Friday, September 29, 2006 Bry. chief acquitted of perjury
A BARANGAY captain was cleared of perjury after the prosecution failed to present evidence that he made a “willful assertion of a falsehood.”
Barangay Captain Narciso Tablate of Inayagan, Naga, Cebu was charged with perjury for allegedly being instrumental in the dismissal of an attempted homicide case against one of his tanods.
Rolando Gasataya complained that on May 19, 1996, barangay tanod Carlito Paraiso tried to shoot him at the Minglanilla Public Market.
Fortunately for Gasataya, the gun did not fire.
Affidavit
Tablate immediately arrested Paraiso.
In an affidavit dated May 20, 1996 and submitted to Minglanilla Municipal Trial Court Judge Urbano Sayson, Tablate stated that he confiscated a gun from Paraiso and escorted him to the town’s police station for an investigation.
A case of attempted homicide was filed against Paraiso.
It was dismissed after Tablate signed another affidavit before then provincial prosecutor Anatalio Necesario on March 3, 1999.
Part of the affidavit stated, “I immediately frisked him (Paraiso) and found nothing on his person.”
This prompted the Gasatayas to file a case of perjury against Tablate.
But in his defense, Tablate clarified that the first affidavit he signed in 1996 was prepared by the police, based on the allegations of Gasatayas.
He said that he only saw a firearm some distance from where Paraiso was when he arrested him in 1996. Tablate affirmed the contents of the second affidavit.
Judge Oscar Andrino of the Municipal Trial Court in Cities (MTCC) Branch 5 said that the prosecution failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the accused made “a willful and deliberate assertion of a falsehood.”
Definition
Perjury, as defined by the Philippine Legal Dictionary, is “a corrupt assertion of a falsehood, made under oath and by a legal authority for the purpose of influencing the court of law.”
“A conviction of perjury cannot be sustained merely on the contradictory sworn statements of the defendant, but the state must prove which of the two statements is false and must show that statement to be false by other evidence than the contradictory statement,” Andrino’s three-page decision read. (JGA)
