You are on page 1of 7


[G.R. No. 146099. April 30, 2003]


alias PAMBONG, JOHN DOE (at large) and PETER DOE (at large), accused.


CONDEMNED TO DEATH by the trial court on 26 July 2000 [1] for the complex crime of
murder and multiple attempted murder, accused-appellants JIMMEL SANIDAD and PONCE
MANUEL alias PAMBONG now seek the reversal of their conviction as we review automatically
the judgment pursuant to Sec. 22, Rep. Act No. 7659, amending Art. 47 of The Revised Penal
On 16 January 1999 at around five o’clock in the afternoon Marlon Tugadi, Jun Quipay,
Raymund Fontanilla, Rolando Tugadi, Pepito Tugadi, Delfin Tadeo, Ricardo Tadeo, Edwin
Tumalip, Bobby Velasquez and Dennis Balueg left Budac, Tagum, Abra, on board a passenger
jeepney driven by Delfin Tadeo to attend a barangay fiesta in the neighboring town of
Langangilang, Abra. When they arrived they joined the residents in a drinking spree that lasted
up to the wee hours the following morning. In the course of their conviviality, accused-appellants
Jimmel Sanidad, Ponce Manuel alias Pambong and several other residents of Lagangilang
joined them in drinking.[2] Marlon Tugadi and accused Jimmel Sanidad were drinking buddies
and members of the CAFGU before then.[3]
On 17 January 1999 at about four o’clock in the morning Jimmel Sanidad and his
companions finished drinking and left.[4] Shortly after, the group of Marlon Tugadi also stopped
drinking and headed home for Budac, Tagum, Abra, boarding the same jeepney driven by Delfin
Tadeo. Seated next to Delfin in front were Ricardo Tadeo and Rolando Tugadi, while on the left
rear seat were Marlon Tugadi, Jun Quipay and Raymund Fontanilla. Seated on the right rear
seat were Bobby Velasquez, Dennis Balueg, Edwin Tumalip and Pepito Tugadi.[5]
With Delfin Tadeo on the wheels the jeepney cruised the rough and gravelly dirt road of
Abra-Cervantes with its passengers completely unaware that danger lurked ahead in the dark
and dreary stretch of the road. The jeepney’s headlights sharply ablaze and glaring illuminated
the path and radiated towards the lush vegetation of the surrounding landscape. As the jeepney
approached a plantation, its headlights beamed at accused-appellants Jimmel Sanidad, Ponce
Manuel and two (2) other unidentified companions who were positioned next to a mango tree at
the left side of the road approximately fifteen (15) meters away. Accused-appellants were armed
with an armalite, a .45 caliber pistol and shotguns with buckshots.
As the jeepney moved closer, the accused in a classic case of ambuscade suddenly and
without warning unleashed a volley of shots at the jeepney.[6] Delfin stepped on the gas in a vain
effort to elude their assailants, but they continued firing at the hapless victims. Bullets plowed
the side of the vehicle and all the passengers sitting at the back instinctively ducked on the floor
to avoid being hit. The accused pursued the vehicle on foot and fired at it incessantly until it
finally stalled a few meters away.[7]
The jeepney was left in shambles. Its tires, headlights and taillights were shattered; its
windshield broken to pieces, and the front and left sides of the vehicle riddled with
bullets.[8] Miraculously, almost all of its passengers, with the exception of Rolando Tugadi,
survived the ambush and suffered only minor injuries. Marlon Tugadi tried to pull his brother
Rolando Tugadi from the vehicle to safety only to realize that he was not only too heavy, he was
already dead. As the pursuing gunmen drew near, Marlon decided to abandon Rolando and
scampered away with the other victims until they reached a bushy area about fifteen (15)
meters away from the vehicle.[9]
Meanwhile, the accused caught up with the crippled jeepney. Moments later, fire engulfed
it. The radiant flames of the burning vehicle illuminated the malefactors who stood nearby and
watched the blaze. It could not be determined whether the accused purposely set the vehicle on
fire or the fuel tank was hit during the shooting that ignited the fire. Marlon Tugadi and Pepito
Tugadi later heard one of the unidentified companions of accused-appellant Sanidad say to him:
“My gosh, we were not able to kill all of them.”[10] Thereafter, the accused left the scene, firing
their guns indiscriminately into the air as they walked away.[11]
Apparently shaken and dazed by their terrifying ordeal, the victims hid in a culvert on the
side of the road and did not come out until the police arrived at the scene. The police doused
the burning vehicle with water and found the charred remains of Rolando Tugadi. [12] Likewise
retrieved at the crime scene were eighty-five (85) empty shells from an armalite rifle, two (2)
empty shells from a .45 caliber pistol, and a slug from another .45 caliber Pistol. [13]
Dr. Maria L. Dickenson, Medico-Legal Officer of Lagangilang, Abra, conducted an autopsy
on Rolando Tugadi immediately after the incident. Her postmortem findings were: (a)
carbonization of the body, (b) long bones of lower extremities still burning, (c) presence of lower
half portion of charred skull, (d) presence of left charred thigh, (e) presence of right charred
thigh, and (e) presence of upper third of charred right leg. Cause of death: burns, generalized,
6th degree.[14]
An Information for murder with multiple attempted murder and malicious mischief was filed
against Jimmel Sanidad, Ponce Manuel aliasPambong, John Doe and Peter Doe. The defense
of the accused rested on bare denial and alibi. They disclaimed liability for the ambush insisting
that at about 4:00 to 4:30 in the morning of 17 January 1999 they were already at home
sleeping when they heard the clatter of gunfire and an explosion nearby. But the trial court
disregarded the defense interposed by the accused and forthwith convicted them of the complex
crime of murder and multiple attempted murder, and sentenced them to death.
In this mandatory review, the legal questions raised essentially centered on: first, the
credibility of witnesses; and, second, the sufficiency of the prosecution evidence.
We affirm the conviction. We find that the prosecution succeeded overwhelmingly in
meeting the quantum of proof required to overturn the constitutional presumption of innocence.
The trial court properly convicted accused-appellants on the basis of the credible and
uncontroverted testimonies of the victims and other prosecution witnesses.
It is axiomatic that the assessment on the credibility of witnesses is a function best
discharged by the trial court which is in a better position to determine conflicting testimonies
after having heard the witnesses, and observed their deportment and manner of testifying. This
Court will not interfere with the trial court’s findings on the credibility of witnesses unless those
findings are arbitrary, or facts and circumstances of weight and influence have been overlooked,
misunderstood or misapplied by the judge which, if considered, would have affected the
outcome of the case.[15] None of the exceptions have been shown to exist in the instant case.
Accused-appellants pointed out supposed inconsistencies and inaccuracies in the
testimonies of prosecution witnesses Marlon Tugadi, Jun Quipay, Pepito Tugadi and Raymund
Fontanilla, thus -

x x x x ordinary human conduct is very predictable. When confronted with danger, the first reaction is to
avoid it. But not Jun Quipay, Marion Tugadi, Pepito Tugadi and Raymund Fontanilla. While all claimed
they have jumped out of the jeep, they did not run away. Instead they still lingered at about 7-50 meters
away from the jeep. So that they saw the attackers when the jeep exploded. How remarkable is their
depiction of the accused as unafraid of an exploding jeep! The testimonies of Jun Quipay and Marlon
Tugadi cancel each other out. Marlon said he saw the ambushers come out with guns blazing. Jun said
Marlon was lying down with eyes closed when that moment happened. Again, back to human nature,
Marlon Tugadi and Pepito Tugadi saw with the morning light that their brother Rolando Tugadi is (sic) no
more. A carbonized cadaver he became. And yet they did not tell the police who did the dastardly acts!
How unnatural. And yet they claimed in court that they positively identified the accused at the time of the

After a cursory reading of the transcripts, however, we find that the supposed inconsistent
and inaccurate details are relatively trivial and do not affect the veracity of the testimonies of
Marlon Tugadi, Jun Quipay, Pepito Tugadi and Raymund Fontanilla. Indeed, inconsistencies
and inaccuracies in the testimonies of witnesses which refer to minor and insignificant details do
not destroy their credibility. Such minor inconsistencies and inaccuracies even manifest
truthfulness and candor, and erase any suspicion of a rehearsed testimony.[17]
At any rate, the ineludible fact remains that Marion Tugadi, Jun Quipay, Pepito Tugadi and
Raymund Fontanilla were all at the scene of the crime and almost got killed during the ambush.
They were eyewitnesses to the gruesome death of a family member in the hands of accused-
appellants. What is important is that they conveyed to the trial court what they actually
perceived, including those seeming improbabilities, on that fateful day; and they categorically
supplied all the facts necessary for accused-appellants’ conviction. Verily, victims of crimes
cannot be expected to recall with exact precision the minutiae of the incident. Human memory is
not as unerring as a photograph.[18] Different persons having different reflexes produce varying
reactions, impressions, perceptions and recollections. Their physical, mental and emotional
conditions may have also affected the recall of the details of the incident.
Significantly, the victims positively identified accused-appellants Jimmel Sanidad and
Ponce Manuel in open court as among those who ambushed them in the early morning of 17
January 1999 at the Abra-Cervantes Road, which led to the death of Rolando Tugadi. Quoted
hereunder is an excerpt from Marlon Tugadi’s testimony -
Q: Mr. Witness, do you know one by the name of Jimmel Sanidad?
A: Yes sir.
Q: Will you please focus your eyes around and point to that person Jimmel Sanidad?
A: (Witness pointed to a man seated at the accused bench and when asked of his
name he answered Jimmel Sanidad.)
Q: Why do you know this accused Jimmel Sanidad Mr. Witness?
A: We were in the same batch in the CAFGU sir.
Q: Aside from being a CAFGU batch member, what else do you know of this accused
Jimmel Sanidad?
A: We sometimes drink together when I go to their place, sir.
Q: How about the other accused Ponce Manuel alias Pambong, again I ask you to
focus your eyes around and point at him and identify him?
name he answered Ponce Manuel).[19]
Victims Jun Quipay, Pepito Tugadi and Raymund Fontanilla were likewise asked during the
trial to identify the malefactors who staged the ambush, and they all pointed to Jimmel Sanidad
and Ponce Manuel.
It must be stressed that the incidents prior to, during and after the attack provided the
victims with more than sufficient opportunity to identify accused-appellants as the perpetrators
of the dastardly acts. The victims had a drinking session with their assailants that lasted for
many hours. During the ambush itself, the headlights of the victims’ vehicle illuminated the
assailants. Again, when the vehicle burst into flames after the ambush, the surroundings were
bathed in light including the assailants who were standing nearby, thus enabling the victims to
have a good look at their faces. These circumstances, coupled with the victims’ familiarity with
accused-appellants, rendered a mistaken identification very unlikely.
The general denial and alibi of the defense are too lame to be legally accepted as true,
especially when measured up against the positive identification of accused-appellants. The
doctrine is well-settled that denial and alibi are the weakest of all defenses as they are easy to
concoct and fabricate but difficult to disprove. Denial and alibi should be rejected when the
identities of accused-appellants are sufficiently and positively established by eyewitnesses to
the crime.
For alibi to be credible, the accused must not only prove his presence at another place at
the time of the commission of the offense but must also demonstrate that it would be physically
impossible for him to be at the locus criminis at that time. In the case at bar, accused-appellants
claimed that they were in their respective houses at the time of the ambush. But the record
shows that the house of accused-appellant Jimmel Sanidad’s sister where he was staying in
Sitio Bio, San Isidro, Lagangilang, Abra, is but a mere six (6) to seven (7)-minute walk, or about
700 meters, from the crime scene.[20] While accused-appellant Ponce Manuel lived “in the same
place, (in) the same community.”[21]
Equally untenable is accused-appellants’ assertion that the delay of the victims in
identifying their ambushers for more than four (4) weeks points to the conclusion that “all the
survivors of the ambush were really and timely clueless as to who the perpetrators of the
ambush (were).”[22]
Delay in reporting a crime to the authorities is not an uncommon phenomenon. The rule is,
delay by a witness in divulging what he or she knows about a crime is not by itself a setback to
the evidentiary value of such witness’ testimony, where the delay is sufficiently justified by any
acceptable explanation. Thus, a well-founded fear of reprisal or the individual manner by which
individuals react when confronted by a gruesome event as to place the viewer in a state of
shock for sometime, is a valid excuse for the temporary silence of witnesses. As correctly
observed by the Solicitor General in the present case -
x x x the victims in the instant case were survivors of an extremely violent incident which inflicts severe
concomitant psychological stress on them. Considering also that the survivors were being investigated by
the police from another municipality where the perpetrators not only reside but one of them was even a
member of the CAFGU, it is a natural reaction for the victims not to reveal that they know the identities
of the perpetrators and induce them to take action to prevent the victims from testifying x x x x
Furthermore, Marlon Tugadi insisted to the police during the investigation that he knew who ambushed
them but that he would talk only after his brother’s interment. This hardly qualifies as an unusual

Conspiracy and treachery, as the trial court found, attended the commission of the crime.
For collective responsibility to be established, it is not necessary that conspiracy be proved by
direct evidence of a prior agreement to commit the crime. Only rarely would such an agreement
be demonstrable because criminal undertakings, in the nature of things, are rarely documented
by written agreements. The concerted actions of accused-appellants, however, clearly evinced
conspiracy. Their simultaneous acts of peppering the victims’ jeepney with bullets, and
thereafter chasing the vehicle to prevent its escape, were undoubtedly in pursuance of a
common felonious design. All these sufficiently prove beyond reasonable doubt that they
conspired to consummate the killing of the victim.[24]
On treachery, the deadly successive shots of accused-appellants did not allow the victims
any opportunity to put up a decent defense. The victims were like a flock of sheep waylaid and
ferociously attacked by a pack of ravening wolves. While the victims might have realized a
possible danger to their persons when they saw accused-appellants, all armed and positioned in
a mango tree ahead of them, the attack was executed in such a vicious manner as to make the
defense, not to say a counter-attack, virtually impossible.
Under the circumstances, it is plain to us that accused-appellants had murder in their hearts
when they waylaid their unwary victims. They must consequently be held liable for their acts.
Insofar as victims Marlon Tugadi, Jun Quipay, Raymund Fontanilla, Pepito Tugadi, Delfin
Tadeo, Ricardo Tadeo, Edwin Tumalip, Bobby Velasquez and Dennis Balueg are concerned,
although they barely escaped the ambush with superficial injuries does not alter the nature of
accused-appellants’ participation in the crime of murder except that not one of them having
suffered fatal injuries which could have resulted in their death, accused-appellants should only
be held guilty of attempted murder. Accused-appellants had commenced their criminal scheme
to liquidate all the victims directly by overt acts, but were unable to perform all the acts of
execution that would have brought about their death by reason of some cause other than their
own spontaneous desistance, that is, the victims successfully dodged the hail of gunfire and
We fully agree with the lower court that the instant case comes within the purview of Art. 48
of The Revised Penal Code which, speaking of complex crimes, provides that when “a single
act constitutes two or more grave or less grave felonies, or when an offense is a necessary
means for committing the other, the penalty for the most serious crime shall be imposed in its
maximum period.” In a complex crime, although two or more crimes are actually committed,
they constitute only one crime in the eyes of the law as well as in the conscience of the
Although several independent acts were performed by the accused in firing separate shots
from their individual firearms, it was not possible to determine who among them actually killed
victim Rolando Tugadi. Moreover, there is no evidence that accused-appellants intended to fire
at each and every one of the victims separately and distinctly from each other. On the contrary,
the evidence clearly shows a single criminal impulse to kill Marlon Tugadi’s group as a
whole.[26] Thus, one of accused-appellants exclaimed in frustration after the ambush: “My gosh,
we were not able to kill all of them.”[27] Where a conspiracy animates several persons with a
single purpose, their individual acts done in pursuance of that purpose are looked upon as a
single act, the act of execution, giving rise to a single complex offense.[28]
The penalty for the most serious offense of murder under Art. 248 of The Revised Penal
Code as amended by Rep. Act No. 7659 isreclusion perpetua to death. It therefore becomes our
painful duty in the instant case to apply the maximum penalty in accordance with law, and
sentence accused-appellants to death.
WHEREFORE, the Decision of the court a quo of 26 July 2000 finding accused-appellants
JIMMEL SANIDAD and PONCE MANUEL aliasPAMBONG guilty of the complex crime of
murder and multiple attempted murder and imposing upon them the supreme penalty of DEATH
Accused-appellants are likewise ordered jointly and severally to: (a) INDEMNIFY the heirs
of the deceased victim Rolando Tugadi in the amount of P50,000.00 as civil indemnity as well
as P50,000.00 as moral damages; and, (b) PAY victim Delfin Tadeo the sum of P50,000.00 for
the loss of his jeepney.
In accordance with Art. 83 of The Revised Penal Code, as amended by Sec. 25 of Rep. Act
No. 7659, upon the finality of this Decision, let the records of this case be forthwith forwarded to
Her Excellency the President for the possible exercise of her pardoning power.
Costs de oficio.
Davide, Jr., C.J., Bellosillo, Puno, Vitug, Panganiban, Ynares-Santiago, Sandoval-
JJ., concur.
Quisumbing, J., on official leave.

Decision penned by Judge Arturo B. Buenavista, RTC-Br. 2, Bangued, Abra, in Crim. Case
No. 99-344, “People v. Sanidad.”
TSN, 22 March 2000, pp. 8-9.
Id., pp. 3-4.
Id., 5 April 2000, p. 46.
Id., 22 March 2000, pp. 12-13.
Id., 22 March 2000, pp. 10-13, 35-37.
Id., pp. 40-41.
See Exhs. “N-2” to “N-4, “N-10” to “N-11;” Records, pp. 184-187.
TSN, 22 March 2000, p. 14.
Id., pp. 15-16.
Id., pp. 16-17.
Exh. “N-1;” Records, p. 183.
Exh. “M;” Records, p. 182.
Medico-Legal Necropsy Report, Exh. “K;” Records, p. 19.
People v. Villonez, G.R. Nos. 122976-77, 16 November 1998, 298 SCRA 566.
Appellants’ Brief, p. 14; Rollo, p. 50.
People v. Gargar, G.R. No. 110029, 19 December 1998, 300 SCRA 542.
People v. Cañales, G.R. No. 126319, 12 October 1998, 297 SCRA 667, 675.
TSN, 22 March 2000, pp. 3-4.
Id., 5 April 2000, p. 48.
Id., p. 36.
Id., p. 13; Rollo, p. 49.
Appellee’s Brief, pp. 23-24; Rollo, pp. 111-112.
See People v. Palomar, G.R. Nos. 108183-85, 21 August 1997, 278 SCRA 114.
Reyes, The Revised Penal Code, Book I (1993), at 653.
People v. Lawas, 97 Phil. 975 (unreported).
TSN, 22 March 2000, pp. 15-16.
People v. Abella, No. L-32205, 31 August 1979, 93 SCRA 25.