Cunanan may still be state witness, says Santiago

MANILA, Philippines—Dennis Cunanan is qualified to become a state witness even if he’s found to have lied about a P960,000 pork barrel “incentive” he allegedly had received, Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago said on Monday.

But the head of the government microfinance agency Technology Resource Center (TRC) may have to deal first with perjury charges that Sen. Ramon Revilla Jr. said on Monday he would file against him.

The 42-year-old Cunanan is among 38 individuals under investigation in connection with an alleged P10-billion racket involving the diversion of the lawmakers’ allocations from the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) to ghost projects and kickbacks. To escape indictment, he has offered to become a witness for the prosecution.

Santiago said the Rules of Court allowed an accused to become a state witness “if it appears that he is not the most guilty.” This should not be mistaken for the concept that the state witness should be the “least guilty.”

According to the former trial court judge, the state witness rule is an exception to the rule that when a witness is caught lying in one detail, he should be presumed to be lying in all details.

Santiago said in the 2008 case of Tarapen v. People, the Supreme Court ruled that a witness’ testimony may be “believed in part and disbelieved in another depending on the corroborative evidence.”

In the earlier 2003 case of People vs. Masapol, the high court ruled that the doctrine falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, (false in one, false in all) “deals only with the weight of evidence, and is not a positive rule of law,” she added.

Some senators have aired concerns about what they say were Cunanan’s less than forthcoming responses during Thursday’s Senate hearing to claims by Benhur Luy, the principal whistle-blower, that the TRC official received a P960,000 incentive from the scam, and that he met Janet Lim-Napoles, the alleged mastermind of the racket, in her office.

Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III has challenged Justice Secretary Leila de Lima to sort out the conflict between Luy and Cunanan’s statements. Otherwise, Cunanan’s testimony could be questioned by the defense under the doctrine falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, he said.

Corroborative evidence

On Monday, Sen. Francis Escudero said the conflict in Cunanan’s testimony with that of Luy could pose problems for Cunanan.

“It will affect him in the sense that under the Rules of Court, Rule 119, your testimony must be corroborated in its material points by the other evidence before you’re accepted as state witness,” Escudero said.

Revilla questioned Cunanan’s plan to turn state witness.

“How can you turn one into a state witness if he’s one of the most guilty?” he said, pointing out that Cunanan was TRC deputy director general when the alleged racket happened.

Revilla, along with Senators Jinggoy Estrada and Juan Ponce Enrile, has been accused by Cunanan of funneling his PDAF entitlements to preselected nongovernment organizations (NGOs). Revilla denied speaking with Cunanan on the phone to pressure him into expediting the release of the fund to the NGOs.

Estrada and Enrile have likewise denied any wrongdoing.

Revilla threatened to file perjury charges against Cunanan for lying during Thursday’s hearing of the Senate blue ribbon committee, which is looking into the purported PDAF racket.

“I don’t know him personally. I never met him in person nor talked to him. That’s why I said, we could hire him as an actor. He’s even better as an actor,” he said. “He should be charged with perjury and plunder since it appears he’s the most guilty, in cahoots with the whistle-blowers.”

Cunanan turning state witness is immaterial because it is the court, eventually the Sandiganbayan, that decides on this, Santiago said.

“The only power of the justice secretary is to admit a person into the Witness Protection Program. The only power of the Ombudsman is to conduct a preliminary investigation. The best that the Ombudsman can do is to file a motion in the Sandiganbayan to admit some of the accused as state witnesses,” she said.

Sen. Grace Poe, who said she was convinced Cunanan took the money, said the filing of perjury charges against Cunanan should be studied by the senators.

She recalled that the agriculture committee filed perjury charges against Davidson Bangayan aka David Tan for allegedly lying during the hearing on rice smuggling.

“That should be discussed because they believed that he had lied,” she said.