Unreliable statement

Too much value is being given to affidavits or sworn statements in the on-going Senate investigation about the Pidal expose by Lacson. Our Senators from opposite camps are now engaged in a battle of affidavits signed by one and the same person who is turning out to be "mas mahusay sa kanila". Opposition senators say the original one is more credible while the opposite side says the second one should prevail.

For the information of our Senators, this case tells us the true value of a sworn statement.

This case involves the killing of Jaime, married to Linda with several children, the oldest of whom is eight-year old Jun. One evening at about 8 o’clock, Jaime was invited by his neighbor, Lito, to test drive the latter’s tricycle and cruise around the neighborhood. After some minutes as they reached around a bend, a commotion ensued when five men apparently inebriated blocked their path. When Jaime remarked, "pare nakararami na yata kayo ah", one of the men punched Jaime in the nape. When Jaime retaliated, the rest of the group joined. Lito saw one of them, drew out a balisong and stabbed Jaime, two others boxed the latter. The wounded Jaime fell. Stunned Lito simply watched. But his wife Linda and son Jun who were earlier attracted by the commotion, and saw the actual stabbing, ran towards him. Jun heard his father say "Lord sana mabuhay pa ako" and then asked him to remove the knife stacked deep in his father’s chest. As he sobbed, Jun extricated the knife from his father’s chest with his bare hands and threw it beside a trash can. His mother Linda wept as they carried his father’s body to the hospital where he succumbed.

Mother and son were among the eyewitnesses, aside from Lito, who identified the assailants who ganged up on Jaime. In their testimony during the trial they pointed to Armand as the knife wielder and Carlos, Rudy and Manny as his other companions.

When convicted, Armand questioned the "material and glaring" inconsistency in Linda’s testimony before the court and her sworn statement given before the police. It appears that while in her testimony before the court Linda affirmed having seen Armand stab Jaime, she stated in her sworn statement before the police that all of the assailants aided one another in clobbering him as confirmed by other onlookers. Such inconsistency created doubt as to his being the person who actually stabbed Jaime, Armand contended.

Was Armand correct?

No.

A sworn statement will not always disclose all the facts of the offense charged and sometimes even incorrectly describes some of the material occurrences narrated. A sworn statement is hardly accurate, if not incomplete, as it is invariably prepared by a third person who customarily rewords and rephrases narrations given to him by the affiant. In any case the seeming inconsistency was satisfactorily explained by Linda who testified that she was very confused following the senseless death of her husband, perhaps mulling over the premature orphanhood of her very young children (People vs. Vicente G.R. 142447, December 21, 2001)

Your attention please, dear Senators. Please don’t waste your time on those affidavits. They are not reliable evidence to prove the truth unless the affiant testifies in court where his testimony will undergo the test of a rigid cross examination pursuant to well established rules and guidelines. Please note that a sworn statement is merely a short narrative subscribed to by a person in question and answer form. It is not as exhaustive as one’s testimony in open court. Being taken without the presence of the affected party, an affidavit is almost always incomplete and often inaccurate, sometimes from partial suggestions, and sometimes from want of suggestions and inquiries. So it is generally subordinated in importance to open court declarations because it is often executed when an affiant’s mental faculties are not in such state as to afford him a fair opportunity of narrating in full the incident which has transpired. Further, affidavits are not complete reproductions of what the declarant has in mind because they are generally prepared by the administering officer and the affiant simply signs them after the same has been read to him (People vs. Liwanag 363 SCRA 62).