G.R. NO. 171020 - PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, VS. ALFREDO PANGILINAN Y TRINIDAD, ACCUSED-. D E C I S I O N - Supreme Court E-Library

Ruling

WHEREFORE, this Court finds the accused Alfredo Pangilinan Y Trinidad GUILTY beyond reasonable doubt of RAPE in both cases, Criminal Cases Nos. DH-586-97 and 587-97, and hereby sentences him to suffer the penalty of DEATH for each case and to indemnify the victim, AAA, with the sum of FIFTY THOUSAND (P50,000.00) PESOS. [12] The trial court was convinced that private complainant was raped several times by her father during the month of September 1995, and once on 5 January 1997. It accorded credence to the testimony of private complainant who, at 12 years old testified in a spontaneous and direct manner. It found private complainant to be immature, innocent, naïve, unfamiliar with sex and incapable of inventing or fabricating charges against her own father when the sexual assaults were committed in September 1995 and January 1997 when she was only 10 or 11 years old. The trial court brushed aside appellant's defense of denial. It said it is simply unbelievable for a ten-year old girl to be as malicious as appellant described his daughter. It explained that the minor inconsistencies in private complainant's testimony did not in any way affect her credibility. In conclusion, the trial court said: In this society, at a time when incestuous acts are not uncommon, and with the situation where the accused and offended party were in, when the wife of the accused was away working in Singapore, it is easy to believe that his loneliness urged him to sexually abuse his daughter. The offended party had no ill motive in filing the case against him. It was even the paternal grandmother who initially informed her mother that the accused was raping his daughter while she was gone. For fear that the accused might do it again, the paternal grandmother was trying to prevail over the mother who was again planning to leave for abroad. The one responsible for bringing the matter to the attention of the mother who later reported to the police was no less tha(n) the mother of the accused. A mother would not allow herself to be used to make her son suffer, (e)specially if the charges are fabricated. She heard the cries/shouts from the offended party while the accused was sexually assaulting her. What she did was to tell the truth. Is accused blaming her own mother for simply telling the truth? [13] Inasmuch as the penalty it imposed was the death penalty, the trial court forwarded the records of the case to the Supreme Court for automatic review pursuant to Section 10, Rule 122 of the 2000 Rules of Criminal Procedure. [14] However, pursuant to our ruling in People v. Mateo , [15] the case was transferred to the Court of Appeals for appropriate action and disposition. [16] On 16 November 2005, the Court of Appeals affirmed the death penalties imposed by the trial court but modified the amounts of damages awarded. The decretal portion of the decision reads: WHEREFORE, premises considered, the Decision dated September 9, 1999 of the Regional Trial Court, Branch V, Dinalupiha