PEÑA, TABITHA ERLINDA MA. PAS A.

CASE DIGEST

PEOPLE vs. ILAOA

G.R. No. 94308. June 16, 1994.
Bellosillo, J.

FACTS:

1. On November 4, 1987, at around 11 o’clock in the evening, the deceased Nestor de

Loyola was seen drinking with his compadre Ruben Ilaoa, Julius Eliginio, Edwin Tapang
and a certain “Nang Kwang” outside Ruben’s apartment.
2. Sometime later, drunken voices of Ruben and Nestor who were engaged in an apparent
argument were heard. Nestor was thereafter seen being kicked and mauled by Ruben and
his brother Rodel as well as Julius and Edwin. All the while, Nestor was heard saying
“Pare, aray, aray!”
3. Subsequently, Nestor was seen being dragged into Ruben’s apartment while heard
saying, “Pare, bakit ninyo ako ginaganito, hirap na hirap na ako!”
4. Hours later, at around 2 o’clock in the morning of November 5, 1987, Ruben and Julius
borrowed Alex Villamil’s tricycle to allegedly bring to the hospital a neighbor who was
about to give birth; Ruben was, then, seen driving the tricycle alone with a sack which
looked as though it contained a human body.
5. After an hour, the tricycle was returned to Alex who noticed bloodstains on the floor;
Alex, however, thought that they were those of said pregnant woman.
6. When the police conducted an investigation on Nestor’s death, blood was found on
Ruben’s shirt. Furthermore, Ruben’s hair near his right forehead was found partly
burned; his shoes were also splattered with blood.
7. Soon afterwards, Ruben’s live-in partner, Susan Ocampo, was seen sweeping what
appeared to be blood at the entrance of their apartment.
8. Meanwhile, Private First Class Reynaldo Angeles was dispatched to Tinio St. in
Balibago, Angeles City, where the decapitated body of Nestor, was found in a grassy
portion—Apart from the decapitation, Nestor bore 43 stab wounds in the chest as well as
slight burns all over his body; the head was found some 2 feet away from the corpse.
9. On June 15, 1990, three years after said incident, the Regional Trial Court of Angeles
City found Rogelio and Ruben guilty of murder with the attendant circumstances of
abuse of superior strength, cruelty and evident premeditation. As a result, imposed upon
them was the penalty of life imprisonment.

ISSUES:

1. Whether or not Rogelio is guilty beyond reasonable doubt of killing Nestor

2. Whether or not Ruben is guilty beyond reasonable doubt of killing Nestor
3. Whether or not the charge for the crime committed should indeed be murder with the
attendant circumstances of: (a) abuse of superior strength, (b) cruelty and (c) evident
premeditation

RULING:
1. No. Rogelio is not guilty beyond reasonable doubt of killing Nestor.

To warrant a conviction on the basis of circumstantial evidence, three requisites

must concur: (a) there must be more than one circumstance; (b) the circumstances from
which the inferences are derived are proven; and, (c) the combination of all the
circumstances is such as to prove the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt.

In the case, there was nothing else to link Rogelio to the killing of Nestor apart
from a testimony that Rogelio helped his brother Ruben drag Nestor inside Ruben’s
apartment where Nestor was last seen alive.

Therefore, the alleged dragging of Nestor to Ruben’s apartment is totally

inadequate for a conviction, having miserably failed to meet the abovementioned criteria.

2. Yes. Ruben is guilty beyond reasonable doubt of killing Nestor.

The fact that Ruben quarreled with Nestor and then mauled and pulled him to the
apartment where Nestor was last seen alive, in addition to borrowing a tricycle which was
found with bloodstains when returned, sufficiently point to Ruben as the culprit
responsible for Nestor’s death. The fact that Nestor was Ruben’s compadre, hence,
presumably would have no motive to kill is not enough to exculpate Ruben. It is a matter
of judicial knowledge that persons have been killed or assaulted for no apparent reason at
all, and that friendship or even relationship is no deterrent to the commission of a crime.

3. No. The charge for the crime committed should only be homicide—and not murder—for
the reason that the aforementioned attendant circumstances enumerated below were not
sufficiently proved to be appreciated:

(a) abuse of superior strength

Abuse of superior strength cannot be considered because there was no evidence

whatsoever that Ruben was physically superior to Nestor and that Ruben took advantage
of such superior physical strength to overcome Nestor’s resistance to consummate the
offense.

(b) cruelty

The fact that Nestor’s decapitated body, bearing 43 stab wounds (24 of which
were fatal), was found dumped in the street is not sufficient for a finding of cruelty where
there is no showing that Ruben, for his pleasure and satisfaction, caused Nestor to suffer
slowly and painfully and at the same time inflicted on him unnecessary physical and
moral pain. Number of wounds alone is not the criterion for the appreciation of cruelty as
an aggravating circumstance.

(c) evident premeditation

 Evident premeditation cannot be considered because there is nothing in the
records to show that Ruben, prior to the night of the crime, resolved to kill Nestor; nor is
there proof to show that such killing was the result of meditation, calculation or
resolution on Ruben’s part. On the contrary, the evidence tends to show that the series of
circumstances which culminated in the killing of Nestor constitutes an unbroken chain of
events with no interval of time separating them for calculation and meditation. Absent
any qualifying circumstance, Ruben should only be held liable for homicide.