PEOPLE VS.
IGNAS
June Ignas Y Sanggino and Wilma Grace Ignas are
husband and wife. However, Wilma was having an affair
with Nemesio Lopate.
Later on, Wilma left for Taiwan. She sent 4
letters, 2 of which are meant for Romenda Fogayao and
the other 2 for Nemesio. In her letter for Romenda, Wilma
instructed the latter to reveal to June her affair with
Nemesio.
Romenda informed June that Wilma was having
an affair with Nemesio. She added that the two had spent
a day and a night together in a room at Dangwa Inn in
Manila. June got furious. He uttered “There will be a day
for that Nemesio. I will kill that Nemesio.”
Two gunshots were heard by the witnesses in the
evening at the Trading Post (some kind of a vegetable
market) in La Trinidad, Benguet. The fallen victim was CRIMINAL LAW REVIEW DIGESTS
JUSTICE ROMEO CALLEJO
84
NOTE: © = Callejo Ponente
Nemesio. He was brought to the hospital but then he died
upon arrival.
The RTC found June guilty of murder aggravated
by treachery, nighttime, and specially aggravated by the
use of an unlicensed firearm, with no mitigating
circumstance and sentenced to the penalty of death by
lethal injection.
ISSUE:
Whether or not the RTC erred when it ruled
that the killing of the deceased was attended
by evident premeditation, treachery and
nighttime??? -- YES
Whether or not the RTC erred in
appreciating the alleged use of an
unlicensed .38 caliber firearm as an
aggravating circumstance??? -- NO
RULING: The amended information does not definitely
and categorically state that the unlawful killing was
attended by the aggravating or qualifying circumstances of
treachery, evident premeditation, and nocturnity.
The 2000 Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure
requires that the qualifying and aggravating circumstances
must be specifically alleged in the information. Although
the Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure took effect only
on December 1, 2000 or long after the fatal shooting of
Nemesio, as a procedural rule favorable to the accused, it
should be given retrospective application. Hence, absent
specific allegations of the attendant circumstances of
treachery, evident premeditation, and nocturnity in the
amended information, it was error for the trial court to
consider the same in adjudging appellant guilty of murder.
As worded, we find that the amended information under
which June was charged and arraigned, at best indicts him
only for the crime of homicide. Any conviction should,
thus, fall under the scope and coverage of Article 249 of
the Revised Penal Code.
Under R.A. No. 8294, which took effect on
July 8, 1997, where murder or homicide is committed
with the use of an unlicensed firearm, the separate
penalty for illegal possession of firearm shall no
longer be imposed since it becomes merely a special
aggravating circumstance. This Court has held in a
number of cases that there can be no separate
conviction of the crime of illegal possession of firearm
where another crime, as indicated by R.A. No. 8294, is
committed. Although R.A. No. 8294 took effect over a
year after the alleged offense was committed, it is
advantageous to June insofar as it spares him from a
separate conviction for illegal possession of firearms and
thus should be given retroactive application.
