People v. Domasian
G.R. No. 95322 March 1, 1993
Lessons Applicable:
Laws Applicable: Art. 4
FACTS:
• March 11, 1982 morning: While Enrico was walking with Tirso Ferreras, his classmate, along Roque street in the poblacion of Lopez, Quezon, he was approached by Pablito Domasian who requested his assistance in getting his father's signature on a medical certificate. Enrico agreed to help and rode with the man in a tricycle to Calantipayan, where he waited outside while the man went into a building to get the certificate. Enrico became apprehensive and started to cry when, instead of taking him to the hospital, the man flagged a minibus and forced him inside, holding him firmly all the while. The man told him to stop crying or he would not be returned to his father. When they alighted at Gumaca, they took another tricycle, this time bound for the municipal building from where they walked to the market. Here the man talked to a jeepney driver and handed him an envelope addressed to Dr. Enrique Agra, the boy's father. The two then boarded a tricycle headed for San Vicente. As Enrico was crying and being firmly held, Alexander Grate, the tricycle driver became suspicious and asked Domasian about his relationship with the boy who told him they were brothers. Their physical differences and the wide gap between their ages made Grate doubt so he immediately reported the matter to two barangay tanods when his passengers alighted from the tricycle. Grate and the tanods went after the two and saw the man dragging the boy. Noticing that they were being pursued, Domasian was able to escape, leaving Enrico behind. Enrico was on his way home in a passenger jeep when he met his parents, who were riding in the hospital ambulance and already looking for him.
• At about 1:45 in the afternoon of the same day, after Enrico's return, Agra received an envelope containing a ransom note. The note demanded P1 million for the release of Enrico and warned that otherwise the boy would be killed. Agra thought the handwriting in the note was familiar. After comparing it with some records in the hospital, he gave the note to the police, which referred it to the NBI for examination
• March 11, 1982 1:45 pm: Agra received an envelope containing a ransom note demanding P1 million otherwise Enrico will be killed. . Agra thought the handwriting in the note was familiar so he referred it to the NBI for examination and it turned out to be Dr. Samson Tan’s signature.
• Domasian and Tan were subsequently charged with the crime of kidnapping with serious illegal detention in the Regional Trial Court of Quezon
o Domasian’s alibi: at the time of the incident he was watching a mahjong game in a friend's house and later went to an optical clinic with his wife for the refraction of his eyeglasses
o Dr. Tan’s alibi: he was in Manila
• Enrico, Tirso Ferreras and Grate all pointed Domasian.
• RTC: Domasian and Tan guilty as charged and sentenced them to suffer the penalty of reclusion perpetua and all accessory penalties
• Appealed
ISSUE: W/N Domasian and Tan is guilty of kidnapping kidnapping with serious illegal detention
HELD: YES. appealed decision is AFFIRMED
• Art. 267. Kidnapping and serious illegal detention may consist not only in placing a person in an enclosure but also in detaining him or depriving him in any manner of his liberty
• Tan claims that the lower court erred in not finding that the sending of the ransom note was an impossible crime which he says is not punishable.
• Tan conveniently forgets the first paragraphs of the same article, which clearly applies to him, thus:
Art. 4. Criminal liability. — Criminal liability shall be incurred:
1. By any person committing a felony (delito) although the wrongful act done be different from that which he intended.
• Even before the ransom note was received, the crime of kidnapping with serious illegal detention had already been committed. The act cannot be considered an impossible crime because there was no inherent improbability of its accomplishment or the employment of inadequate or ineffective means. The sending of the ransom note would have had the effect only of increasing the penalty to death under the last paragraph of Article 267 although this too would not have been possible under the new Constitution.
• On the issue of conspiracy, we note first that it exists when two or more persons come to an agreement concerning the commission of a felony and decide to commit it, whether they act through physical volition of one or all, proceeding severally or collectively. These acts were complementary to each other and geared toward the attainment of the common ultimate objective, viz., to extort the ransom of P1 million in exchange for Enrico's life.
• The motive for the offense is not difficult to discover. According to Agra, Tan approached him 6 days before the incident happened and requested a loan of at least P15,000.00. Agra said he had no funds at that moment and Tan did not believe him, angrily saying that Agra could even raise a million pesos if he really wanted to help.
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