SEC. 42. Part of the res gestae.—Statements made by a person while a startling occurrence is taking place or immediately prior or subsequent thereto with respect to the circumstances thereof, may be given in evidence as part of the res gestae. So, also, statements accompanying an equivocal act material to the issue, and giving it a legal significance, may be received as part of the res gestae.
Classes
The rule of res gestae, which literally means
"things done" refers to:
a. spontaneous statements in
connection with a startling occurrence relating to that fact and in effect
forming part thereof, and
b. statements accompanying and
equivocal act, otherwise known as verbal acts, on the theory that they
are the verbal parts of the act to be explained.
Test for admissibility
The test for the admissibility of
evidence as part of the res gestae is whether the act, declaration
or exclamation is so intimately interwoven or connected with the principal
fact or event which it characterizes as to be regarded as a part of the
transaction itself, and also whether it clearly negative any premeditation
or purpose to manufacture testimony (32 CJS 21).
Factors to consider to determine
whether statements offered in evidence as part of res gestae have been made spontaneous or not:
a) The time that has elapsed between
the occurrence of the act or transaction and the making of the statement;
b) The place where the statement was
made;
c) The condition of the declarant when
he made the statement;
d) The presence or absence of
intervening occurrences between the occurrence and the statement relative
thereto;
e) The nature and circumstances of the
statement itself.
● Notes taken regarding a transaction
by a person who is not a party thereto and who has not been required to take
down notes are not part of the res gestae. (Borromeo vs. CA, L-31342,
April 7, 1976)
A. Spontaneous statements
Sec. 42. Part of the res gestae.—Statements
made by a person while a startling occurrence is taking place or immediately
prior or subsequent thereto with respect to the circumstances thereof, may be
given in evidence as part of the res gestae. xxx
● Statement or exclamation made
immediately after some exciting occasion by a participant or spectator and
asserting the circumstances of that occasion as it is observed by him.
● Spontaneous exclamation may be prior
to, simultaneous with, or subsequent to the startling occurrence.
Requisites for admissibility
A declaration or an
utterance is deemed as part of the res
gestae that is
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 refer to the
occurrence in question and its immediately attending circumstances.
Reason for admissibility
Trustworthiness and necessity -
because statements are made instinctively, and because said natural
and spontaneous utterances are more convincing than the testimony of
the same person on the stand.
Cases
People v. Putian, 74 SCRA 133 (1976) A
declaration made by a person immediately after being wounded, pointing out or
naming his assailant, may be considered as part of the res gestae and is
admissible in evidence. A statement was given sometime after the stabbing while
the declarant was undergoing treatment at a medical clinic, where he had no
time to concoct a falsehood or to fabricate a malicious charge against the
accused and no motive has been shown as to why he would frame-up the accused
would render the statement admissible as a part of the res gestae.
People v. Peralta, 237 SCRA 218 (1994)
Facts: Atanacia Ramos had a daughter Rosita. Rosita
married Domiciano Peralta. They had a daughter Siony. On morning, Siony came to
Atanacia at her house frantically told her that Domiciano was strangling
Rosita. They went to the Peralta home and found Rosita dead. Domiciano was not
there. They immediately reported the matter to the police, who eventually
arrested the Domiciano. At the preliminary investigation, Siony executed a sworn
statement implicating her father. Domiciano was charged with Parricide. At the
trial Atanacia testified as to Siony’s declaration. However, Siony testified
for her father and said that though she saw someone strangling her mother, she
did not see who it was. After the defense rested, the prosecution presented the
investigating judge who testified as to the regularity of the conduct of the
preliminary investigation. TC convicts.
Held: The statement Siony made to her grandmother
when she rushed to inform her of her father's attack on her mother was part of
the res gestae. Res gestae means the "thing done." It refers to those
exclamations and statements made by either the participants, victims or
spectators to a crime immediately before, during or immediately after the
commission of the crime, when the circumstances are such that the statements
were made as a spontaneous reaction or utterance inspired by the excitement of
the occasion and there was no opportunity for the declarant to deliberate and
to fabricate a false statement. Siony rushed to Atanacia immediately upon
seeing her father strangling her mother to death. Her spontaneous declaration
to Atanacia was part of the res gestae and is assumed to preclude the
probability of premeditation of fabrication. Since the utterance was made under
the immediate and uncontrolled domination of the senses rather than reason and
reflection, and during the brief period when consideration of self-interest
could not have been fully brought to bear, the utterance may be taken as
expressing Siony's real belief as to the facts just observed by her.
Besides, where a witness executes a statement for
the prosecution and retracts his testimony and subsequently testified for the
defense, the test to decide which testimony to believe is one of comparison
coupled with the application of the general rules of evidence. Retractions are
generally unreliable and are looked upon with considerable disfavor by the
courts. Siony testified during the preliminary examination conducted by Judge
Paano that the appellant choked her mother to death. Her subsequent retraction
was an afterthought and has no probative value at all.
Furthermore, there are certain circumstances that
may have persuaded the daughter to change her former declaration and testify in
favor of her father. First, the accused was her father after all, and she
probably felt that she should not be responsible for his incarceration for the
rest of his life. Second, her testimony was given 7 years after the incident
and therefore could not be expected to be as accurate as the statement she made
in the preliminary investigation only hours after the killing. Third, during
all this time, her father had been under detention and she must have believed
that this was punishment enough for him. Lastly, she was, at the time she
testified in court, living with her father's sister, who may have greatly
influenced her testimony and caused her to recant her earlier statement.
B. Verbal
acts
Sec. 42. Part of the res gestae. – So, also, statements
accompanying an equivocal act material to the issue, and giving it a legal
significance, may be received as part of the res gestae.
● Utterances which accompany some act
or conduct to which it is desired to give a legal effect. When such
act has intrinsically no definite legal significance, or only
an ambiguous one, its legal purport or tenormay be ascertained by
considering the words accompanying it, and these utterances
thus enter merely as verbal part of the act.
● Verbal act must be contemporaneous
with or must accompany the equivocal act to
be admissible. Verbal act must have been made at the time, and not
after, the equivocal act was being performed, unlike spontaneous exclamations
which may have been made before, during or immediately subsequent to the
startling occurrence.
Requisites for admissibility
For verbal acts to be admissible, it is required
that:
1. The res
gestae or principal act to be characterized must be equivocal
2. Such act
must be material to the issue
3. The statements
must accompany the equivocal act
4. The statements give a legal
significance to the equivocal act
Reason for admissibility:
The motive, character and
object of an act are frequently indicated by what was said by the
person engaged in the act.
Cases
Dusepec v. Torres, 39 Phil 760 (1919)
Facts: Tan Po Pik died in the Philippines
intestate. After he died, Marta Torres, claiming to be his widow, took
possession of his estate and partitioned it between herself and her children by
the deceased. Plaintiffs claim to be the legal wife and children of the
deceased from China. They now sue to recover their supposed share of the
estate. The SC found numerous inconsistencies as to the testimonial and
documentary evidence of the plaintiffs as to lead to the conclusion that the
plaintiffs are not who they claim to be. However, the plaintiff offered in
evidence a sworn declaration of the deceased that the plaintiffs were his
children. Defendants offered letters between the deceased and his brother
showing that deceased’s sworn declaration was to deceive the customs
authorities to allow plaintiffs to enter the country. Plaintiffs object to the
admissibility of such letters.
Held: The declaration was made in proceedings
before customs authorities upon arrival of the plaintiffs from China. The
arrival and admission of these plaintiffs and the declaration of Tan Po Pik are
isolated parts of an event which is the voyage from China to the Philippines of
these supposed children of the deceased. Their preparations for the voyage and
the plans conceived by them to obtain their sure entrance into this country are
also part of the voyage. In order to consider the declaration made by Tan Po
Pik before the customs authorities, the other acts, declarations, and events occurring
before the said entrance into the country, which may have an essential bearing
or which have led to the realization of their entrance into the country are
admissible in evidence in this case on the ground that they constitute parts of
the same transaction, or of the res gestae. A word, an expression, or an act of
a person, considered apart from the circumstances surrounding them, does not
signify anything, and in many cases it signifies the opposite of the true sense
of the said word, expression, or act. It is imprudent and illegal to consider
the declaration made by Tan Po Pik before the customs authorities separately
from the circumstances which prompted him to make such a declaration. We must
therefore inquire into circumstances which surrounded the entrance of the
plaintiffs and the declaration made by Tan Po Pik on that occasion.
In this case, letters between Tan Po Pik and his
brother in China contained an agreement that for plaintiffs to enter the
Philippines, Tan Po Pik was to declare before the customs authorities that
plaintiffs were his children. The names of the children whom Tan were supposed
to declare as his children were the same as the names of the plaintiffs, except
that they now bear the surname Tan. The letters even refer to one of the
plaintiffs as the deceased’s nephew. If these plaintiffs were really children
of Tan Po Pik, there would have been no necessity for the above letters. Thus,
Tan Po Pik’s declaration before the customs authorities is for the sole purpose
of allowing the children to enter the Philippines, and such a declaration is
entirely false. All these letters formed an essential part of the fact of the
coming of these plaintiffs to Manila, because if these letters had not been
transmitted and received the plaintiffs could not have succeeded in entering
the Philippines. Therefore, all the statements and declarations-of Tan Po Ho in
these documents relative to the prosecution of the object of the conspiracy are
admissible in evidence.
People v. Lungayan, 162 SCRA 100 (1988)
People v. Tolentino, 218 SCRA 337 (1993)
People v. Berame, L-27606, July 30, 1976
Res Gestae vs. Dying Declaration
Res gestae in connection with a homicidal act may
be distinguished from dying declaration in that:
1. A dying declaration can be made only by the
victime, while a statement as part of the res gestae may be that of the killer
himself after or during the killing (People vs Reyes, 82 Phil 563) or
that of a third person.
2. Dying declarations are made only after
the homicidal attack has been committed; but in res gestae, the statement may
precede, accompany or be made after the homicidal act was committed.
3. The trustworthiness of a dying
declaration is based upon its being given under an awareness of impending
death, while the rule of res gestae has its justification in the spontaneity of
the statement.
● Consequently, while the statements of
the victim may not qualify as a dying declaration because it was not
made under the consciousness of impending death, it may still be admissible as
part of the res gestae if it was made immediately after the incident. However,
were the elements of both are present, the statement may be admitted both as
a dying declaration and as part of the res gestae.
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