Lone eyewitness

This case once more shows that any person who can perceive, and perceiving, can make known his perception, is competent enough to be a witness even if he or she is still a child of tender age.

This is the case of Pilo and Marcia, husband and wife, with five children and living in a small house at a far away sitio of a remote town. Even if life is quite hard for the couple they loved each other although they also quarreled now and then especially when Marcia was again seven months pregnant with their sixth child.

The incident that led to the case happened during the first week of December when Marcia arrived home from another town where she had earlier stayed for about a week. Upon her arrival she felt quite tired. So she rested while Pilo was still working in the field. When Pilo returned home, the couple quarreled again over so many problems in life.

Their quarrel was witnessed by their oldest son Caloy, then 11 years old and his younger brother Andy. The three other children were already asleep at that time. Caloy saw his father boxed his pregnant mother on the stomach and, once fallen on the floor, his father strangled her to death as blood oozed from her eyes and nose. Then Pilo went out of the house to get a hammock. While Pilo was away, Caloy’s other brothers and sister woke up and kept watch at their mother’s body until Pilo arrived early the next morning with the hammock where Pilo placed the lifeless Marcia and carried her on his shoulder to the house of his sister Chita located at the populated section of the town. Then Pilo sent Chita and Caloy to inform Marcia’s brothers and sisters about her death. So Marcia’s brother Badong and sister, Leona came. They suggested that Marcia’s body be brought home to their hometown where she was buried at the town cemetery.

After the burial Caloy and two other brothers were taken by Badong where Caloy finally divulged to Badong that his father Pilo killed his mother by punching her in the stomach and strangling her as she fell down on the floor. Based on this information Badong went to the police and requested that Marcia’s body be exhumed and autopsied. The results of the autopsy confirmed Caloy’s story. So Pilo was charged with the crimes of parricide and intentional abortion before the Regional Trial Court.

At the trial, Caloy was presented as the lone eyewitness for the prosecution. Before he was allowed to testify, the trial court and the lawyers for the prosecution and defense determined his competency. The court concluded that Caloy was intelligent, competent and has a strong sense of moral duty to tell the truth even though his testimony may lead to his father’s conviction. His responsiveness to the questions propounded to him when he was already under oath confirmed his revelations about the incident. The other prosecution witnesses were the doctor who conducted the autopsy and Badong who corroborated what Caloy earlier told him.

For his defense Pilo denied that there was a quarrel between him and his wife before her death and that they loved each other. He said that he even prepared the beddings that night because Marcia was already tired and had stomach pain; that at about 4 o’clock in the morning, he was awakened by Marcia who was still complaining of stomach pain, and that she asked for a drink of hot water; that his friend Dante arrived and assisted him in administering to his wife the native treatments known as “hilot” but her condition worsened until she died. Thereafter he reported to the Barangay Captain, the cause of her death before her burial in the town of his brother-in-law Badong. His testimony was corroborated by his friends and another neighbor, Lolita.

But the lower court found Pilo guilty, beyond reasonable doubt, of the complex crime of parricide with intentional abortion, and sentenced him to suffer the penalty of DEATH and to indemnify the heirs of Marcia. So the case was elevated to the Supreme Court for automatic review where Pilo questioned the competency of Caloy to testify; the inconsistencies and improbabilities in his testimony which was not even corroborated; and the lack of qualification of the doctor who conducted the autopsy.

But the Supreme Court still found him guilty. The SC said Caloy was already competent to testify under oath as determined by the lower court itself. Caloy’s reaction to the killing was not also improbable. At that moment when his mother was being assaulted and strangled, he must have been so shocked as to be rendered immobile and powerless to do anything. This is a normal reaction under such situation.

The SC also ruled that the failure to present the other eyewitness to the act does not necessarily give rise to an unfavorable presumption. Witnesses are to be weighed, not numbered and the positive and credible testimony of a single witness is sufficient to support a conviction. Even if there were discrepancies and inconsistencies in his testimony, such discrepancies were minor and may be considered as earmarks of verisimilitude.

The doctor who testified as an expert witness is likewise presumed to be competent as he is a reputable public official in whose favor the presumption of regularity in the performance of official duties must be applied.

But Pilo should not be held guilty of the complex crime of parricide with intentional abortion. He inflicted violence on Marcia without intending an abortion except that the foetus in her womb also died. So he should be held liable for the complex crime of Parricide with unintentional abortion and punished with reclusion perpetua since the 1987 Constitution abolished the death penalty (People vs. Salufrania, G.R. L-50884, March 30, 1988).

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