Is the testimony of the drawee bank's representative indispensable in BP 22 cases?
PEOPLE vs. TADEO
G.R. No. 129774. December 29, 1998
FACTS: Accused issued postdated checks to private complainant in payment of his rental arrears. All the checks bounced upon deposit with the drawee bank. Complainant filed a case for BP Blg. 22. At the trial, the prosecution presented the testimony of complainant to prove the charges against accused. After cross-examination, the prosecution rested its case, and formally offered the documentary exhibits marked at the pre-trial. Accused filed a Demurrer to Evidence which was denied by the trial court. Accused appealed alleging that the trial court acted with grave abuse of discretion when the court held that there exist a prima facie case, disregarding the prosecutions failure to present as witness a representative of the drawee bank to testify on the dishonor of the questioned checks as an element of the offense charged. He insists that the testimony of the banks representative is mandatory.
HELD: It is not required, much less indispensable, for the prosecution to present the drawee banks representative as a witness to testify on the dishonor of the checks because of insufficiency of funds. The prosecution may present, as it did in this case, only complainant as a witness to prove all the elements of the offense charged. She is a competent and qualified witness to testify that she deposited the checks to her account in a bank; that she subsequently received from the bank the checks returned unpaid with a notation drawn against insufficient funds stamped or written on the dorsal side of the checks themselves, or in a notice attached to the dishonored checks duly given to complainant, and that petitioner failed to pay complainant the value of the checks or make arrangements for their payment in full within five (5) banking days after receiving notice that such checks had not been paid by the drawee bank. (This ruling was reiterated in the case of People vs. Recuerdo, G.R. No. 133036, January 22, 2003 and People vs. Ongson, G.R. No. 156169, August 12, 2005.)