Dying Declaration and Res Gestae1 Ramil F.

De Jesus2

Introduction Evidence is the means, sanctioned by these rules (Rules on Evidence), of ascertaining in a judicial proceeding the truth respecting a matter of fact.3 When an evidence is not relevant or does not point out to prove something relevant to the subject matter of the proceeding, it should be excluded to save the court for unnecessary waste of time. Before evidence may be used in a judicial proceeding, it must be relevant to the subject matter and it must not be excluded by the Rules on Evidence. This is admissibility of Evidence which the Rules of Court defined as: Section 3 Rules of Court. Admissibility of evidence- Evidence is admissible when it is relevant to the issue and is not excluded by law or these rules.

One of the excluded evidence is that testimonial evidence that is not based on personal knowledge. The Rules of Court provides: Section 36. Testimony generally confined to personal knowledge; hearsay excluded. A witness can testify only to those facts which he knows of his personal knowledge; that is, which are derived from his own perception, except as otherwise provided in these rules. (30a) Hearsay evidence is when a person testifies as to what someone else said in order to prove that what was said is the truth. The reason for the exclusion of hearsay

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Term paper submitted in compliance with LEB memorandum ____ Student, College of Law, Laguna State Polytechnic University 3 REVISED RULES ON EVIDENCE

evidence is that the Court does not have the opportunity to ascertain the truthfulness of the testimony because the person does is not the one who made the statement or the person who made the original statement was not presented in court. Hearsay evidence does not have to be spoken words, but can also be any statement found in a letter, email, public record or any other form of written communication. In general, hearsay evidence is inadmissible in a court of law. Two of the recognized exceptions to the hearsay evidence are dying declaration and res gestae.

Objective 1. To give an overview on the admissibility of dying declaration and res gestae. 2. To cite case law that discusses dying declaration and res gestae.

Generally, witnesses can testify only to those facts derived from their own perception. A recognized exception, though, is a report in open court of a dying persons declaration made under the consciousness of an impending death that is the subject of inquiry in the case.4:
Section 37. Dying declaration. The declaration of a dying person, made under the consciousness of an impending death, may be received in any case wherein his death is the subject of inquiry, as evidence of the cause and surrounding circumstances of such death.

The dying declaration is given credence, on the premise that no one who knows of ones impending death will make a careless and false accusation. Hence, not

People v. Medina, 435 SCRA 610

infrequently, pronouncements of guilt have been allowed to rest solely on the dying declaration of the deceased victim.5 To be admissible, a dying declaration must 1) refer to the cause and circumstances surrounding the declarants death; 2) be made under the consciousness of an impending death; 3) be made freely and voluntarily without coercion or suggestions of improper influence; 4) be offered in a criminal case, in which the death of the declarant is the subject of inquiry; and 5) have been made by a declarant competent to testify as a witness, had that person been called upon to testify. 6 In the case of People v. Enad, the Supreme Court held that the ante-mortem statement of the victim did not met the requisites of a dying declaration because the victim is alive and was able to testify in court, it reads:
In the present case, the foregoing requisites were not met. A dying declaration is essentially hearsay, because one person is testifying on what another person stated. This is because the declarant can no longer be presented in court to identify the document or confirm the statement, but more important, to be confronted with said statement by the accused and be crossexamined on its contents. [70] It was patently incorrect for the trial court to have allowed prosecution witness PO3 Leonardo Inoc to testify on Antonios so-called "dying declaration" because Antonio was alive and later even testified in court.7

The ruling in People v. Dela Cruz gave credence to the dying declaration of the victim to the his wife and son-in-law and admitted it as evidence and basis for convicting the suspect, it provides:
On the other hand, the claim of the accused that there are six (6) other persons in the same barangay named Jerry, including one of the children of the deceased, and should create some doubt on
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Marturillas v. People, G.R. No. 163217 People v. Comiling, 424 SCRA 698 7 People v. Enad,G.R. No. 122934

the identity of the assailant of Pepito Tadal holds no water. Even though there really are six (6) other persons named Jerry, the identity of accused Jerry dela Cruz was clearly stated by the victim in his dying declaration. There is no doubt, therefore, as to the identity of herein accused as the assailant of the victim. As earlier stated, a dying man, like Pepito Tadal, does not have reason to falsely implicate another person, in this instance Jerry dela Cruz, as the perpetrator of the crime committed against him. He must face his creator with a clean mind and conscience.8

Admissibility of a dying declaration does not warrant that the accused will be convicted. A dying declaration is admissible in evidence as long as it met the requisites mentioned earlier. But when the dying declaration does not prove anything, or is not sufficient to convict the accused it will fail, as in the case of People v. Elizaga9: Upon a careful examination of the records, We discovered that the conviction of appellant Elizaga was based solely on the dying declaration of the victim Stacy. No eyewitness to the crime was presented in court. Pedro Tapuro, the person who was actually with the victim when he was shot and who could have given a detailed account of the whole incident, was never presented by the prosecution. Nobody testified that he saw the appellant within the vicinity of the crime before, during, or right after the commission of the crime. Neither did anyone attest that he saw the appellant in possession of a firearm or that he was the gunman. On the contrary, two witnesses corroborated the defense of the appellant that in the morning and afternoon of the day of the incident, appellant was in the store of Eustaquio Gumabao playing pool, rendering it physically impossible for him to have killed the victim. One of these witnesses, Juanito Martin, is even a colleague of the victim in the police force. It is true that the dying declaration of Stacy is valid and admissible. However, this does not mean that it will automatically convict the appellant of the crime of murder. Like any other dying declaration, its credibility and weight should be determined by the court, applying the same rules used in testing the weight and credibility of a testimony of a living witness. 6 In this particular case, it must be carefully examined in order for the trial court to determine whether or not the same is sufficient to prove the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt.
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People v. Dela Cruz, CA-G.R. CR. NO. 27827 G.R. No. 78794 November 21, 1988

In his dying declaration, Stacy mentioned three people as his assailants, namely: Marcos Elizaga, Pabling Molina and Felipe Elizaga, appellant herein. Obviously, the said dying declaration does not prove that petitioner was the one who fired the shot that injured and later killed the victim.

Ion People v. Dela Cruz(2003) the Court did not consider the anti mortem statement as dying declaration but considered it as part of res gestae: We agree with the trial court that the anti mortem statement of the victim cannot be considered a dying declaration as the same was not made with awareness of his impending death. In People v. Bautista, et al.,[7] we held that it is not indispensable that a declarant expires immediately thereafter. It is the belief of an impending death and not the rapid succession of death, in point of fact, that renders the dying declaration admissible. Nonetheless, his declaration is admissible as part of the res gestae. A declaration is deemed part of the res gestae and admissible in evidence as an exception to the hearsay rule when the following requisites concur: (1) the principal act, the res gestae, is a startling occurrence; (2) the statements were made before the declarant had time to contrive or devise; and (3) the statements must concern the occurrence in question and its immediately attending circumstances.[8] All these requisites are present in this case. The principal act, i.e., the stabbing, was a startling occurrence. The declaration was made right after the stabbing while the victim was still under the exciting influence of the startling occurrence, without any prior opportunity to contrive a story implicating the appellant. The declaration concerns the one who stabbed the victim. Thus, the trial court correctly appreciated the testimonies of prosecution witnesses Sanchez and Delos Santos on what the victim told them as part of the res gestae.10

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PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, appellee, vs. ROGER DELA CRUZ y DOE, G.R. No. 152176. October 1, 2003