03/02/2020 G.R. No. 204894 phone that contained messages which led to the entrapment and capture of the other accused who were also taxicab drivers. 2. Enojas fled during the commotion rather than remain in the cab to go to the police station where he was about to be taken for questioning, tending to show that he had something to hide. He certainly did not go to the police afterwards to clear up the matter and claim his taxi. 3. PO2 Gregorio positively identified accused Gomez as one of the men he saw running away from the scene of the shooting. 4. The text messages identified "Kua Justin" as one of those who engaged PO2 Pangilinan in the shootout; the messages also referred to "Kua Justin" as the one who was hit in such shootout and later died in a hospital in Bacoor, Cavite. These messages linked the other accused. 5. During the follow-up operations, the police investigators succeeded in entrapping accused Santos, Jalandoni, Enojas, and Gomez, who were all named in the text messages. 6. The text messages sent to the phone recovered from the taxi driven by Enojas clearly made references to the 7-11 shootout and to the wounding of "Kua Justin," one of the gunmen, and his subsequent death. 7. The context of the messages showed that the accused were members of an organized group of taxicab drivers engaged in illegal activities. 8. Upon the arrest of the accused, they were found in possession of mobile phones with call numbers that corresponded to the senders of the messages received on the mobile phone that accused Enojas left in his taxicab.13 The Court must, however, disagree with the CA’s ruling that the aggravating circumstances of a) aid of armed men and b) use of unlicensed firearms qualified the killing of PO2 Pangilinan to murder. In "aid of armed men," the men act as accomplices only. They must not be acting in the commission of the crime under the same purpose as the principal accused, otherwise they are to be regarded as co-principals or co-conspirators. The use of unlicensed firearm, on the other hand, is a special aggravating circumstance that is not among the circumstances mentioned in Article 248 of the Revised Penal Code as qualifying a homicide to murder.14 Consequently, the accused in this case may be held liable only for homicide, aggravated by the use of unlicensed firearms, a circumstance alleged in the information. As to the admissibility of the text messages, the RTC admitted them in conformity with the Court’s earlier Resolution applying the Rules on Electronic Evidence to criminal actions.15 Text messages are to be proved by the testimony of a person who was a party to the same or has personal knowledge of them.16 Here, PO3 Cambi, posing as the accused Enojas, exchanged text messages with the other accused in order to identify and entrap them. As the recipient of those messages sent from and to the mobile phone in his possession, PO3 Cambi had personal knowledge of such messages and was competent to testify on them. The accused lament that they were arrested without a valid warrant of arrest. But, assuming that this was so, it cannot be a ground for acquitting them of the crime charged but for rejecting any evidence that may have been taken from them after an unauthorized search as an incident of an unlawful arrest, a point that is not in issue here. At any rate, a crime had been committed—the killing of PO2 Pangilinan—and the investigating police officers had personal knowledge of facts indicating that the persons they were to arrest had committed it.17 The text messages to and from the mobile phone left at the scene by accused Enojas provided strong leads on the participation and identities of the accused. Indeed, the police caught them in an entrapment using this knowledge. 1âwphi1 The award of damages by the courts below has to be modified to conform to current jurisprudence.18 WHEREFORE, the Court MODIFIES the Court of Appeals Decision of June 14, 2012 in CA-G.R. CR-HC 03377. The Court instead FINDS accused-appellants Noel Enojas y Hingpit, Arnold Gomez y Fabregas, Fernando Santos y Delantar, and Roger Jalandoni y Ari GUILTY of the lesser crime of HOMICIDE with the special aggravating circumstance of use of unlicensed firearms. Applying the Indeterminate Sentence Law, the Court SENTENCES each of them to 12 years of prision mayor, as minimum, to 20 years of reclusion temporal, as maximum. The Court also MODIFIES the award of exemplary damages by increasing it to ₱30,000.00, with an additional ₱50,000.00 for civil indemnity. SO ORDERED. ROBERTO A. ABAD Associate Justice WE CONCUR: PRESBITERO J. VELASCO, JR. Associate Justice Chairperson DIOSDADO M. PERALTA Associate Justice JOSE CATRAL MENDOZA Associate Justice MARVIC MARIO VICTOR F. LEONEN Associate Justice ATTESTATION I attest that the conclusions in the above Decision had been reached in consultation before the case was assigned to the writer of the opinion of the Court's Division. PRESBITERO J. VELASCO, JR. Associate Justice Chairperson, Third Division CERTIFICATION Pursuant to Section 13, Article VIII of the Constitution and the Division Chairperson's Attestation, I certify that the conclusions in the above Decision had been reached in consultation before the case was assigned to the writer of the opinion of the Court's Division. MARIA LOURDES P. A. SERENO Chief Justice Footnotes 1 Records, p. 1. https://lawphil.net/judjuris/juri2014/mar2014/gr_204894_2014.html 2/3