Senate: De Lima testimony is hearsay

Thursday, February 23, 2012

MANILA -- The Senate on Thursday ruled that Justice Secretary Leila De Lima has no personal knowledge on supposed irregularities in the Supreme Court's decision to issue an injunction on her department's watch-list order against Pampanga Representative Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

De Lima, citing the dissenting opinion of Associate Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, said on Wednesday and again on Thursday, that there were irregularities on how the SC arrived at its decision to issue a temporary restraining order. According to Sereno, "(Chief Justice Renato) Corona sent in his own handwritten corrections on the typewritten draft resolution from Justice (Presbitero, Jr.) Velasco with the instruction that the Chief Justice's version is to be immediately promulgated."

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She also said the Supreme Court tried to implement the TRO despite failure by the Arroyo camp to follow conditions attached to the injunction. She said the conditional TRO "was made to appear that it could already be implemented."

The prosecution has accused Corona of partiality to Arroyo, who appointed him as Chief Justice, and presented De Lima as their witness.

Under cross-examination by Serafin Cuevas, defense lawyer, De Lima admitted that she has no personal knowledge of the Supreme Court's deliberations since she is not a member of the court. With that, the defense asked the Senate impeachment court to strike De Lima's testimony off the record for being hearsay.

He added De Lima seemed to have "swallowed hook, line, and sinker" the issues that Sereno raised in her dissent. He said this may be because the dissenting opinion supports her decision to disregard the TRO when it was issued in November last year.

Northern Samar Representative Raul Daza objected to the motion, saying the dissenting opinion is an official document and the court can take judicial notice of it.

Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago then took the floor to manifest that De Lima's testimony is clearly hearsay. She said that De Lima, in testifying, was merely offering her opinion. She said that there are exceptions to the hearsay rule but that the prosecution will have to prove that these apply to De Lima.

She added that de Lima can only give her opinion as testimony if she was qualified as an expert witness. The prosecution did not do that.

Enrile, as presiding officer, ruled that De Lima's testimony would remain on the record but that de Lima cannot testify on the truth or falsity of the issues Sereno raised.

De Lima later said that parts of her testimony," by and large, is indeed hearsay." (Jonathan de Santos/Sunnex)