This case has been cited 1 times or more.
|
2000-09-27 |
BELLOSILLO, J. |
||||
| In the case of Merly Tagana, although she is half-sister to Marita, she is also the common-law wife of the accused. While relationship between the accused and his witness is not necessarily detrimental to the former's line of defense, this relationship taken together with the want of logic in the declarations of the witness, yields to the conclusion that her testimony is not credible.[11] The trial court found evident discrepancies in Merly Tagana's testimony which cannot but raise well-founded and overriding doubts on her testimony. Merly Tagana contradicted the testimony of the accused and herself twice when she stated that Marita slept in the house with her and the accused on 29 May 1994, the night before the rape.[12] Although she testified that the accused did not rape her sister, she complained on the witness stand that it was not the mistake of the accused to have done what he did because he was a man and Marita was a girl. The opinion of the trial court as to who of the witnesses should be believed is entitled to great respect on the oft-repeated rationale born of judicial experience that the trial judge who heard the witnesses testify and had the occasion to observe their demeanor on the stand was in a vantage position to determine who of the witnesses deserve credence.[13] | |||||