6/9/2020 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly "It is indeed very unusual that accused, an operator of a canteen and boarding house who considers a written evidence of an agreement important (Exhibit `I'), would fail to draw a formal agreement with lessees which involved such a huge amount entailing reimbursement if the same is not consummated. This is not normal business practice. "Furthermore, if the reimbursements she gave to complainants and the promissory notes she executed in their favor truly referred to her apartment or boarding house, why did she not mention such facts in those documents? Was it because she was afraid to express such a brazen lie while her victims were looking? "In the opinion of this court, her act of retrieving the receipts of payments to her by complainants and replacing them with promissory notes was a carefully planned and deliberated scheme. Even the omission of the purpose for which said promissory notes referred to was deliberate so that in case of any suit arising from its non-payment, said notes will be capable of two interpretations, one of which accused can manipulate in her favor. "It is reasoning tested by time, experience and application that a believable testimony should pass the test of credulity, having reference to the narrator himself and the story told. Briefly stated, it must not only proceed from a credible source, but must itself also be credible in itself. Judged according to this rule, the testimony of accused is not by itself credible."[8] In the crime of illegal recruitment in large scale, it needs only to be established (1) that the accused is engaged in the recruitment and placement of workers defined under Article 13(b) or in any of the prohibited activities under Article 34 of the Labor Code; (2) that the accused has failed to comply with the guidelines issued by the Secretary of Labor and Employment, particularly with respect to the need for a license or an authority to recruit and deploy workers, either locally or overseas; and (3) that the accused commits the infraction against three or more persons, individually or as a group.[9] Appellant faults the trial judge, who did not personally try the case, for deciding it solely on the basis of the records before him. It is not essential for a judge in coming down with a decision that he himself should have tried the case. In People vs. Collado, [10] this Court has made that clear. Hence - "It is not unusual for a judge who did not try a case to decide it on the basis of the record for the trial judge might have died, resigned, retired, transferred, etc. (People v. Escalante, et al., G.R. No. L-37147, August 22, 1984, 131 SCRA 237). The fact that the judge who heard the evidence is not the one who rendered the judgment and that for that reason the latter did not have the opportunity to observe the demeanor of the witnesses during the trial but merely relied on the records of the case does not render the judgment erroneous."[11] elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/34818 4/6