DOCTRINE

[T]here is no law or rule stating definitively that an offer to stipulate a fact that happens to be untrue would make the offeror liable for perjury.

FACTS

Atty. Pablo B. Francisco filed a criminal complaint for perjury against officers of the Bicol Region Administrative Institute (BRAI), alleging that they had made willful and deliberate falsehoods in their notarized Conference Brief during proceedings before the Commission on Bar Discipline (CBD). The case was assigned to Atty. Ma. Victoria Suñega-Lagman, an investigating prosecutor, for preliminary investigation. After reviewing the complaint, Atty. Suñega-Lagman dismissed it, stating that the stipulated facts in question were merely proposals that Atty. Francisco was free to accept or reject, and thus did not constitute willful and deliberate assertions of falsehood. Atty. Francisco claims that Atty. Suñega-Lagman was ignorant of a basic and elementary principle of law, i.e., that offer of stipulation of fact in a pre-trial brief that was allegedly not true is also a deliberate assertion of falsehood that exposes the offeror to liability for perjury.

ISSUE

Would an offer to stipulate a fact that happens to be untrue make the offeror liable for perjury?

RULING

NO. To consider a principle of law basic and elementary, its application must be too evident or obvious either because: (1) there is a legal provision defining it, (2) it is contained in a body of rules, or (3) its meaning is already settled in jurisprudence. That is not the case here.

Certainly, there is no law or rule stating definitively that an offer to stipulate a fact that happens to be untrue would make the offeror liable for perjury. Beyond doubt, there is nothing of this import that could be found in Rule 118 of the Rules of Criminal Procedure. If that were the case, then all offers for stipulation of facts that had been denied by the opposing party would have been considered perjurious. There is also no jurisprudence telling us the same. The case of Monfort v. Salvatierra (Monfort), relied upon by Atty. Francisco, does not apply squarely here. In Monfort, the false statement was contained in a declarative statement in a counter-affidavit, not in an offer for stipulation in a pre-trial conference brief.

The Supreme Court dismissed the administrative complaint against Atty. Suñega-Lagman. The Court held that her assessment—that the statements in the Conference Brief were proposals for stipulation and not deliberate falsehoods—was a reasonable exercise of her prosecutorial discretion. There was no evidence to suggest that she acted with bias, malice, or gross ignorance of the law in dismissing the perjury complaint.