellants’ claim of coercion was rejected. The confessions were taken not by the apprehending PC soldiers but before a Clerk of Court, a neutral officer, after a proper interpretation into their dialect. They affirmed the contents, swore to their truth, and were medically certified to bear no injuries. Their bare denial of voluntariness, without clear and convincing proof, cannot overcome the presumption of regularity in the performance of official duty and the presumed voluntariness of a confession.
The Court found the confessions detailed, corroborative of each other, and consistent with the independent evidence of corpus delicti—the established facts of the kidnapping, the discovery of the victim’s body, and the ransom demand. The discrepancies in prosecution witness testimonies were deemed minor and did not affect the core narrative of the crime. However, the trial court erred in considering nighttime as a separate aggravating circumstance, as it was absorbed by the qualifying circumstance of treachery. The remaining aggravating circumstances of use of a motor vehicle and commission in an isolated place, with no mitigating circumstances, warranted the maximum penalty under Article 48 of the Revised Penal Code for the complex crime.
Nevertheless, pursuant to the Mindanao and Sulu Code, as the appellants are non-Christians, the death penalty was commuted to reclusion perpetua. The indemnity was also increased to P12,000.00. The decision was affirmed with these modifications.