The Office of the City Prosecutor of Makati filed an information charging the accused-appellant and her two co-accused with illegal recruitment committed in large scale under the Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipino Act of 1995.1Republic Act No. 8042, as amended by Republic Act No. 10022, Section 6(n) of which provides: “(n) x x x Illegal recruitment is deemed committed by a syndicate if carried out by a group of three (3) or more persons conspiring or confederating with one another. It is deemed committed in large scale if committed against three (3) or more persons individually or as a group.”
The State presented four witnesses, namely: Virgilio Caniazares, Reynaldo Dahab, Basilio Miparanum and PO3 Raul Bolido.
Worthy of note is what happened to Dahab, one of the witnesses. Dahab declared that on 27 January 27 2001, he had met the accused-appellant at the Guadalupe Branch of Jollibee to pay P2,500.00 for his medical examination. A week later, he had undergone the three-day training in Mandaluyong City, for which he paid P2,500.00. The accused-appellant had then demanded from him the placement fee of P25,000.00. When Dahab was unable to raise the amount, the accused-appellant was not seen again. He filed a complaint against the accused-appellant with the police authorities.
Subsequently, Dahab recanted his testimony, and stated that he had only requested assistance from the accused-appellant regarding his medical examination. He insisted that he had voluntarily paid P5,000.00 to her, and she had then paid the amount to the Medical Center or his medical examination.
The Regional Trial Court, nonetheless, convicted the accused-appellant for illegal recruitment committed in large scale.
The accused-appellant asserts that the Regional Trial Court, as well as the Court of Appeals, unreasonably disregarded Dahab’s recantation. The recantation would have rendered her liable only for simple illegal recruitment instead of illegal recruitment committed in large scale.
The Supreme Court found this assertion untenable. The Court ruled:
Dahab’s supposed recantation to the effect that he had only sought the assistance of the accused-appellant for his medical examination by no means weakened or diminished the Prosecution’s case against her. Its being made after he had lodged his complaint against her with the PNP-CIDG (in which he supplied the details of his transactions with her) and after he had testified against her in court directly incriminating her rendered it immediately suspect. It should not be more weighty than his first testimony against her which that was replete with details. Its being the later testimony of the Dahab did not necessarily cancel his first testimony on account of the possibility of its being obtained by coercion, intimidation, fraud, or other means to distort or bend the truth.
Recantation by a witness is nothing new, for it is a frequent occurrence in criminal proceedings. As a general rule, it is not well regarded by the courts due to its nature as the mere afterthought of the witness. To be given any value or weight, it should still be subjected to the same tests for credibility in addition to its being subject of the rule that it be received with caution. The criminal proceedings in which sworn testimony has been given by the recanting witness would be rendered a mockery, and put at the mercy of the unscrupulous witness if such testimony could be easily negated by the witness’s subsequent inconsistent declaration. The result is to leave without value not only the sanctity of the oath taken but also the solemn rituals and safeguards of the judicial trial. If only for emphasis, we reiterate that it is “a dangerous rule to reject the testimony taken before the court of justice simply because the witness who has given it later on changed his mind for one reason or another, for such a rule will make a solemn trial a mockery and place the investigation at the mercy of unscrupulous witnesses.”
Further reading:
- People v. Bayker, G.R. No. 170192, February 10, 2016.
