PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, Appellee, v.
DANILO ASIS y FONPERADA and GILBERT
FORMENTO y SARICON, Appellant.
G.R. No. 142531. October 15, 2002
FACTS:
The Court found Danilo Asis guilty beyond reasonable doubt of robbery with homicide aggravated
by abuse of confidence, superior strength and treachery for killing Yu Hing Guan a.k.a. Roy Ching.
Diana Yu, sister of victim testified that she saw the two appellants, namely: Danilo Asis and Gilbert
Formento, and her brother (the victim), who are all deaf-mutes, talking in sign language, she later
on discovered that the sales proceeds of the preceding day were missing and the necklace of her
brother (victim) which he always wore was also missing.
SPO2 Pablo Ileto of WPD Homicide Section testified that he saw the victim lying prostrate on the
ground, barefooted, and clad only in brief, they coordinated with the Hagunoy Bulacan police and
searched the area. Diana Yu saw Gilbert Formento in a delivery truck and she pointed him to them.
Thereafter, they invited Gilbert Formento to their office at the WPD Homicide Section. But before
going to the WPD station, they first brought Gilbert Formento to his house. Upon reaching the
house, Diana Yu asked from the wife of the suspect for the stolen money. However, they could not
understand each other, so the wife gave Diana Yu the bag of Gilbert Formento where Diana Yu
noticed the pair of shorts which belonged to the victim. PO2 Ileto noticed what appears to be blood
stains on the pair of shorts.
SPO1 Cabatbat received a phone call from a relative informing him that one of the suspects,
appellant Danilo Asis, went back to the scene of the crime, they brought Danilo Asis to the police
station for investigation, who expectedly denied having anything to do with the killing of the victim.
The prosecution argues that the strongest piece of evidence damning appellants is the victim’s
bloodstained pair of short pants recovered from the bag of Gilbert Formento. It argues that since
the trousers were recovered from one of the appellants. Hence, the present case.
ISSUE:
Whether or not the accused-appellants are guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the crime of robbery
with homicide notwithstanding the insufficiency of the circumstantial evidence presented by the
prosecution.
HELD:
No. There were no eyewitnesses to the robbery or to the homicide; and second, none of the items
allegedly stolen were recovered or presented in evidence. Certainly, it is not only by direct
evidence that the accused may be convicted of the crime charged. Circumstantial evidence is
resorted to when direct testimony would result in setting felons free and deny proper protection to
the community. The former is not a "weaker form of evidence vis-à-vis the latter
The accused may be convicted on the basis of circumstantial evidence, provided the proven
circumstances constitute an unbroken chain leading to one fair reasonable conclusion pointing to
the accused, to the exclusion of all others, as the guilty person. "Circumstantial evidence is akin to
a tapestry; it should be made up of strands which create a pattern when interwoven." This pattern
should be reasonably consistent with the hypothesis that the accused is guilty and at the same
time totally inconsistent with the proposition that he or she is innocent
SEC. 4. Circumstantial evidence, when sufficient. — Circumstantial evidence is sufficient for
conviction if:
(a) There is more than one circumstance;
(b) The facts from which the inferences are derived are proven; and
(c) The combination of all the circumstances is such as to produce a conviction beyond reasonable
doubt.
The Court cannot agree that the recovery of a bloodstained pair of shorts allegedly owned by the
victim should give rise to the presumption that one of the appellants was the "taker and doer of the
whole act" of robbery with homicide. By itself, the retrieval of the pair of shorts does not prove that
appellants, or even just one of them, robbed the trouser owner of cash and jewelry and also killed
him, as charged in the Information. Neither does it show that appellants, or one of them,
perpetrated the aggression leading to the victim’s death.
The ownership of the pair of shorts was not definitively determined. And even granting for the sake
of argument that it indeed belonged to the victim, still, there is no evidence to prove that it was
taken from him on the night of the homicide. Neither can it be ruled out that he might have lent it or
gave it to either one of the two. It was neither extraordinary nor impossible for him to have allowed
Appellant Formento to use it, considering that they were friends, and that they shared a
commonality as deaf-mutes.
