G.R. No. L-50523, September 29, 1983
People of the Philippines, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Mario Aquino y Makilan and Ernesto Gallego y Remada, Accused-Appellants.

FACTS

Accused-appellants Mario Aquino and Ernesto Gallego, along with the victim Bienvenido Laud, were employees of Hacienda Helvetia in Bacolod City. On the evening of June 4, 1977, after a payday drinking session at a canteen, the accused and the victim separately left the establishment. While walking home, the accused saw Laud ahead of them. According to their subsequent confessions, Gallego suddenly picked up a stone and struck Laud on the head twice. When Laud pulled a knife in response, Aquino wrested it away and used it to stab the victim multiple times. After Laud fell dead, the accused dumped his body in a ditch. Aquino then took the victim’s wristwatch and sold it the following day.
The prosecution’s case was built primarily on the extrajudicial confessions of both accused, marked as Exhibits C and D, which detailed the assault and robbery. This was corroborated by their re-enactment of the crime and the testimony of Alfredo de la Cruz, who purchased the stolen watch. The victim’s body was discovered bearing eighteen wounds, including fatal stab wounds. The trial court convicted them of Robbery with Homicide, appreciating the aggravating circumstance of nighttime or uninhabited place, and imposed the death penalty.

ISSUE

The core issue for automatic review is whether the accused-appellants are guilty of the complex crime of Robbery with Homicide based on the evidence presented, particularly their extrajudicial confessions.

RULING

The Supreme Court affirmed the conviction but modified the penalty. The legal logic rests on the validity and sufficiency of the confessions to establish the complex crime. The Court found that the confessions were given voluntarily, knowingly, and intelligently, with the accused having waived their constitutional rights to remain silent and to counsel. Their subsequent re-enactment of the crime further corroborated the truthfulness of these statements. The taking of the wristwatch, sold immediately after the killing, was integral to the criminal design, satisfying the element of intent to gain. The homicide was committed on the occasion of the robbery, as the violence was employed to facilitate the taking of the watch, thereby constituting the single, indivisible complex crime of Robbery with Homicide under Article 294(1) of the Revised Penal Code.
However, the Court disagreed with the trial court’s appreciation of the aggravating circumstances of nocturnity and uninhabited place. Nocturnity was not deliberately sought to facilitate the crime, and the place was merely lonely but not uninhabited. With no aggravating or mitigating circumstances, the proper penalty is reclusion perpetua. The Court thus modified the sentence from death to reclusion perpetua, in accordance with the prevailing constitutional prohibition against the death penalty at the time. The civil indemnity was also increased. Justice Aquino, in a separate opinion, dissented, arguing that the facts justified the affirmance of the death penalty.