People v.

Maqueda
G.R. No. 112983 March 22, 1995
J. Davide, Jr.

Topic: Miranda Rights

Petitioner:
Respondent: Hector Maqueda and Rene Salvamante (at large)

FACTS:
 April 27, 1991: A robbery happened at the residence of Britisher Horace William Barker and
Filipino wife, Teresita Mendoza in Tuba, Benguet.
o Horace was brutally slain with lead pipes, while Teresita was badly battered with lead pipes
as well.
 Sufficient prima facie evidence pointed to Rene Salvamante, the victims’ former houseboy, as one of
the perpetrators of the felony.
 Richard Malig was initially included in the information for robbery with homicide and serious
physical injuries filed in Benguet RTC.
o He was arrested. But before his arraignment, the prosecution filed a motion to amend the
information to implead as co-accused Hector Maqueda a.k.a. Putol.
o The Prosecutor then asked that Malig be dropped from the information because the evidence
against him wasn’t sufficient. The motion was granted.
 Warrants for the arrest of Salvamante and Maqueda were issued.
 March 4, 1992: Maqueda was arrested.
 April 9, 1992: Maqueda filed an application for bail. He categorically stated that “he is willing and
volunteering to be a State witness, as he is the least guilty among the accused.”
 Salvamante remained at large.
 April 22, 1992: The trial ensued, and the court entered a plea of not guilty for Salvamante.
 Maqueda was found guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the crime of robbery with homicide and
serious physical injuries.
 Prosecution’s version:
o August 27, 1991: At 6 am, Norie Dacara, a househelp who shared a room with Julieta
Villanueva, her cousin and fellow househelp, woke up and went to the comfort room. She
was surprised to see Rene Salvamante there. She knew him because she and Julieta replaced
Salvamante and his sister as the househelps.
o Salvamante strangled her. She saw beside him a fair-skinned, tall man whom she identified
as Maqueda. She fled towards the garage but Salvamante pulled her back into the house.
o Julieta got up and saw a man brandishing a lead pipe outside her door. She immediately
closed the door and she held on to it as the man was trying to force his way in. She pointed
to Maqueda as the man she saw.
o The screams awakened Teresita. She saw Salvamante and a man she identified as Maqueda
in the dining room. They rushed to her and battered her with lead pipes until she lost
consciousness. Salvamenta made Julieta and Norie open the door of the garage. After that,
the two women hid in their room.
o Mike Tabayan and Mark Pacio who were in a waiting shed beside the Asin road a kilometer
away from the Barkers’ home saw the two men who asked them if the road they were
following would lead to Naguilian, La Union. Mike replied that it did not. They identified
the shorter man as Salvamante and the taller man with an amputated left hand and a right
hand with a missing thumb and index finger as Maqueda.
o September 1, 1991: A police team from the Tuba Police Station came to the hospital bed of
Mrs. Barker and asked her to identify the persons who beat her. She identified one Richard
Malig. When informed of the investigation, Dr. Hernandez told them it was improper for
them to investigate since Teresita had not yet fully recovered consciousness and her eyesight
was impaired.
 o March 1992: They received an information that Maqueda had been arrested in Guinyangan,
Quezon. He was turned over to Maj. Anagaran who brought him to the Benguet Provincial
Jail.
o Before Maj. Anagaran arrived, Maqueda was taken to the headquarters of the 235th PNP
Mobile Force Company. SP03 Amando Molleno informed him of his rights and got his
statement. Maqueda signed a Sinumpaang Salaysay narrating his participation in the crime.
o While under detention, Maqueda filed a Motion to Grant Bail in which he stated that he is
willing and volunteering to be a State witness in the case. Prosecutor Zarate talked to
Maqueda and asked him if he was in the company of Salvamante on that fateful day. When
he got an affirmative answer, Zarate told him he would oppose the motion to bail since
Maqueda is the only one on trial.
o Ray Dean Salvosa arrived at the Office of the Prosecutor Zarate and obtained permission to
talk to Maqueda. Maqueda narrated to Salvosa that Salvamante brought him to Baguio to
find a job as a peanut vendor but instead brought him to the victims’ house and told him of
his plan. He initially objected but agreed to it later on.
 Maqueda’s defense was denial and alibi.
o He avers that it was impossible for him to be participating on the crime because he was at the
polvoron factory of Minda Castrense on that day. He said he was teaching the new
employees how to make polvoron seasoning.
o December 20, 1991: Maqueda went home to Gapas, Guinyangan for vacation and ran into
Salvamenta, his childhood playmate. They just waved to each other.
o He again saw Salvamante after Christmas day and Salvamante invited him to go to Calauag.
Since he wanted to visit his brother, he agreed. When they got there, Salvamante asked him
to help him sell one cassette recorder he got from Baguio. After that, he never saw
Salvamante again.
o March 2, 1992: He was arrested by CAFGU members, and was told that if he points to
Salvamante, he would be freed and become a state witness. He told them he could testify to
Salvamante’s sale of the cassette recorder.
 As a rebuttal to Maqueda’s defense, the prosecution presented Fredesminda Castrence, the owner of
the factory Maqueda worked for and SP03 Molleno. She claims that her business started only on
August 30, 1991 which makes it impossible for her to have hired Maqueda on July 5, 1991. SP03
Molleno declared that he informed Maqueda of his constitutional rights before Maqueda was
investigated and that Maqueda voluntarily and freely gave his Sinumpaang Salaysay.
 The trial court disregarded the testimonies of Teresita Barker and the two househelps on Maqueda’s
identification. However, a conviction was ruled based on Maqueda’s extrajudicial confession, the
proof of corpus delicti and other circumstantial evidence.

ISSUE + HOLDING: WON the trial court erred in finding the accused guilty beyond reasonable doubt.
NO.

 The trial court was wrong to rule that the rights to counsel and against self-incrimination are
available only to the accused during custodial investigation and not after a criminal complaint or
information has already been filed as well.
 Benguet RTC distinguished between an extrajudicial confession (Maqueda’s Sinumpaang Salaysay)
and an extrajudicial admission (the verbal admissions to Prosecutor Zarate and Ray Dean Salvosa).
But an examination of the Sinumpaang Salaysay shows that it is an extrajudicial admission rather
than an extrajudicial confession.
 The distinction is made clear in Sections 26 and 33, Rule 130 of the Rules of Court.
o Sec. 26: Admission of a party -- The act, declaration or omission of a party as to a relevant
fact may be given in evidence against him.
o Sec 33. Confession -- The declaration of an accused acknowledging his guilty of the offense
charged, or of any offense necessarily included therein, may be given in evidence against
him.
 A confession is an acknowledgement in express terms, by a party in a criminal case, of his guilty of
the crime charged while an admission is a statement by the accused, direct or implied, of facts
pertinent to the issue and tending, in connection with proof of other facts, to prove his guilty.
 o An admission is something less than a confession and is but an acknowledgement of some
fact or circumstance which, in itself is sufficient to authorize a conviction.
 RTC:
o At the time the Sinumpaang Salaysay was made, Maqueda was already facing charges in
court He no longer had the right to remain silent and to counsel, but he had a right to refuse
to be a witness. Maqueda voluntarily confessed. The admissibility of the Sinumpaang
Salaysay should be tested not under Article III, Section 12 (1) of the 1987 Constitution 1 but
on the voluntariness of its execution. Voluntariness is presumed so Maqueda has the burden
of proving otherwise.
 SUPREME COURT:
o The exercise of the rights to remain silent and to counsel and to be informed are not confined
to that period prior to filing of a criminal complaint or information but also available at that
stage when a person is under investigation for the commission of an offense. Procedural
safeguards still need to be used.
o The fact that the framers of our Constitution did not choose to use the term “custodial” by
inserting it between the words “under” and “investigation” proves that our Constitution did
not adopt in toto the entire fabric of the Miranda doctrine. The second paragraph of Article
IV, Section 20 of the 1973 Constitution 2 broadened the application of Miranda by making it
applicable to the investigation for the commission of an offense of a person and in custody.
o If the RTC’s theory is to be followed, police enforcement authorities would have a heyday
extracting confessions or admissions from accused persons after they had been arrested but
before they are arraigned because at such stage, the accused are supposedly not entitled to
the rights to remain silent and to counsel.
o Once a criminal complaint or information is filed in court and the accused is thereby arrested
by virtue of a warrant of arrest, he must be delivered to the nearest police station or jail and
the arresting officer must make a return of the warrant to the issuing judge, and since the
court has already accepted jurisdiction over his person, it would be improper for any public
officer or law enforcement agency to investigate him in connection with the commission of
the offense for which he is charged. If, nevertheless, he is subjected to such investigation,
then Section 12(1), Article III of the Constitution and the jurisprudence thereon must be
faithfully complied with.
o The Sinumpaang Salaysay of Maqueda taken after his arrest was in violation of his
rights. He was not even told of any of his constitutional rights under the said section
and the statement was taken in the absence of a counsel.
o The extrajudicial admissions of Maqueda to Prosecutor Zarate and Ray Dean Salvosa,
however, stand on a different footing and are not governed by the exclusionary rules under
the Bill of Rights. He made them voluntarily and freely made them to Prosecutor Zarate not
in the course of an investigation but in connection with his plea to be used as a state witness.
As to Salvosa, he is a private person.
 The Bill of Rights concerns limitations on the government.
o Even if we disregard his extrajudicial admissions, his guilt beyond reasonable doubt was still
established by circumstantial evidence.
 In the light of his admissions to Prosecutor Zarate and Ray Dean Salvosa and his
willingness to be a state witness, Maqueda's participation in the commission of the
crime charged was established beyond moral certainty. His defense of alibi was
futile because by his own admission he was not only at the scene of the crime at the
time of its commission, he also admitted his participation therein.

RULING: The instant appeal is DISMISSED. The appealed decision of Benguet RTC is AFFIRMED.
1
Sec. 12. (1) Any person under investigation for the commission of an offense shall have the right to be informed of his
right to remain silent and to have competent and independent counsel preferably of his own choice. If the person cannot
afford the services of counsel, he must be provided with one. These rights cannot be waived except in writing and in the
presence of counsel.
2
Sec. 20. No person shall be compelled to be a witness against himself. Any person under investigation for the
commission of an offense shall have the right to remain silent and to counsel, and to be informed of such right. No
force, violence, threat, intimidation, or any other means which vitiate the free will shall be used against him. Any
confession obtained in violation of this section shall be inadmissible in evidence.