G.R. No.

L-46272 June 13, 1986

PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, plaintiff-appellee,

CRUZ, J.:

This is an automatic review of the Decision of the Circuit Criminal Court, Seventh Judicial District,
imposing the death penalty upon Alberto Opida and Virgilio Marcelo for the crime of murder.

Unlike the victim in this case, who died from only one stab wound, the decision under review suffers
from several fatal flaws, all equally deadly. It suffices to discuss only one of them.

Time and again this Court has declared that due process requires no less than the cold neutrality of
an impartial judge.   Bolstering this requirement, we have added that the judge must not only be
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impartial but must also appear to be impartial, to give added assurance to the parties that his
decision will be just.   The parties are entitled to no less than this, as a minimum guaranty of due
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process. This guaranty was not observed in this case.

On July 31, 1976, in Quezon City, several persons ganged up on Fabian Galvan, stoned and hit him
with beer bottles until finally one of them stabbed him to death. The actual knife-wielder was
identified as Mario del Mundo.   Nonetheless, Alberto Opida and Virgilio Marcelo were charged with
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murder as conspirators and, after trial, sentenced to death.  4

The basis of their conviction by the trial court was the testimony of two prosecution witnesses,
neither of whom positively said that the accused were at the scene of the crime, their extrajudicial
confessions, which were secured without the assistance of counsel, and corroboration of the alleged
conspiracy under the theory of interlocking confession.  5

What is striking about this case is the way the trial judge conducted his interrogation of the two
accused and their lone witness, Lilian Layug. It was hardly judicious and certainly far from judicial, at
times irrelevant, at Worst malicious. Reading the transcript, one gathers the impression that the
judge had allied himself with the prosecution to discredit at the outset the credibility of the witnesses
for the defense.

Opida is a police character, admittedly a member of the Commando gang and with a string of
convictions for robbery, theft and vagrancy.   It is worth noting that the judge took special interest in
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his tattoos, required him to remove his shirt so they could be examined, and even described them in
detail for the record.  7

Besides belaboring Opida's criminal activities and his tattoos, the judge asked him if he had "ever
been convicted at the National Mental Hospital with what else but malice and suggested to him that
his claim of manhandling by the police was a lie because investigators leave no mark when they
torture a suspect.   This was a point that could have been validly raised by the prosecution but
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certainly not by the court. The judge also made it of record that the witness was gnashing his teeth,
was showing signs of hostility, that he was uneasy and that he was restless. "Now, whom do you
want to fool the judge asked, "the prosecutor, your lawyer, or the court?  9
In the hearing of September 22, 1976, the interrogation of Virgilio Marcelo, the other accused, was
conducted almost wholly by the judge who started cross-examining the witness even before the
defense counsel could ask his first question, and took over from the prosecution the task of
impeaching Marcelo's credibility.  The judge asked him about his drug addiction, his membership in
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the Commando gang, his tattoos, his parentage, his activities, his criminal record all when he was
supposed to be under direct examination by his own lawyer. Defense counsel could hardly put in a
word edgewise because the judge kept interrupting to ask his own questions.  11

The questions were not clarificatory but adversary; and when they were not adversary, they were
irrelevant, and sometimes also cruel. At one point, the judge drew from the witness the statement
that his mother was living with another man; forthwith he suggested that the mother was unfaithful to
his father.   We deplore this sadistic treatment of the witness, especially as, for all his supposed
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"toughness," he could not answer back. We fail to see what possible connection the mother's
infidelity could have had, by any stretch of the imagination, with the instant prosecution.

But the judge was to save the best or worst of his spite for the third witness, Lilian Layug, a waitress
in the restaurant where the appellant Opida was working as a cook. Noting at the outset that she
spoke English, he wanted to know where she had learned it and asked in ill-concealed insinuation if
she had worked in Angeles City or Olongapo or Sangley.   Because she was gesturing nervously,
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he asked, "Are you a conductor?   Of the two accused, he asked her, "They are very proud of
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belonging to the Commando gang to which the witness answered, putting him in his place, "That I do
not know, Your Honor."  15

One cannot but note the mockery in the following questions put by the judge to the witness, who was
probably wondering what the interrogation was all about

Court

Q You are a very good friend of Alberto Opida?

A Yes, Your Honor.

Q You have known him for years?

A One year only, Your Honor.

Q He always feed you with his favorite menu?

A Yes, Your Honor.

Q He is a very good cook?

A Yes, Your Honor.

Q Because what he could cook, you could not cook?

A I know also how to cook, Your Honor.

Q Answer my question.

A Yes, Your Honor.

A Yes, Your Honor.

Q So, your admiration developed because of his cooking?

A Yes, Your Honor.

Q What favorite dish does he cook that you like, as far as you are
concerned?

A Adobo, Your Honor.

Q Most often you request him to cook adobo for you?

A Yes, Your Honor.

Q That is precisely one of the reasons why you also admire him?

A That is also a part, Your Honor,

Q Whenever you request him to cook adobo for you, he always

A Yes, Your Honor.

Q As a matter of fact, the moment that he starts cooking adobo, you

A Yes, Your Honor,

Q That starts your admiration for him.

A Yes, Your Honor.

Q And in return you reciprocate?

A Yes, Your Honor.

Q What kind of reciprocation do you give to Alberto Opida, whenever

A None, Your Honor.

Q Whenever he cooks adobo, he was singing?

A Sometimes, Your Honor.

Q What kind of song?

Q And you were also affected by it?

A No, Your Honor.

Q You mean to say, you are not very fond of emotional songs?

A I am not, because Cora is not minding him, Your Honor.

Q But sometimes he sings in the absence of Cora because, as you

A Yes, Your Honor.

Q What does he sings (sic) for you?

A He sings many songs, Your Honor.

Q For example, give the title

A Milagro, Your Honor.

Q He also sings Diyos Lamang Ang Nakakaalam?

A Sometimes, Your Honor.

Q He also sings Kapantay ay Langit?

A Yes, Your Honor.

Q He also sings Sapagkat Tayo'y Tao Lamang?

A I did not hear, Your Honor.

Q But, you said he also sings even in the absence of Cora?

A Yes, Your Honor.

Q You smell adobo while he cooks and sings. So, you developed
admiration also?

A Little only, Your Honor.

Q One way or another you have appreciated him, but the only thing,
as you know, he is related to Cora in the same way?

A Yes, Your Honor.

A Yes, Your Honor. 16

On direct examination, Opida challenged his extrajudicial confession, claiming it had been obtained
without observance of the rights available under Article IV, Section 20 of the Constitution, particularly
the right to counsel.   Parenthetically, the extrajudicial confession of Marcelo was also made without
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assistance of counsel.   Opida also testified, under questioning from his counsel, that he had been
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repeatedly hit with a "dos por dos" by a police officer while he was being investigated.  19

We have consistently held that the rights guaranteed during a custodial investigation are not
supposed to be merely communicated to the suspect, especially if he is unlettered, but must be
painstakingly explained to him so he can understand their nature and significance. Moreover,
manhandling of any sort will vitiate any extrajudicial confession that may be extracted from him and
renders it inadmissible in evidence against him.  20

Those principles were given mere lip service by the judge, who did not bother to look deeper into the
validity of the challenged confessions.

Given the obvious hostility of the judge toward the defense, it was inevitable that all the protestations
of the accused in this respect would be, as they in fact were, dismissed. And once the confessions
were admitted, it was easy enough to employ them as corroborating evidence of the claimed
conspiracy among the accused.

The accused are admittedly notorious criminals who were probably even proud of their membership
in the Commando gang even as they flaunted their tattoos as a badge of notoriety.   Nevertheless,
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they were entitled to be presumed innocent until the contrary was proved and had a right not to be
held to answer for a criminal offense without due process of law.  22

The judge disregarded these guarantees and was in fact all too eager to convict the accused, who
had manifestly earned his enmity. When he said at the conclusion of the trial, "You want me to
dictate the decision now?"  , he was betraying a pre-judgment long before made and obviously
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waiting only to be formalized.

The scales of justice must hang equal and, in fact, should even be tipped in favor of the accused
because of the constitutional presumption of innocence. Needless to stress, this right is available to
every accused, whatever his present circumstance and no matter how dark and repellent his past.
Despite their sinister connotations in our society, tattoos are at best dubious adornments only and
surely not under our laws indicia of criminality. Of bad taste perhaps, but not of crime.

In any event, convictions are based not on the mere appearance of the accused but on his actual
commission of crime, to be ascertained with the pure objectivity of the true judge who must uphold
the law for all without favor or malice and always with justice.

Accused-appellants Opida and Marcelo, who have been imprisoned since 1976, have sent us
separate letters pleading for the resolution of their death sentences one way or the other once and
for all. Considering the way they were tried, we now declare that they should not be detained in jail a
minute longer. While this is not to say that the accused are not guilty, it does mean that, because
their constitutional rights have been violated, their guilt, if it exists, has not been established beyond
reasonable doubt and so cannot be pronounced. Due process has stayed the uneven hand of the
quick condemnor and must set the defendants free.

WHEREFORE, the conviction of Alberto Opida and Virgilio Marcelo is reversed and they are hereby
ordered released immediately. No costs.

SO ORDERED.