People of the Philippine Islands v Silverio Daos G.R. No. L-40331, December 8, 2015

Facts:
Appellants were convicted of the complex crime of robbery with homicide and was sentenced to death, to indemnify the heirs of their victim Felino Dumalo. The say the trial court improperly declared them guilty of murder, improperly imposed the death penalty, and failed to estimate in their favor the mitigating circumstance of having acted upon impulses so powerful as to have produced passion and obfuscation.

Issue:
Whether the appellants committed robbery with homicide

Held:
Yes. The appellants’ act in pretending to be bona fide passengers in the car of the deceased, when they were not so in fact, in order not to arouse his suspicion, constitutes craft; and the fact that in assaulting him, they did so from behind, catching him completely unawares, he believing, as in fact he believed, that he had in his car, not bad men who were plotting against his life, but bona fide passengers, certainly constitutes treachery.

The appellants’ confessions also show that the liability of each of the appellants is also the liability of all of them together, on the ground that Dumalo’s death and the robbery committed against him were the result of a conspiracy and a previously prepared and conceived plan which was later carefully carried out by them, each of them having contributed with separate acts which, although less effective, were indispensable to the attainment of the same end.

It is obvious that the appellants committed the crime of robbery with homicide, clearly and conclusively proven by the prosecution.

The elements of robbery and those of homicide were conclusively proven by the prosecution in this case which is for robbery with homicide. The appellants’ act was the result of the plan which the three had previously conceived in order to absolutely insure its execution without risk to any of them. In the commission of the crime, the aggravating circumstances of craft and treachery should be taken into consideration.