G.R. No.

184500 September 11, 2012 En Banc

PEOPLE OF THE PIIILIPPINES, Plaintiff-Appellee,

vs.
WENCESLAO NELMIDA @ "ESLAO," and RICARDO AJOK @
"PORDOY," Accused-Appellants.

FACTS:

Wenceslao Nelmida and Ricardo Ajok, with 10 other accused, allegedly

ambushed the vehicle of Mayor Tawan-tawan of Salvador, Lanao del Norte.
Together with the Mayor are his security escorts, 2 of which died due to the
ambush while the others have been injured, although not severely, but needed to
be hospitalized. In the conduct of the said alleged ambush, appellants and their
co-accused brought Samuel (whose task was to identify the vehicle) to a waiting
shed where a pick-up service vehicle boarded by Mayor Tawan-tawan and his
group would pass. Appellants and their co-accused, thereafter, assembled
themselves on both sides of the road and surreptitiously waited for the vehicle.
The moment it passed by the waiting shed, appellants and their co-accused
opened fire and rained bullets thereon resulting in the killing and wounding of
the victims. Immediately, appellants and their co-accused fled to escape.

The prosecution presented their witnesses. Samuel, who became a witness,

categorically pointed to Nelmida and Ajok as two of the people who participated
in the commission of the ambush as well as named all the other co-accused. The
same was given as testimony by other witnesses, including the other surviving
victims of the ambush as they were, accordingly, of the vantage point where they
saw the perpetrators of the offense.

In their defense, both herein accused interposed their respective alibis

corroborated by testimonies of their respective relatives, and being that they
both left their respective domiciles after the incident, posed their separate
explanations. In the case of Nelmida, that such was prompted by the fear and
restlessness of his wife so that she wanted to go to an environment further from
the place of the ambush; and for Ajok, that such was prompted by fear of being
harassed as what he said was happening to the others with the same political
affiliation as him.

The Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Kapatagan, Lanao del Norte, Branch 21, found
the testimonies of the prosecution witnesses, most of whom were victims of the
ambush, to be credible, categorical, straightforward, spontaneous and consistent,
coupled with their positive identification of the appellants as among the
perpetrators of the crime and their lack of ill-motive to falsely testify against
them, vis--vis the defense of denial and alibi proffered by the latter and thus,
decided that the appellants were guilty beyond reasonable doubt of double
murder with multiple frustrated murder and double attempted murder and
imposing upon them the penalty of reclusion perpetua. The same decision of the
RTC was affirmed by the Court of Appeals.
ISSUE:

Whether or not the affirmed penalty of double murder with multiple frustrated
murder and double attempted murder were, indeed, the crimes committed by
the appellants in light of penalty of complex crimes under Article 48 of Revised
Penal Code?

RULING:

No. Article 48 states that when a single act constitutes two or more grave or less
grave felonies, the penalty for the most serious crime shall be imposed, the same
to be applied in its maximum period. To apply the first half of Article 48, there
must be singularity of criminal act; singularity of criminal impulse is not written
into the law. From its factual backdrop, it can easily be gleaned that the killing
and wounding of the victims were not the result of a single discharge of firearms
by the appellants and their co-accused. To note, appellants and their co-accused
opened fire and rained bullets on the vehicle boarded by Mayor Tawan-tawan
and his group. Obviously, appellants and their co-accused performed not only a
single act but several individual and distinct acts in the commission of the crime.
Thus, Article 48 would not apply for it speaks only of a "single act."

The Court instead held the appellants to be liable for the separate crimes of two
(2) counts of murder and seven (7) counts of attempted murder. As to penalty.
Under Article 248 of the Revised Penal Code, the penalty imposed for the crime
of murder is reclusion perpetua to death. There being neither aggravating nor
mitigating circumstance, the penalty to be imposed upon appellants is reclusion
perpetua.