THIRD DIVISION

 

 

G.R. No. 186119           ---      People of the Philippines, Appellee versus Pablo Lusabio, Jr. y Vergara, Appellant. Tomasito De Los Santos and John Doe, Accused.

 

                                                Promulgated:

                  

                                                   October 27, 2009

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DISSENTING OPINION

 

ABAD, J.:

 

 

The ponencia found accused-appellant Pablo Lusabio Jr., guilty beyond reasonable doubt of murdering Edwin Labini.  It affirmed the findings of the Court of Appeals which reiterated the points raised by the trial court.  

 

The trial court convicted Lusabio mainly based on the testimony of the victim’s wife, Doris Labini.  It found her credible, consistent, and free of ill motive to testify against Lusabio whom she knew.  Further, the trial court gave more weight to Doris’ positive identification of Lusabio as her husband’s killer than Lusabio’s denial.  Lastly, co-accused Tomasito de los Santos corroborated Doris’ testimony that Lusabio attacked the victim, though their stories did not match at certain points.

 

On appeal, Lusabio tried to convince the Court of Appeals that Doris was a biased witness and that, as the victim’s wife, she has an impaired credibility.  The latter court said, however, that it could not consider Doris biased because her relationship to the victim did not give her any incentive to falsely testify against an innocent man.  Further, the inconsistencies between the testimonies of Tomasito and Doris were too trivial to discredit her statements.

 

Thus, Lusabio elevated the case to this Court.

 

The core issue in this case is whether or not Doris’ testimony is sufficiently credible to support a finding of guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

 

          In a 2008 decision,[1] this Court pointed out that the assumption that a widow’s testimony is credible since she has no motive other than to see that justice is done is not equal to the statement that a witness’ testimony is credible because the defense failed to show any motive to falsely testify.  The edge given to a disinterested testimony applies only to those who are not related to the incident or to the victim.  The widow is not a disinterested witness.  She is someone who has a personal interest in the incident and who may have been traumatized because of it.  Aggrieved parties have different reactions to these kinds of occurrences in their lives, thus:

 

“x x x  Indeed, for some of them, the interest of seeing that justice is done may be paramount so that they will act strictly according to legal parameters despite their loss and their grief.  At the opposite extreme are those who may not so act; they may want to settle and avenge their loss irrespective of what the law and evidence may indicate.  In between these extremes are those who may not be outwardly or consciously affected, but whose judgment with respect to the case and its detail may be impaired by their loss and grief.  All these are realities that we must be sensitive to.”[2]

 

         

The Court concluded that the testimony of a widow, whose loss may have devastated her emotionally, cannot be assumed credible simply because the defense could not identify ill motive on her part. 

 

In this case, except for the fact that De los Santos’ testimony corroborated that of Doris’, the Court did not put much emphasis on his statements. Being a co-accused himself, De los Santos had all the reasons to point the finger somewhere else, particularly in the direction of Lusabio.  In other words, Lusabio can be considered as having been convicted solely based on the testimony of the victim’s widow. 

 

But consider the ponencia’s summary of Doris’ testimony:

 

“...Around 9:00 p.m. of 12 June 2001, she was in their living room cleaning their house, while Edwin was busy cooking in the kitchen in preparation for the barrio fiesta the following day.  Thereafter, Tomasito de los Santos arrived and conversed with Edwin. Tomasito and Edwin left and casually walked away.  Nervous and apprehensive because her husband was fetched and she did not know where he was going, Doris followed the two. When Edwin and Tomasito arrived at the weighing post near the gate of the house of Romeo de los Santos, the brother of Tomasito, the latter left Edwin for about two minutes. Doris stopped at a distance of about eight meters away from the two. She explained that she had the habit of following her husband but not asking her husband where he was going. When Tomasito returned to Edwin, accused-appellant Pablo Lusabio, Jr. appeared. The latter talked to Edwin and all of a sudden, accused-appellant stabbed Edwin with a ten-inch bladed weapon.  Doris ran away and so did Tomasito. Upon seeing her husband being stabbed by accused-appellant, her first reaction was to seek the assistance from her husband’s brother, Jose Labini. After seeking assistance, she returned to the place where her husband was stabbed and learned that her husband was already dead.”

 

 

I find Doris’ testimony of doubtful credibility for the following reasons:

 

1.                 According to Doris, her husband, Edwin, just casually walked away with Tomasito after the latter arrived and talked to him, evidently to go to a neighbor’s house.  But this seemed unlikely because, as Doris said, Edwin was at that time doing some cooking.  Normally, a husband would have first asked his wife to mind the kitchen.  He would not just walk casually away as Doris would have it.

2.                 Doris said that she followed her husband out of the house and onto the house of Tomasito’s brother.  But it is also not likely that a wife would just leave her house with no one to mind it after her husband left, especially since there was cooking going on in the kitchen.

3.                 Doris said that, after Tomasito left her husband in front of his brother’s house, she just stood there for two minutes watching her husband eight meters away while he waited for Tomasito to return.  If she were apprehensive for his safety, it is incredible that she did not approach him and ask him what he was doing standing there.

4.                 Doris testified in great detail that she saw Lusabio attack her husband with a 10-inch bladed weapon.  Yet, she was unable to perceive how Lusabio sustained so many incise and stab wounds himself.

5.                 More, a wife who had shown great concern for the safety of her husband would surely, rather than ran away as she testified, either shout for help for her husband or implore his assailant to stop the attack. 

 

 

It could happen that, although the victim’s relatives were convinced that the accused committed the crime, no witness is available to testify on it.  A loved one, like the wife, would always be willing to testify, even falsely, to obtain justice for her slain husband.  Consequently, it is important to scrutinize the widow’s testimony and check it against the criteria of common experiences.

 

Conviction based on a set of circumstances contrary to human experience is what this Court should veer from.  A man should not be put away simply because the defense could not raise ill motive against a witness that this Court should not treat as partial and unbiased, in the first place, because she has emotional ties to the case which could have clouded her judgment.

 

 

         

                                                          ROBERTO A. ABAD

                                                              Associate Justice


[1]  People v. Rodrigo, G.R. No. 176159, September 11, 2008, 564 SCRA 584.

[2]  Id.