Pp.
vs ASIS
G. G. R. No. 142531
H. 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.
RULING:
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.
