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Salcedo ortanez vs ca
G.R. No. 110662 | August 4, 1994 | J. Padilla
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.

Issue:
W/N the recordings of the telephone conversations are admissible in
evidence
W/N the remedy of certiorari under Rule 65 of the Rules of Court was
properly availed of by the petitioner in the Court of Appeals

Held:

1. No. 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 thus:

Sec. 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. . . .

Sec. 4. Any communication or spoken word, or the existence, contents,

substance, purport, or meaning of the same or any part 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.

Absent a clear showing that both parties to the telephone conversations

allowed the recording of the same, the inadmissibility of the subject tapes is
mandatory under Rep. Act No. 4200.

2. Yes and no. The extraordinary writ of certiorari is generally not available
to challenge an interlocutory order of a trial court. The proper remedy in
such cases is an ordinary appeal from an adverse judgment, incorporating
in said appeal the grounds for assailing the interlocutory order.

However, where the assailed interlocutory order is patently erroneous and

the remedy of appeal would not afford adequate and expeditious relief, the
Court may allow certiorari as a mode of redress.

Facts and case summary for Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962)
School-sponsored prayer in public schools is unconstitutional.
FACTS
A New York State law required public schools to open each day with
the Pledge of Allegiance and a nondenominational prayer in which the
students recognized their dependence upon God. The law allowed students
to absent themselves from this activity if they found it objectionable. A
parent sued on behalf of his child, arguing that the law violated the
Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, as made applicable to the
states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

ISSUE
Whether school-sponsored nondenominational prayer in public schools
violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
RULING
Yes
The majority, via Justice Black, held that school-sponsored prayer violates
the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The majority stated that
the provision allowing students to absent themselves from this activity did
not make the law constitutional because the purpose of the First
Amendment was to prevent government interference with religion. The
majority noted that religion is very important to a vast majority of the
American people. Since Americans adhere to a wide variety of beliefs, it is
not appropriate for the government to endorse any particular belief system.
The majority noted that wars, persecutions, and other destructive measures
often arose in the past when the government involved itself in religious
affairs.

Borjal vs. CA, 301 SCRA 1; G.R. No. 126466, January 14, 1999
FACTS: Private respondent filed for damages against petitioners for the
series of articles written by the latter in a newspaper column, which dealt
with alleged anomalous activities without naming or identifying private
respondent. Petitioners contends that the right to free press is a privilege
communication.

ISSUE: WON commentaries on matters of public interest are privilege.

HELD: Yes. No culpability could be imputed to petitioners for the alleged
offending publication without doing violence to the concept of privileged
communications implicit in the freedom of the press.

Near v. Minnesota
283 US 697 Facts of the Case:
Jay Near published a scandal sheet in Minneapolis, in which he attacked
local officials, chargingthat they were implicated with gangsters. Minnesota
officials obtained an injunction to preventNear from publishing his
newspaper under a state law that allowed such action againstperiodicals.
The law provided that any person "engaged in the business" of regularly
publishingor circulating an "obscene, lewd, and lascivious" or a "malicious,
scandalous and defamatory"newspaper or periodical was guilty of a
nuisance, and could be enjoined (stopped) from furthercommitting or
maintaining the nuisance.
Issue:
Does the Minnesota "gag law" violate the free press provision of the First
Amendment?
Held:
The Supreme Court held that the statute authorizing the injunction was
unconstitutional asapplied. History had shown that the protection against
previous restraints was at the heart of theFirst Amendment. The Court held
that the statutory scheme constituted a prior restraint andhence was invalid
under the First Amendment. Thus the Court established as a
constitutionalprinciple the doctrine that, with some narrow exceptions, the
government could not censor orotherwise prohibit a publication in advance,
even though the communication might bepunishable after publication in a
criminal or other proceeding.
KINGSLEY BOOKS INC VS BROWN, 354 US 436
Facts:
New York state law authorized the legal counsel for a municipality to seek
an injunction againstand the destruction of material deemed by the courts
to be obscene. Peter Campbell Brown,Corporation Counsel for the City of
New York, sought such an injunction against severalbookstores. The

process of review that followed was a civil, rather than criminal procedure,
andthe courts ultimately granted the injunction and sought to destroy the
obscene material.
Issue:
Did the civil procedure as laid out by New York statute violate the
booksellers' rights under theDue Process Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment by not allowing for a criminal trial beforeimposing an injunction
and destroying the obscene material?
Held:
No. In a 54 opinion authored by Justice Felix Frankfurter, the Court
concluded that the civilprocedure complied with the requirements of due
process. Justice Frankfurter noted that theprocedural safeguards were not
significantly different from many state criminal misdemeanorprocedures,
nor were the penalties any more severe. The opinion also reaffirmed the
existingnotion that the constitutional protection of speech does not extend
to obscene material.
IGLESIA NI CRISTO VS CA, 259 SCRA 529 Facts:
Petitioner has a television program entitled "Ang Iglesia ni Cristo" aired on
Channel 2 everySaturday and on Channel 13 every Sunday. The program
presents and propagates petitioner'sreligious beliefs, doctrines and
practices often times in comparative studies with other religions.Petitioner
submitted to the respondent Board of Review for Moving Pictures and
Television theVTR tapes of its TV program Series Nos. 116, 119, 121 and
128. The Board classified the seriesas "X" or not for public viewing on the
ground that they "offend and constitute an attack againstotherreligions
which is expressly prohibited by law." On November 28, 1992, it appealed
to theOffice of the President the classification of its TV Series No. 128
which allowed it through a letterof former Executive Secretary Edelmiro A.
Amante, Sr., addressed for Henrietta S. Mendezreversing the decision of
the respondent Board. According to the letter the episode in isprotected by
the constitutional guarantee of free speech and expression and no

indication thatthe episode poses any clear and present danger. Petitioner
also filed Civil Case. Petitioneralleged that the respondent Board acted
without jurisdiction or with grave abuse of discretion inrequiring petitioner to
submit the VTR tapes of itsTV program and in x-rating them. It cited its
TVProgram Series Nos. 115, 119, 121 and 128. In their Answer, respondent
Board invoked its powerunder PD No. 19861 in relation to Article 201 of the
Revised Penal Code. The Iglesia ni Cristoinsists on the literal translation of
the bible and says that our (Catholic) veneration of the VirginMary is not to
be condoned because nowhere it is found in the bible. The board
contended that itoutrages Catholic and Protestant's beliefs. RTC ruled in
favor of petitioners. CA however reversedit hence this petition.
Issue:
WON the "ang iglesia ni cristo" program is not constitutionally protected as
a form of religiousexercise and expression.
Held:
Yes. Any act that restrains speech is accompanied with presumption of
invalidity. It is theburden of the respondent Board to overthrow this
presumption. If it fails to discharge thisburden, its act of censorship will be
struck down. This is true in this case. So-called "attacks" aremere criticisms
of some of the deeply held dogmas and tenets of otherreligions . RTCs
rulingclearly suppresses petitioner's freedom of speech and interferes with
its right to free exercise of religion. attack is different from offend any
race or religion. The respondent Board maydisagree with the criticisms of
otherreligions by petitioner but that gives it no excuse to interdictsuch
criticisms, however, unclean they may be. Under our constitutional scheme,
it is not thetask of the State to favor any religion by protecting it against an
attack by anotherreligion.Religious dogmas and beliefs are often at war and
to preserve peace among theirfollowers, especially the fanatics, the
establishment clause of freedom of religion prohibits theState from leaning
towards any religion. Respondent board cannot censor the speech of
petitioner Iglesia ni Cristo simply because it attacks otherreligions, even if
said religion happensto be the most numerous church in our country. The

basis of freedom of religion is freedom of thought and it is best served by

encouraging the marketplace of dueling ideas. It is only where itis
unavoidably necessary to prevent an immediate and grave danger to the
security and welfareof the community that infringement of religious freedom
may be justified, and only to the smallest extent necessary to avoid the
danger. There is no showing whatsoever of the type of harm the tapes will
bring about especially the gravity and imminence of the threatened
harm.Prior restraint on speech, includingreligious speech, cannot be
justified by hypothetical fears butonly by the showing of a substantive and
imminent evil. It is inappropriate to apply the clear andpresent danger test
to the case at bar because the issue involves the content of speech and
notthe time, place or manner of speech. Allegedly, unless the speech is first
allowed, its impactcannot be measured, and the causal connection
between the speech and the evil apprehendedcannot be established. The
determination of the question as to whether or not such
vilification,exaggeration or fabrication falls within or lies outside the
boundaries of protected speech orexpression is a judicial function which
cannot be arrogated by an administrative body such as aBoard of
Censors." A system of prior restraint may only be validly administered by
judges andnot left to administrative agencies.
GROSJEAN VS AMERICAN PRESS, CO., 297 US 233 Facts:
-Suit brought by nine publishers of newspapers within the State of
Louisianato enjoin theenforcement against them of the provisions of ACT
No. 23.-ACT No. 23 requires everyone subject to the tax to file a sworn
report every three monthsshowing the amount and the gross receipts from
the business described in 1. The resulting taxmust be paid when the
report is filed. Failure to file the report or pay the tax as thus
providedconstitutes a misdemeanor and subjects the offender to a fine not
exceeding $500, orimprisonment not exceeding six months, or both, for
each violation. Any corporation violating theact subjects itself to the
payment of $50 to be recovered by suit.-Appellees contend that the said
Act abridges the freedom of the press.
Issue:

WON the act abridges the freedom of the press.

Held:
-The tax imposed was declared invalid because it tended to limit the
circulation of any suchperiodical seeking to avoid the payment of the tax.Characterizing the tax as tax on knowledge is an indirect attempt to
restrict the disseminationof ideas.