Article 248 of the Revised Penal Code prescribes the penalty of reclusion temporal in its maximum period to death for the crime of murder. Although the attendant circumstances of treachery and evident premeditation were found by the lower court to exist, either one may be sufficient to qualify the crime to murder while the other may be treated as a generic aggravating circumstance. It was error therefore for the court below to impose the penalty of "reclusion temporal to its maximum period to reclusion perpetua." It should have instead imposed a specific penalty, otherwise, there would have been difficulty in implementing the same. However, based on the foregoing, and in view of the constitutional proscription, the trial court should have imposed properly the penalty of reclusion perpetua. [G.R. Nos. 112716-17. December 16, 1996]
