CRIMPRO RULE 120, SEC.

4 0 JUDGMENT IN CASE OF VARIANCE

BETWEEN ALLEGATION AND PROOF
Title G.R. No. 175602
Date: January 18, 2012
PEOPLE VS VALDEZ Ponente: BERSAMIN, J
PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PO2 EDUARDO VALDEZ and EDWIN VALDEZ,
Plaintiff-Appellee, Accused-Appellants.
FACTS
1. The Office of the City Prosecutor of Quezon City charged the two accused in the RTC with three counts of murder for
the killing of Ferdinand Sayson, Moises Sayson, Jr., and Joselito Sayson, alleging):
xx xxx the above-named accused conspiring together, confederating with and mutually helping each other,
with intent to kill, qualified with treachery, evident premeditation and abuse of superior strength did, then
and there, willfully, unlawfully and feloniously, assault, attack and employ personal violence xxx by then and
there shooting him with a gun, hitting him on his head, thereby inflicting upon him serious and mortal
wound which was the direct and immediate cause of his death, xxx xxx
State Witness ‘s Testimony
1. Estrella Sayson, (Estrella) was at the canteen (which also includes a jai alai betting station, preparing for the
celebration of the birthday of her second husband which was held later in the evening.
2. At about 10:00 o’clock in the evening, the celebration was interrupted with the arrival of the accused-appellants,
who alighted from a motorcycle in front of the jai alai fronton. accused-appellants asked the jai alai teller,
Jonathan Rubio (Jonathan), to come out.
3. Moises (deceased) approached the accused-appellants and tried to reason with them. Estrella saw the accused-
appellants armed with guns. She tried to prevent Moises from going near the accused-appellants. Moises did not
heed his mother’s warning. He went out and advised the accused-appellants not to force Jonathan to go out.
4. Estrella then heard one of the accused-appellants threaten Moises with the words “Gusto mo unahin na kita?”
Moises replied “huwag.” Successive shots were thereafter heard. Moises fell and was continuously fired upon
even after he was sprawled on the ground. Ferdinand immediately approached the scene to help his brother
Moises. Ferdinand, however was shot on the left temporal portion of his head and fell. Somebody told Joselito to
run away, but he was hit at the back while running. Joselito fell on a burger machine.
Accused-appellants ’ Contention:
 PO2 Valdez insists that the State’s witnesses (Susan Sayson, Marites Sayson and Estrella Sayson) did not really
see the events as they transpired; and that they wrongly identified the two accused as the persons who had shot
and killed the victims; and that the victims were themselves the aggressors.
 They claimed that a perusal of Estrella’s testimony would cast doubt on her statement that she actually
witnessed the shooting incident and also claimed that Estrella also failed to see who shot Moise.
ISSUE/S
1. WON the credibility of the State’s witnesses is to be questioned by pointing to inconsistencies and weaknesses in their
testimonies – NO! (Consistent with other pieces of evidence)
2. WON that the State did not establish the qualifying circumstance of treachery. – NO!( main relevant issue)
RATIO
1. The testimonial accounts of the State’s witnesses entirely jibed with the physical evidence. Specifically, the medico-
legal evidence, given that physical evidence was of the highest order and spoke the truth more eloquently than all
witnesses put together,22 the congruence between the testimonial recollections and the physical evidence rendered
the findings adverse to PO2 Valdez and Edwin conclusive.

Court ruled that, considering that the CA thereby affirmed the trial court’s findings of fact, its calibration of the
testimonies of witnesses and its assessment of their probative weight, as well as its conclusions, the Court accords
high respect, if not conclusive effect.

The only time when a reviewing court was not bound by the trial court’s assessment of credibility arises upon a
showing of a fact or circumstance of weight and influence that was overlooked and, if considered, could affect the
outcome of the case. No such fact or circumstance has been brought to the Court’s attention.

2. The Court affirms the convictions, but holds PO2 Valdez guilty only of three counts of homicide due to the failure of
the informations to allege the facts and circumstances constituting treachery.
 The averments of the informations did not sufficiently set forth the facts and circumstances describing how treachery
attended each of the killings . Indeed, the use of the gun as an instrument to kill was not per se treachery, for there
are other instruments that could serve the same lethal purpose. Nor did the use of the term treachery constitute a
sufficient averment, for that term, standing alone, was nothing but a conclusion of law, not an averment of a fact.

A practical consequence of the non-allegation of a detail that aggravates his liability is to prohibit the introduction
or consideration against the accused of evidence that tends to establish that detail. The allegations in the
information are controlling in the ultimate analysis. Thus, when there is a variance between the offense charged in
the information and that proved, and the offense as charged is included in or necessarily includes the offense
proved, the accused shall be convicted of the offense proved included in the offense charged, or of the offense
charged included in the offense proved. In that regard, an offense charged necessarily includes the offense proved
when some of the essential elements or ingredients of the former, as alleged in the information, constitute the latter;
an offense charged is necessarily included in the offense proved when the essential ingredients of the former
constitute or form part of those constituting the latter

RULING
WHEREFORE, the decision of the Court of Appeals promulgated on July 18, 2006 is MODIFIED by finding PO2 Eduardo Valdez
guilty beyond reasonable doubt of three counts of HOMICIDE

2S 2016-17 (JIMENEZ)