Pedro Ladines Vs. People of the Philippines and Edwin De Ramon
G.R. No. 167333. January 11, 2016

While ERWIN was watching the dance held during the June 12, 1993 Grand Alumni Homecoming of the Bulabog Elementary School in Sorsogon, Sorsogon, PEDRO stabbed Erwin below the navel with a machete. LICUP also mounted his attack against ERWIN but the latter evaded.

LICUP was acquitted of the offense charged for insufficiency of evidence.

The trial court found PEDRO guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the crime of HOMICIDE sans any mitigating circumstances. The trial court imposed the highest within a period of the imposable penalty without specifying the justification.

1.    Did the Trial Court impose the proper period? Explain.

No.

Article 64 of the Revised Penal Code provides that the courts should impose the penalty prescribed by law in the medium period should there be neither aggravating nor mitigating circumstances. And within the limits of each period, the courts shall determine the extent of the penalty according to the number and nature of the aggravating and mitigating circumstances and the greater or lesser extent of the evil produced by the crime."

By not specifying the justification for imposing the ceiling of the period of the imposable penalty, the fixing of the indeterminate sentence became arbitrary, or whimsical, or capricious.

In the absence of the specification, the maximum of the indeterminate sentence for the petitioner should be the lowest of the medium period of reclusion temporal, which is 14 years, eight months and one day of reclusion temporal.



PEDRO appealed by petition for review on certiorari arguing that LICUP admitted of that the latter had stabbed ERWIN. And that the res gestae statement of LICUP constituted newly-discovered evidence that created a reasonable doubt as to the petitioner's guilt.

2.    Is PEDRO correct?

No. 

First of all, Section 1, Rule 45 of the Rules of Court explicitly provides that the petition for review on certiorari shall raise only questions of law, which must be distinctly set forth. A question, to be one of law, must not involve an examination of the probative value of the evidence presented by the litigants or any of them.

Secondly, the res gestae statement of LICUP did not constitute newly-discovered evidence that created a reasonable doubt as to the petitioner's guilt. The requisites for newly-discovered evidence are the following:

1.    The evidence was discovered after trial;
2.    Such evidence could not have been discovered and produced at the trial even with the exercise of reasonable diligence;
3.    The evidence is material, not merely cumulative, corroborative, or impeaching; and

4.    The evidence is of such weight that it would probably change the judgment if admitted.


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