People vs. Enojas, G.R. No. 204894, March 10, 2014
P: ROBERTO A. ABAD
FACTS: P02 Gregorio and Pangilinan spotted a suspiciously
parked taxi. They asked the driver, Enojas for his documents. Because of the
questionable documents, the officers would like to bring him to the police
station. He voluntarily went. They stopped on a 7-11 store. PO2 Pangilinan went
to relieve himself. As he approached the door, he came upon 2 suspected robbers
and shot one dead. PO2 Pangilinan was shot causing his death. On hearing this,
PO2 Gregorio came and fired at an armed man whom he saw running. Upon returning
to his mobile car, he realized that Enojas had fled. Enojas et al was charged
with murder. Suspecting that accused Enojas was involved in the attempted
robbery, they searched the abandoned taxi and found a mobile phone. They
monitored the messages and posing as Enojas, communicated with the other
accused. Through an entrapment operation, the 2 other accused was arrested. Enojas
and Gomez was also captured. The prosecution presented the transcripts of the
mobile phone text messages between Enojas and some of his co-accused.
Enojas and others did not want to adduce any evidence
or testify in the case, they instead file a trial memorandum and pointed
out that they were entitled to an acquittal since they were all illegally
arrested and since the evidence of the text messages were inadmissible, not
having been properly identified.
RTC found all the accused
guilty of murder qualified by evident premeditation and use of armed men with
the special aggravating circumstance of use of unlicensed firearms. CA affirmed
RTC. But found the absence of evident premeditation since the prosecution
failed to prove that the several accused planned the crime before committing
it.
ISSUE: 1. Whether or not the prosecution could prove
the liability by circumstantial evidence that meets the evidentiary standard of
proof beyond reasonable doubt. 2. Whether or not the test messages are admissible.
HELD: 1. YES. It
has been held that circumstantial evidence is sufficient for conviction if: 1)
there is more than one circumstance; 2) the facts from which the inferences are
derived are proven; and 3) the combination of all the circumstances is such as
to produce a conviction beyond reasonable doubt.
Here the totality of the
circumstantial evidence the prosecution presented sufficiently provides basis
for the conviction of all the accused. The
context of the messages showed that the accused were members of an organized
group of taxicab drivers engaged in illegal activities. Upon the arrest of the
accused, they were found in possession of mobile phones with call numbers that
corresponded to the senders of the messages received on the mobile phone that
accused Enojas left in his taxicab.
2. YES. As to the admissibility of the text messages,
the RTC admitted them in conformity with the Court’s earlier Resolution
applying the Rules on Electronic Evidence to criminal actions. Text messages
are to be proved by the testimony of a person who was a party to the same or
has personal knowledge of them. Here, PO3 Cambi, posing as the accused
Enojas, exchanged text messages with the other accused in order to identify and
entrap them. As the recipient of those messages sent from and to the mobile
phone in his possession, PO3 Cambi had personal knowledge of such messages and
was competent to testify on them.
The accused lament that they were
arrested without a valid warrant of arrest.1âwphi1 But, assuming that this was so, it cannot be a
ground for acquitting them of the crime charged but for rejecting any evidence
that may have been taken from them after an unauthorized search as an incident
of an unlawful arrest, a point that is not in issue here. At any rate, a crime
had been committed—the killing of PO2 Pangilinan—and the investigating police
officers had personal knowledge of facts indicating that the persons they were
to arrest had committed it. The text messages to and from the mobile phone left
at the scene by accused Enojas provided strong leads on the participation and
identities of the accused. Indeed, the police caught them in an entrapment
using this knowledge.
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