Title
People vs. Cachuela
Case
G.R. No. 191752
Decision Date
Jun 10, 2013
Two men convicted of robbery with homicide after stolen firearms linked to them; circumstantial evidence, including prior visit and recovered weapons, upheld their guilt.
robbery with homicide
stolen firearms
bullet shells

Case Summary (G.R. No. 191752)

Factual Background

The evidence established that on July 23, 2004, Benjamin Julian Cruz Ibanez visited Weapons System Corporation and questioned Henessy Auron, the company secretary, about the firing range schedule, membership fees, peak days and staff, thereby making preparatory inquiries. On the morning of July 26, 2004, Henessy found that the front door would not open, that employee Zaldy Gabao reported that his hands were tied, and that upon police entry the lifeless body of gunsmith Rex Dorimon was found in the firing range. An inventory revealed the theft of fifty-three firearms and various ammunitions from WSC.

NBI Investigation, Informant and Entrapment Operations

An asset informed the National Bureau of Investigation that the group of Cachuela had participated in the WSC robbery and sought buyers for stolen firearms. The NBI conducted entrapment operations in Cavite. An intermediary, Melvin Nabilgas, surrendered to the NBI and implicated other participants. The asset arranged meetings with the suspects purportedly to view and sell firearms, which led to separate entrapment arrests of Cachuela at his house and Ibanez at his residence and inside a Nissan California vehicle. The NBI recovered several firearms from Cachuela and from Ibanez, including a .9 mm Bernardelli bearing serial number T1102-03E000151 and a .45 Glock 30 bearing serial number FML 245.

Arrests, Seizures and Identification

During the NBI proceedings Zaldy purportedly identified the appellants in a police line-up, as testified by NBI Special Investigator Allan Lino. Nabilgas executed a handwritten extrajudicial confession implicating the appellants and Zaldy, but later repudiated that confession at trial alleging torture. The seized firearms included pieces reported stolen from WSC; ballistics testing indicated that fired cartridge cases recovered at the crime scene were consistent with firing from a .45 Llama pistol recovered from Ibanez.

Criminal Information and Trial Proceedings

The prosecution filed an Information for robbery with homicide against the appellants, Nabilgas and Zaldy. All accused pleaded not guilty. Trial on the merits followed before the RTC. Zaldy did not testify at trial as he was committed to the National Center for Mental Health and subsequently died. The RTC found Cachuela and Ibanez guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the special complex crime of robbery with homicide and sentenced them to suffer reclusion perpetua, ordered restitution and awarded civil damages; it acquitted Nabilgas for insufficiency of evidence.

Court of Appeals Decision

The Court of Appeals in CA-G.R. CR.-HC No. 03474 affirmed the RTC judgment with modifications: it ordered restitution to Arms Depot Philippines, Inc. in the amount of P1,093,947.50 with interest at six percent per annum from the date of decision, and adjusted damages to the heirs of Rex to P45,000.00 as actual damages with interest at six percent per annum. The CA held that the totality of circumstantial evidence — Ibanez’s suspicious visit to WSC, the robbery and killing, the recovery of stolen firearms in separate entrapment operations, the appellants’ inability to explain possession of the firearms, and ballistic evidence — pointed inexorably to the appellants as principals in the robbery with homicide.

Issues Raised on Appeal to the Supreme Court

On final review the appellants challenged the sufficiency and admissibility of the prosecution’s evidence, principally contesting the reliability of Zaldy’s out-of-court identification and the admissibility of Nabilgas’s extrajudicial confession, and they generally invoked defenses of alibi, denial and frame-up. The prosecution relied primarily on circumstantial evidence tying the appellants to the theft, the recovered firearms, and the ballistics findings linking a .45 firearm recovered from Ibanez to cartridge cases at the scene.

Admissibility of Out-of-Court Identification

The Supreme Court found the prosecution’s proof of Zaldy’s out-of-court identification deficient. It applied the totality of circumstances test articulated in People v. Algarme and observed that the NBI witness Lino failed to provide essential details about the police line-up: the date of the line-up, the manner of its conduct, the presence and description of other persons in the line-up, whether the line-up was non-suggestive, who accompanied Zaldy, and the level of certainty demonstrated at identification. Given these omissions and the absence of an in-court identification by Zaldy, the Court held that the out-of-court identification testimony was unreliable and inadmissible as proof against the appellants.

Admissibility of the Extrajudicial Confession of Nabilgas

The Court ruled Nabilgas’s extrajudicial confession inadmissible. It reiterated the requisites for admissibility of an extrajudicial confession and found that the confession was executed during custodial investigation and without the assistance of a competent and independent counsel of the confessant’s choice. The lawyer who assisted Nabilgas, Atty. Melita Go, had been furnished by the NBI despite Nabilgas’s prior retention of Atty. Donardo Paglinawan; Atty. Go did not properly identify her role, and the record showed no indication that she effectively advised Nabilgas as required during custodial interrogation. The confession was therefore involuntary for purposes of admissibility and, in any event, it was inadmissible against co-accused under the res inter alios acta rule because conspiracy was not established by evidence independent of the confession as required by Section 30, Rule 130 of the Rules of Court.

Sufficiency of Circumstantial Evidence

Stripped of the out-of-court identification and the extrajudicial confession, the prosecution’s case rested on circumstantial evidence. The Supreme Court applied the requisites of Section 4, Rule 133 of the Revised Rules of Court, requiring an unbroken chain of circumstances that excludes all reasonable hypotheses except guilt. The Court found that the circumstances were multiple, established, and consistent: Ibanez’s suspicious inquiries at WSC two days before the robbery; discovery of tied-up employee Zaldy and the murdered gunsmith Rex; theft of fifty-three firearms including the Bernardelli T1102-03E000151 and Glock FML 245; the separate recoveries of those serial-numbered firearms from Cachuela and Ibanez in entrapment operations; the appellants’ failure to explain possession of the stolen guns; forensic matching of fired cartridge cases found at the scene to the .45 Llama recovered from Ibanez; and the autopsy finding that Rex’s wounds were caused by a .45 pistol. The Court concluded that these circumstances formed an unbroken chain proving that the appellants’ overriding intent was to rob WSC and that the killing of Rex occurred by reason of or on the occasion of that robbery.

Application of Presumptions and Principal Liability

The Supreme Court invoked the disputable presumption under Rule 131, Section 3(j) that a person found in possession of things recently taken in a wrongful act is presumed to be the taker and doer of the act, which the appellants fai

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