Former Senate President and television host Tito Sotto revealed that he was barred from taking the witness stand before the Marikina Regional Trial Court on the hearing of their copyright infringement and unfair competition charges lodged against TAPE Incorporated and GMA Network.
In an Inquirer report, Sotto was called to the stand by their lawyer to testify on their charges but a TAPE lawyer opposed his testimony on the stand on two grounds.
First, Sotto did not submit a judicial affidavit and only a plain affidavit and second is that he was excluded during the testimony of another plaintiff Joey De Leon.
“I was prevented from testifying by the TAPE / GMA lawyers wanting a separate judicial affidavit when in fact we had a submitted affidavit weeks ago. Yun ang totoo (This is the truth)!” he wrote on his Twitter account.
The Markina court directed Sotto to submit his judicial affidavit as soon as possible,
“Besides, plaintiff Vicente Sotto has already his joint affidavit which he could have used as his testimony in support of the plaintiffs’ WPI application were it not of the directive of the court to submit a JA instead for convenience purposes,” read the Marikina court’s two-page order said in an Inquirer report.
