Case Digest: Antonio Lejano vs.

People of the Philippines

G.R. No. 176389 14 December 2010

FACTS:

On 30 June 1991, Estellita Vizconde and her daughters Carmela and Jennifer were
brutally slain at their home in Paranaque City. Four years later in 1995, the NBI
announced that it had solved the crime. It presented star-witness Jessica Alfaro, one of
its informers, who claimed that she had witnessed the crime. She pointed to Hubert
Webb, Antonio Lejano, Artemio Ventura, Michael Gatchalian, Hospicio Fernandez, Peter
Estrada, Miguel Rodriguez and Joy Filart as the culprits. She also tagged police officer,
Gerardo Biong, as an accessory after the fact. Alfaro had been working as an asset to
the NBI by leading the agency to criminals. Some of the said criminals had been so
high-profile, that Alfaro had become the “darling” of the NBI because of her
contribution to its success. The trial court and the Court of Appeals found that Alfaro’s
direct and spontaneous narration of events unshaken by gruesome cross-examination
should be given a great weight in the decision of the case.

In Alfaro’s story, she stated that after she and the accused got high of shabu, she was
asked to see Carmela at their residence. After Webb was informed that Carmela had a
male companion with her, Webb became piqued and thereafter consumed more drugs
and plotted the gang rape on Carmela. Webb, on the other hand, denied all the
accusations against him with the alibi that during the whole time that the crime had
taken place, he was staying in the United States. He had apparently left for the US on
09 March 1991 and only returned on 27 October 1992. As documentary evidence, he
presented photocopies of his passport with four stamps recording his entry and exit
from both the Philippines and the US, Flight’s Passenger Manifest employment
documents in the US during his stay there and US-INS computer generated certification
authenticated by the Philippine DFA. Aside from these documentary alibis, he also gave
a thorough recount of his activities in the US

ISSUE:
Whether or not Webb’s documented alibi of his U.S. travel should be given more
credence by the Court than the positive identification by Alfaro.

RULING:

For a positive identification to be acceptable, it must meet at least two criteria:

The positive identification of the offender must come from a credible witness; and

The witness’ story of what she personally saw must be believable, not inherently
contrived.

The Supreme Court found that Alfaro and her testimony failed to meet the above
criteria. She did not show up at the NBI as a spontaneous witness bothered by her
conscience. She had been hanging around the agency for sometime as a stool pigeon,
one paid for mixing up with criminals and squealing on them. And although her
testimony included details, Alfaro had prior access to the details that the investigators
knew of the case. She took advantage of her familiarity with these details to include in
her testimony the clearly incompatible acts of Webb hurling a stone at the front door
glass frames, for example, just so she can accommodate the crime scene feature.

To establish alibi, the accused must prove by positive, clear and satisfactory evidence
that:

He was present at another place at the time of the perpetration of the crime, and

That it was physically impossible for him to be at the scene of the crime.

The Supreme Court gave very high credence to the compounded documentary alibi
presented by Webb. This alibi altogether impeaches Alfaro’s testimony not only with
respect to him, but also with respect to the other accused. For, if the Court accepts the
proposition that Webb was in the US when the crime took place, Alfaro’s testimony will
not hold altogether. Webb’s participation is the anchor of Alfaro’s story.