Salcedo-Ortaez v. Court of Appeals Doctrine: Under R.A.

4200, it is unlawful for any person , not being authorized by all the parties to any private communication or spoken word, to tap any wire or cable, or by using any other device or arrangement, to secretly overhear, intercept, or record such communication or spoken word by using a device commonly known as a dictaphone or dictagraph or detectaphone or walkie-talkie or tape-recorder, or however otherwise described. The inadmissibility of such evidence obtained in violation of said Act is mandatory under the law. Facts: Private respondent Rafael Ortanez filed with the Quezon City RTC a complaint for annulment of marriage with damages against petitioner Teresita Salcedo-Ortanez, on grounds of lack of marriage license and/or psychological incapacity of the petitioner. Among the exhibits offered by private respondent were three (3) cassette tapes of alleged telephone conversations between petitioner and unidentified persons. Teresita submitted her Objection/Comment to Rafaels oral offer of evidence. However, the trial court admitted all of private respondents offered evidence and later on denied her motion for reconsideration, prompting petitioner to file a petition for certiorari with the CA to assail the admission in evidence of the aforementioned cassette tapes. These tape recordings were made and obtained when private respondent allowed his friends from the military to wire tap his home telephone. CA denied the petition because (1) Tape recordings are not inadmissible per se. They and any other variant thereof can be admitted in evidence for certain purposes, depending on how they are presented and offered and on how the trial judge utilizes them in the interest of truth and fairness and the even handed administration of justice; and (2) A petition for certiorari is notoriously inappropriate to rectify a supposed error in admitting evidence adduced during trial. The ruling on admissibility is interlocutory; neither does it impinge on jurisdiction. If it is erroneous, the ruling should be questioned in the appeal from the judgment on the merits and not through the special civil action of certiorari. The error, assuming gratuitously that it exists, cannot be anymore than an error of law, properly correctible by appeal and not by certiorari. Petitioner then filed the present petition for review under Rule 45 of the Rules of Court.

Issues: Teresita filed an objection/comment to Rafaels oral offer of evidence, assailing the admissibility in evidence of the casset te tapes. Can her objection be sustained? Held: Yes. The evidence presented are inadmissible by virtue of RA 4200. Rep. Act No. 4200 entitled "An Act to Prohibit and Penalize Wire Tapping and Other Related Violations of the Privacy of Communication, and for other purposes" expressly makes such tape recordings inadmissible in evidence. The relevant provisions of Rep. Act No. 4200 are as follows: "Section 1. It shall be unlawful for any person, not being authorized by all the parties to any private communication or spoken word, to tap any wire or cable, or by using any other device or arrangement, to secretly overhear, intercept, or record such

communication or spoken word by using a device commonly known as a dictaphone or dictagraph or detectaphone or walkietalkie or tape-recorder, or however otherwise described. x x x" "Section 4. Any communication or spoken word, or the existence, contents, substance, purport, or meaning of the same or any par, thereof, or any information therein contained, obtained or secured by any person in violation of the preceding sections of this Act shall not be admissible in evidence in any judicial, quasi-judicial, legislative or administrative hearing or investigation." Clearly, respondents trial court and Court of Appeals failed consider the afore-quoted provisions of the law in admitting in the casette tapes in question. Absent a clear show that both parties to the telephone conversations allowed recording of the same, the inadmissibility of the subject tapes is mandatory under Rep. Act No. 4200.

Zulueta vs. Court of Appeals, 253 SCRA 699 (1996) The privacy of communication and correspondence shall be inviolable, except upon lawful order of the court, or when public safety or order requires otherwise as prescrbied by law. Any evidence obtained in violation of this or the preceeding section, shall inadmissible for any purpose in any proceeding. FACTS: Petitioner Cecilia Zulueta is the wife of private respondent Alfredo Martin. On March 26, 1962, petitioner entered the clinic of her husband, a doctor of medicine, and in the presence of her mother, a driver and private respondent's secretary, forcibly opened the drawers and cabinet of her husband's clinic and took 157 documents consisting of private respondents between Dr. Martin and his alleged paramours, greeting cards, cancelled check, diaries, Dr. Martin's passport, and photographs. The documents and papers were seized for use in evidence in a case for legal separation and for disqualification from the practice of medicine which petitioner had filed against her husband. ISSUE: Whether or not the papers and other materials obtained from forcible entrusion and from unlawful means are admissible as evidence in court regarding marital separation and disqualification from medical practice. HELD: Indeed the documents and papers in question are inadmissible in evidence. The constitutional injuction declaring "the privacy of communication and correspondence to be inviolable" is no less applicable simply because it is the wife (who thinks herself aggrieved by her husband's infedility) who is the party against whom the constitutional provision is to be enforced. The only exception to the prohibition in the constitution is if there is a "lawful order from the court or which public safety or order require otherwise, as prescribed by law." Any violation of this provision renders the evidence obtained inadmissible "for any purpose in any proceeding." The intimacies between husband and wife do not justify anyone of them in breaking the drawers and cabinets of the other and in ransacking them for any telltale evidence of marital infedility. A person, by contracting marriage, does not shed her/his integrity or her/his right to privacy as an individual and the constitutional protection is ever available to him or to her. The law insures absolute freedom of communication between the spouses by making it privileged. Neither husband nor wife may testify for or against the other without the consent of the affected spouse while the marriage subsists. Neither may be examined without the consent of the other as to any communication received in confidence by one from the other during the marriage, save for specified exceptions. But one thing is freedom of communication; quite another is a compulsion for each one to share what one knows with the other. And this has nothing to do with the duty of fidelity that each owes to the other.

PP v Tandoy

FACTS: RTC convicting Ruel Baconguis y Inson (appellant) of murder and sentencing him to death. ISSUE: THE LOWER COURT ERRED IN DISREGARDING THE TESTIMONIES OF THE ACCUSED AND DEFENSE WITNESSES AND IN RELYING HEAVILY ON THE TESTIMONY OF THE PROSECUTION WITNESSES. HELD: While it cannot be denied that accused-appellant was deprived of his right to be informed of his rights to remain silent and to have competent and independent counsel, he has not shown that, as a result of his custodial interrogation, the police obtained any statement from himwhether inculpatory or exculpatorywhich was used in evidence against him. The records do not show that he had given one or that, in finding him guilty, the trial court relied on such statement. It bears noting that the evidence relied upon by the prosecution is circumstantial. It is settled that for circumstantial evidence to suffice to convict, the following requisites must be met: 1) there is more than one circumstance; 2) the facts from which the inferences are derived are proven; and 3) the combination of all [18] circumstances is such as to produce a conviction beyond reasonable doubt. The first circumstance which the prosecution sought to prove is that appellant was seen leaving the house where the victim lay bleeding of gunshot wounds not long after a gunshot was heard. In resolving the admissibility of and relying on out-of-court identification of suspects, courts have adopted the totality of circumstances test where they consider the following factors, viz: (1) the witness' opportunity to view the criminal at the time of the crime; (2) the witness' degree of attention at that time; (3) the accuracy of any prior description given by the witness; (4) the level of certainty demonstrated by the witness at the identification; (5) the length of time between the crime and the identification; and, (6) the suggestiveness of the identification procedure. what was undertaken by the police in the identification of appellant by Lydia, has been held to be an underhanded mode of identification for "being pointedly suggestive, generating confidence where there was none, activating visual imagination, [29] and, all told, subverting their reliability as an eyewitness. Lydia knew that she was going to identify a suspect, whose name had priorly been furnished by her brother-policeman, when she went to the police station. And the police pointed appellant to her, and told her that he was the suspect, while he was behind bars, alone. [S]cientific experts concur in the view that the result of a paraffin test is not conclusive. While it can establish the presence of nitrates or nitrites on the hand, it does not always indubitably show that said nitrates or nitrites were caused by the discharge of firearm. The person tested may have handled one or more of a number of substances which give the same positive reaction for nitrates or nitrites. But even assuming arguendo that appellants being positive for gunpowder may be credited as circumstantial evidence indicating his culpability, that is only one circumstance, and since no other circumstance was established by the prosecution, the first requirement for circumstantial evidence to warrant conviction of appellant has not been met.

People vs. Tumimpad [August 19, 1994]Appeal from a decision of the RTC of Oroquieta City Facts: Moreno L. Tumimpad and Constable Ruel C. Prieto are charged with thecrime of rape. Sandra Salcedo 15 years old, had a mind of a five year old child

Four security men were assigned to her father, two of whom are Ruel Prietoand Moreno Tumimpad. August 7, 1989 Sandra complained of constipation. She was brought toa doctor and was given medication. Her condition did not improved August 8, 1989 when she saw Tumimpad coming out from the kitchenshe told her mother Mama, patayin mo yan, bastos Her brought Sandra to the hospital where she found out that Sandra waspregnant. January 11, 1990 Sandra gave birtb to a baby boy who was namedJacob. Sandra was able to pick the pictures of Tumimpad and Prieto. During apolice line-up she pointed to the accused. During trial the accused moved that a blood test, both Major BloodGrouping Test and Pheno Blood Typing be conducted on the offendedparty, her child Jacob and the two accused. The result of the testconducted by the MMC showed that Jacob has a type O blood, Sandratype B, Prieto type A and Tumimpad type O. Trial court convicted Tumimpad but acquitted Prieto. The acquittal of Prietowas on reasonable doubt stating that he has a different type of blood withthe child Jacob.Issue: WON it was impossible for Tumimpad to have committed the crime of rapebecause most of the time he and his co-accused were together with Col. Salcedo.NO Ratio: It was proven that they were not always with Col. Salcedo. There wereinstances that they would even play with Sandra. Based on this it is notphysically impossible for the accused to have access to Sandra. Tumimpad argued that his conviction was erroneously based on themedical finding that he and the victim have the same blood type O In Jao vs. Court of Appeals it was held that Paternity Science hasdemonstrated that by the analysis of blood samples of the mother, the childand the alleged father, it can be established conclusively that the man is not the father of a particular child. But group blood testing cannot showonly a possibility that he os

TIJING VS CA
G.R. No. 125901, March 8, 2001 [Habeas Corpus]

FACTS: Edgardo and Bienvenida Tijing filed a petition for habeas corpus in order to recover their youngest child, Edgardo Jr., whom they did not see for 4 years. Respondent, Angelita Diamante, whom Bienvenida worked as laundrywoman, claimed on the other hand that she is the natural mother of the child. Trial court granted the petition and ordered Angelita Diamante to immediately release the child, now named John Thomas D. Lopez, and turn him over to his parents. CA reversed and set aside the decision rendered by the trial court on the ground that the evidence adduced by Bienvenida was not sufficient

to establish that she was the mother of the minor. It ruled that the lower court erred in declaring that Edgardo Tijing, Jr., and John Thomas Lopez are one and the same person.

ISSUE: Whether or not Edgardo Tijing, Jr., and John Thomas Lopez are one and the same person and is

the son of petitioners

RULING: Yes. SC upheld the decision of the trial court. The writ of habeas corpus extends to all cases of illegal confinement or detention by which any person is deprived of his liberty, or by the rightful custody of any person withheld from the persons entitled thereto. The writ of habeas corpus is the proper legal remedy to enable parents to regain the custody of a minor child even if the latter be in the custody of a third person of his own free will. It must be stressed out that in habeas corpus proceeding, the question of identity is relevant and material, subject to the usual presumption, including those as identity of the person. The trial court was correct in its judgment based on the evidence established by the parents and by the witness who is the brother of the late common-law husband of Angelita. Furthermore, there are no clinical records, log book or discharge from the clinic where John Thomas was allegedly born were presented. Strong evidence directly proves that Thomas Lopez, Angela's "husband", was not capable of siring a child. Moreover, his first marriage produced no offspring even after almost 15 years of living together with his legal wife. His 14 year affair with Angelita also bore no offspring. The birth certificate of John Thomas Lopez were attended by irregularities. It was filed by Thomas Lopez, the alleged father. Under Sec. 4, Act No. 3753 (Civil Register Law), the attending physician or midwife in attendance of the birth should cause the registration of such birth. Only in default of the physician or midwife, can the parent register the birth of his child. Certificate must be filed with the LCR within 30 days after the birth. The status of Thomas and Angelita on the birth certificate were typed in as legally married, which is false because Angelita herself had admitted that she is a "common-law wife." Trial court also observed several times that when the child and Bienvenida were both in court, the two had strong similarities in their faces. Resemblance between a minor and his alleged parent is competent and material evidence to establish parentage. Lastly, the spouses presented clinical records and testimony of the midwife who attended Bienvenida's childbirth.