THIRD DIVISION
[G.R. No. 231877. March 14, 2018.]
PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, plaintiff-appellee,vs. PO3 AVELINO BALUYOT y FRANCO, accused-appellant.
NOTICE
Sirs/Mesdames :
Please take notice that the Court, Third Division, issued a Resolution datedMarch 14, 2018, which reads as follows:
"G.R. No. 231877 (PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. PO3 AVELINO BALUYOT y FRANCO, Accused-Appellant.) — The accused seeks the review and reversal of the decision promulgated on March 30, 2016, 1 whereby the Court of Appeals (CA) affirmed with modification the decision dated November 25, 2013 2 of the Regional Trial Court (RTC) in Manila finding him guilty beyond reasonable doubt of rape in Criminal Case No. 08-261575.
Antecedents
The Office of the City Prosecutor of Manila filed in the RTC the following information charging the accused with rape, alleging:
That on or about March 14, 2008, in the City of Manila, Philippines, the said accused by means of force, violence and intimidation, that is, pulling and dragging to the rooftop of the _______________, this City, one AAA, then 16 years of age only and therefore, a minor, showing her his firearm and warning her from making noise, pulling down her shorts and panty, kissing her on her face, going on top of her, and threatening her of death if she will report the matter to anyone while holding his firearm and inserting his penis into her vagina, did then and there willfully, unlawfully and feloniously had carnal knowledge of said AAA against her will.
CONTRARY TO LAW. 3
The accused was then arraigned and tried. The factual and procedural antecedents are summarized in the CA assailed decision as follows:
On March 13, 2008, complainant AAA (complainant) left her home because of fear that her father might scold her due to her absences in school. She went to the house of her friend, BBB, in XXX. In a party in the said tenement, she met accused-appellant. The next day, March 14, 2008, complainant and her friends planned another party in the tenement. At about 2 o'clock in the afternoon, the party started. Complainant and BBB did not finish the party and decided to proceed to the 7th floor of the tenement to meet BBB's friend. Since she was not familiar with BBB's friend, she just waited for the latter near the stairs going to the rooftop. At around 4 o'clock in the afternoon, complainant saw accused-appellant coming from the stairs. He approached her and offered her some money. She refused the offer since she noticed that he was already drunk as his breath was reeking with the smell of liquor. This angered accused-appellant. He suddenly pulled her hand and forcibly dragged her upstairs leading to the rooftop. She tried to resist but she got intimidated when he showed her his service firearm tucked in his waist. He also warned her not to create noise for nobody would hear her.
At the rooftop, accused-appellant forced complainant to lie down. Afterwhich, he raised her dress and unzipped her shorts. She pleaded him to stop but to no avail. He kissed her on the face; went on top of her; held her hands and forced her to open her legs. He succeeded in having carnal knowledge with her. She felt pain in her private part. After satisfying his lust, accused-appellant fixed himself and, while holding his firearm, pulled some money in his pocket and gave it to complainant with a threat of her possible death should she report the incident to anyone.
On March 16, 2008, assisted by her father and aunt, complainant reported the incident to the police authorities. She executed a Sinumpaang Salaysay before the Women's Desk of the Manila Police District. She also underwent a medico-legal examination. Her provisional Medico-Legal Report shows a perihymenal bruise in the 2 o'clock position. On the other hand, in her Final Medico-Legal Report, Dr. Merle P. Tan, the doctor who examined complainant, stated that the "anogenital findings are diagnostic of blunt force or penetrating trauma."
For his defense, however, accused-appellant denied the charge against him. He argued that it is impossible for him to rape complainant at the rooftop of the tenement building at around 4:00 o'clock in the afternoon, since the place was filled with people and residents of the tenement who used the place for their recreational activities. This was corroborated by Mark Van Torres, Jack Allan Marzo, Nikko Gipiga and Enrico Espano (Espano). Espano pointed out the impossibility of rape on the said place as there was a chapel and a barangay training center constructed therein preventing anyone from going to the rooftop through the stairs. Thus, on March 17, 2008, accused-appellant got the biggest surprise of his life when a certain SPO2 Villegas came to his house, introduced herself as a police officer and invited him to the Barangay. When he inquired the reason for his arrest, no response was given to him. He was thereafter detained at the Manila Police District Headquarters in U.N. Ave., Manila. He was told by police officer to just settle his case for P150,000.00 but he refused because he did not commit any crime. 4
After trial, the RTC convicted the accused of rape as charged. It ruled that the testimony of the victim was straightforward and believable; that the Prosecution proved all the elements of the crime beyond reasonable doubt; that his alibi and denial were inherently weak and crumbled in the face of the positive identification of him by the victim; and that as to whether or not it was possible for him to have raped the victim in the stairs leading to the rooftop inasmuch as such was a crowded place where the public had easy access to, the reality was that lust was not a respecter of time or place, and such fact did not deter him from abusing the victim. The dispositive portion of the decision reads:
WHEREFORE, in view of the foregoing disquisition, the Court finds accused PO3 AVELINO BALUYOT y FRANCO guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the crime of RAPE defined and penalized under Article 266-A of the Revised Penal Code. He is hereby sentenced to suffer the penalty of reclusion perpetua.
He is further adjudged to PAY AAA civil indemnity of P75,000.00, moral damages of P75,000.00, exemplary damages of P25,000.00 and the costs of suit.
In the service of his sentence, the accused shall be entitled to the full credit of his preventive imprisonment if he agreed voluntarily in writing to abide by the same disciplinary rules imposed upon convicted prisoners. Otherwise, he shall be credited only in the service of his sentence of four fifths (4/5) of the time during which he has undergone preventive imprisonment in accordance with Article 29 of the Revised Penal Code.
SO ORDERED. 5
On appeal, the CA affirmed the conviction of the accused. It accorded respect to the RTC's assessment of the victim's credibility, and observed that her testimony against him, being corroborated by the physical evidence, established the rape; and that neither the character of the place of commission as a public area nor the absence of spermatozoa from the victim's body negated the commission of the rape. It modified the damages awarded to the victim, and disposed thusly:
WHEREFORE, the Decision dated November 25, 2013 of the RTC finding the accused-appellant guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the crime of rape is AFFIRMED with the following modifications:
1. Accused-appellant shall not be eligible for parole;
2. The award of moral damages is decreased from P75,000.00 to P50,000.00;
3. The award of exemplary damages is increased from P25,000.00 to P30,000.00; and
4. Accused-appellant is ORDERED to pay private complainant interest at the legal rate of six percent (6%) per annum on all the amounts of damages awarded, commencing from the date of finality of this Decision until fully paid.
SO ORDERED. 6
The accused has brought this appeal to the Court. He has reiterated the same submissions he had made in the CA, and has manifested through his counsel, the Public Attorney's Office, that he was not filing any supplemental brief. 7 The State, through the Office of the Solicitor General, 8 also waived the filing of a supplemental brief.
The accused argues that he should be acquitted because the Prosecution did not prove his guilt beyond reasonable doubt. He contends that the testimony of the victim was incredible because of the inherent improbability of her version of his having committed the rape in a place that was accessible to the public, where anyone could have caught him in the act at any time; and that he should further be absolved considering the absence of spermatozoa on the body of the victim.
Ruling of the Court
The Court DISMISSES the appeal for lack of merit.
It is stressed that the Court is guided by three guidelines in its review of any case involving sexual abuse. The principles are, namely: (1) an accusation for rape can be made with facility, and while the accusation is difficult to prove, it is even more difficult for the accused, though innocent, to disprove; (2) considering that in the nature of things, only two persons are usually involved in rape, the testimony of the complainant should be scrutinized with great caution; and (3) the evidence for the Prosecution must stand or fall on its own merits and cannot be allowed to draw strength from the weakness of the evidence for the defense. 9
Guided by the foregoing guidelines, the Court upholds the affirmance of the conviction by the CA.
The testimony of the victim was credible and worthy of belief. Nothing in the records cast even an iota of doubt on her. It has been ruled that the testimonies of rape victims, when categorical, straightforward, spontaneous, and frank, are considered worthy of belief, for no woman would concoct a story of her defloration at the hands of a man not her husband, allow the examination of her private parts, and thereafter present herself in the public trial unless she was not solely motivated by the desire to have the culprit apprehended and punished. 10 In the absence of a clear showing of ill-motives on her part, just like in this case, the Court confirms the trial court's assessment of the credibility of the victim and the other Prosecution witnesses.
The CA concluded that the Prosecution established that the accused had carnal knowledge of the victim. The conclusion was correct. Indeed, the totality of the evidence, i.e., the victim's testimony as well as the medico-legal report, indicated that he had carnal knowledge of her. In this regard, we reject his denial of the accusation in view of her positive identification of him as the person who had ravished her. It does not matter that no traces of spermatozoa were found on the victim. The presence of spermatozoa was not an element of rape, whose essential element was that the accused had carnal knowledge of the victim.
That the rape was committed in a public area to which other people might have access did not diminish the credibility of the victim. The fact that is of consequence herein is that the rape was actually committed. Although rape is often committed in seclusion, that is not always true because lust does not heed the demand for privacy. As the CA put it, lust was no respecter of time and place.
Although the affirmance of the conviction is in order, the Court modifies the civil liability in order to observe the pronouncements in People v. Jugueta. 11 The moral damages are increased from P50,000.00 to P75,000.00; the exemplary damages are raised from P30,000.00 to P75,000.00; and the civil indemnity of P75,000.00 is maintained. Interest of 6% per annum is imposed on each item of the civil liability reckoned from the finality of this decision until full satisfaction.
The CA declared the accused not eligible for parole. A.M. No. 15-08-02-SC dated August 4, 2015 12 has the following instructions on the proper usage of the phrase without eligibility for parole in judgments of conviction:
(1) In cases where the death penalty is not warranted, there is no need to use the phrase "without eligibility for parole" to qualify the penalty of reclusion perpetua; it is understood that convicted persons penalized with an indivisible penalty are not eligible for parole; and
(2) When circumstances are present warranting the imposition of the death penalty, but this penalty is not imposed because of R.A. 9346, the qualification of "without eligibility for parole" shall be used to qualify reclusion perpetua in order to emphasize that the accused should have been sentenced to suffer the death penalty had it not been for R.A. No. 9346.
Conformably with the guidelines, the CA's declaration that the accused was not entitled to parole was a mere surplusage because he was not eligible for parole from the outset.
WHEREFORE, the Court AFFIRMS the decision dated March 30, 2016 IN ALL RESPECTS subject to the MODIFICATIONS that the award for moral damages, and exemplary damages are each increased to P75,000.00; that the accused shall pay interest of 6% per annum on all the damages reckoned from the finality of this decision until full satisfaction.
The accused shall further pay the costs of suit.
SO ORDERED."
Very truly yours,
(SGD.) WILFREDO V. LAPITANDivision Clerk of Court
Footnotes
1.Rollo, pp. 2-12; penned by Associate Justice Edwin D. Sorongon, and concurred in by Associate Justice Ricardo R. Rosario and Associate Justice Marie Christine Azcarraga-Jacob.
2. CA rollo, pp. 41-58; penned by Presiding Judge Emily L. San Gaspar-Gito.
3.Rollo, pp. 2-3.
4.Id. at 3-4.
5. CA rollo, pp. 57-58.
6.Rollo, p. 1.
7.Id. at 25-26.
8.Id. at 20-21.
9.People v. Salidaga, G.R. No. 172323, January 29, 2007, 513 SCRA 306, 312.
10.People v. De Guzman, G.R. No. 188352, September 1, 2010, 629 SCRA 782, 796, citing People v. Estrada, G.R. No. 178318, January 15, 2010, 610 SCRA 222, 232.
11. G.R. No. 202124, April 5, 2016, 788 SCRA 331, 282-283.
12.Guidelines for the proper use of the phrase "without eligibility for parole" in Indivisible Penalties.