When a person with disability is criminally charged, some other requirements must be strictly observed by the trial court to ensure that he is afforded the right to a fair trial and to due process of law. This is shown in this case of Baldo.
Baldo was deaf-mute and mentally retarded. Since childhood, he had been branded as “Pipi” because of his inability to communicate. His day to day communications relied simply on a pat at the back, a tap on the lap or sometimes on the very basic sign language that could best convey the message to him. He has been a beneficiary of DSWD projects relative to persons with disability since he was four years old until he stopped to earn a living during the harvest season due to extreme poverty.
As Baldo grew older, hard times drove him to engage in petty thievery. Later on in his early twenties, he was always accused of breaking and entering other people’s home for purposes of thievery. One time, he took notice of, and got attracted to a 21-year-old, 4th year college lass named Tina. But since he was deaf-mute and could not communicate, he never got to introduce himself to Tina. In fact Tina did not even notice Baldo or ever knew that Baldo was eyeing her amorously.
Then one early morning at around 3 a.m. while Tina was sleeping in her room in a boarding house, she was suddenly awakened because someone was ransacking her things near her feet. The man pointed a knife at her and motioned her to keep quiet. Tina begged for mercy and to spare her life but the man suddenly boxed her twice in her stomach, poked the knife at her neck and forcibly undressed and started raping her. While being raped, the man dropped the knife on the table, so Tina managed to grope for the knife and stabbed him. But he was able to get up, took the knife from her and again stabbed her on the right side. While they were struggling near the door the man stabbed her again in the breast and then left thinking that she was already dead as she slumped on the floor.
But Tina was able to stand up and asked for help from her board-mate Diane, a nurse. When Diane noticed blood spurting from Tina’s wounds she rushed Tina to the hospital where she was given emergency treatment. While being treated, a policeman, P01 Cardo came and investigated her. Tina related to Cardo everything done to her and the stab wounds she inflicted on the man. So after alarming all hospitals in the area about a male person with stab wounds seeking treatment from them, Cardo was able to trace the wounded man, took his picture and brought it to Tina who had just undergone an operation. Tina pointed to the man as her assailant who was later on identified as Baldo.
Two criminal cases of rape and frustrated homicide were thus filed against Baldo. At the trial, Tina, P01 Cardo and the hospital physician testified for the prosecution and reiterated the above incidents. On the other hand, Baldo, denied the accusation, and with the assistance of a person who had known him for more than 12 years, told the court that on the day and time of the alleged incident he was at their house in the nearby hometown with her parents and brothers. But none of them testified to confirm his alibi. He said his stab wounds were inflicted by a woman in their own place whom he did not know.
But after trial, the lower court found Baldo guilty beyond reasonable doubt of both charges. He was sentenced to death for the crime of rape because of the aggravating circumstance of dwelling, and 8 years and one day to ten years, for the crime of frustrated homicide.
On automatic review by the Supreme Court, the RTC decision was affirmed. The SC said that bare denials and alibi unsubstantiated by clear and convincing evidence deserve no weight in law.
But as Baldo was about to be sent to Bilibid death row, his lawyer filed a motion for reconsideration of the decision bringing to the attention of the SC, facts and circumstances, such as the absence of a sign language expert, which if true, would warrant the setting aside of the decision. Acting on said motion, the SC ordered Baldo to undergo the necessary mental and neurologic examination. The results show that aside from manifest deafness and muteness, Baldo, who was already 28 years old at that time, had a mental age of a 7 year old which renders him “psychologically incompetent to comprehend fully the significance of the acts he commits”
So the SC set aside and vacated its decision sentencing him to death and imprisonment. The SC said that the absence of an expert interpreter in sign language, who could have conveyed to him the full facts of the offense and his own version of the circumstances which led to his implication in the crime, deprived Baldo of a full and fair trial and a reasonable opportunity to defend himself. The SC thus ordered a re-arraignment and re-trial of Baldo’s case (People vs. Parazo, G.R. 121176, May 14, 1997 and July 8, 1999)
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