Thursday, May 22, 2008 Prober refutes de las Alas' early report for work claim
AN AGENT of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) on Wednesday took the witness stand during the resumption of the murder trial of former Batangas governor Jose Antonio Leviste and revealed inconsistencies in the defense' contention.
Presenting the alleged security logbook of the Leviste-owned LPL Towers before the sala of Judge Elmo Alameda of the Makati Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 150, Bun Hoy Lim, chief of the NBI Criminal Intelligence Division, belied allegations that murder victim Rafael de las Alas arrived early on January 12, 2007 when Leviste shot him dead.
"According to the security logbook, a certain Ka Paeng checked in at the building at 11:45 a.m.," said Lim, who conducted preliminary investigation on the incident and an ocular inspection of the crime scene.
The prosecution said "Ka Paeng" was de las Alas' nickname.
Leviste and all defense witnesses ascertained that de las Alas reported for work a little later than 9 a.m. on that fateful day. This, according to Leviste, is not de las Alas' usual habit of reporting for work.
Several prosecution witnesses, including de las Alas wife Teresita, his daughter Dina and son Christian, have also told the court that the victim did not report for work early on that day.
In further echoing the contents of the logbook, Lim told the court that neither lawyers Rey Sandoval nor Dennis Amparo entered the premises of the building on that same day, contrary to defense assertion that the two were inside the building during the incident.
Sandoval and Amparo were two of the defense witnesses who claimed that they heard gunshots from the office at LPL Towers where Leviste killed de las Alas allegedly for self-defense.
The marking of the prosecution's evidence, which consists mainly of the guard's logbook, took the court more than two hours considering that it has 196 pages.
For his part, Senior State Prosecutor Emmanuel Velasco said Lim's testimony and the presentation of the security logbook derailed the allegations of the defense due to inconsistency.
"The testimony of Attorney Lim and the contents of the logbook only showed the inconsistencies in the assertion of the defense and the bias in the testimonies of its witnesses," said Velasco, referring to the defense witnesses who are all employees of Leviste.
But according to the former governor, results of Wednesday's hearing are immaterial and irrelevant on the rebuttal phase of the case.
"The logbook has been illegally acquired by Prosecutor Velasco when he barged into my office and violated my right to privacy. He even conducted an ocular inspection without a court order," Leviste said.
"At the end of the day, I am confident that the court will not consider the contents of the logbook as relevant to the hearing. In the first place, presenting the logbook is not proper in the rebuttal phase. The prosecution should be rebutting what was said and presented in the evidence in chief," he added.
Defense lawyer Henry Capela likewise belittled Lim's testimony, saying he is incompetent to testify since he was not there in the first place when the incident took place.
"His (Lim) testimony took place in violation of the court order last week that the prosecution should limit the presentation of witnesses that are relevant to the rebuttal hearings that's why his testimony is irrelevant and therefore he has no recourse but to object," Capela said.
According to the prosecution, they have at least half a dozen witnesses yet to be presented. The court set the next hearing on March 28.
During the hearing, the prosecution and the defense repeatedly clashed over the presentation of the NBI agent and the logbook, as well as the names of LPL employees who reported for work in that fateful day.
The defense sought to block Lim's testimony contending that his testimony as well as the line of questioning of Velasco is not part of the rebuttal.
The court also admonished Velasco several times for not laying the "basis" of the questions propounded to the witness and Alameda even raised his voice once when he reminded the prosecutor to justify the relevancy of his questions. (AH/Sunnex)
