JUSTICE MARTIN VILLRAMA, JR.: CREDIBILITY OF WITNESSES

Jurisprudence has decreed that the issue of credibility of witnesses is "a question best addressed to the province of the trial court because of its unique position of having observed that elusive and incommunicable evidence of the witnesses’ deportment on the stand while testifying which opportunity is denied to the appellate courts and "absent any substantial reason which would justify the reversal of the trial court’s assessments and conclusions, the reviewing court is generally bound by the former’s findings, particularly when no significant facts and circumstances are shown to have been overlooked or disregarded which when considered would have affected the outcome of the case (People of the Phils. vs. Conrado Laog, G.R. No. 178321, October 5, 2011, VILLARAMA, JR., J.).