Human Rights Law

1st Semster, SY 2021-2022

4th Assignment

a. Privacy of communications and correspondence

i. Private and public communications

ii. Intrusion, when allowed; exclusionary rule

Cases:

1. Ramirez vs CA GR No. 93833 September 28, 1995

Facts:

Petitioner produced a verbatim transcript of the event (a confrontation in the

private respondent’s office where the later allegedly vexed, insulted and
humiliated her in a “hostile and furious mood” and in a manner offensive to
petitioner’s dignity and personality,”) and sought moral damages, attorney’s
fees and other expenses of litigation in the amount of P610,000.00, in
addition to costs, interests and other reliefs awardable at the trial court’s
discretion. The transcript on which the civil case was based was culled from
a tape recording of the confrontation made by petitioner.

As a result of petitioner’s recording of the event and alleging that the said
act of secretly taping the confrontation was illegal, private respondent filed a
criminal case before the Regional Trial Court of Pasay City for violation of
Republic Act 4200, entitled “An Act to prohibit and penalize wire tapping and
other related violations of private communication, and other purposes.”

Petitioner argues, as her “main and principal issue” that the applicable
provision of Republic Act 4200 does not apply to the taping of a private
conversation by one of the parties to the conversation. She contends that
the provision merely refers to the unauthorized taping of a private
conversation by a party other than those involved in the communication. In
relation to this, petitioner avers that the substance or content of the
conversation must be alleged in the Information, otherwise the facts charged
would not constitute a violation of R.A. 4200. Finally, petitioner argues that
R.A. 4200 penalizes the taping of a “private communication,” not a “private
conversation” and that consequently, her act of secretly taping her
conversation with private respondent was not illegal under the said act.[10]

Issue:

1. Whether the applicable provision of Republic Act 4200 does not apply to
the taping of a private conversation by one of the parties to the conversation

2. Whether the substance or content of the conversation must be alleged in

the Information, otherwise the facts charged would not constitute a violation
of R.A. 4200.

3. Whether R.A. 4200 penalizes only the taping of a “private

communication,” and not a “private conversation”

Held:

1. No. First, legislative intent is determined principally from the language of

a statute. Where the language of a statute is clear and unambiguous, the
law is applied according to its express terms, and interpretation would be
resorted to only where a literal interpretation would be either impossible or
absurd or would lead to an injustice.

Section 1 of R.A. 4200 entitled, “An Act to Prohibit and Penalize Wire
Tapping and Other Related Violations of Private Communication and Other
Purposes,” provides:

Section I. 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 walkie-talkie or tape recorder, or however otherwise
described.

The aforestated provision clearly and unequivocally makes it illegal for any
person, not authorized by all the parties to any private communication to
secretly record such communication by means of a tape recorder. The law
makes no distinction as to whether the party sought to be penalized by the
statute ought to be a party other than or different from those involved in the
private communication. The statute’s intent to penalize all persons
unauthorized to make such recording is underscored by the use of the
qualifier “any”. Consequently, as respondent Court of Appeals correctly
concluded, “even a (person) privy to a communication who records his
private conversation with another without the knowledge of the latter (will)
qualify as a violator” under this provision of R.A. 4200.

2. No. Second, the nature of the conversation is immaterial to a violation of

the statute. The substance of the same need not be specifically alleged in
the information. What R.A. 4200 penalizes are the acts of secretly
overhearing, intercepting or recording private communications by means of
the devices enumerated therein. The mere allegation that an individual
made a secret recording of a private communication by means of a tape
recorder would suffice to constitute an offense under Section 1 of R.A. 4200.
As the Solicitor General pointed out in his COMMENT before the respondent
court: “Nowhere (in the said law) is it required that before one can be
regarded as a violator, the nature of the conversation, as well as its
communication to a third person should be professed.”

3. No. Finally, petitioner’s contention that the phrase “private

communication” in Section 1 of R.A. 4200 does not include “private
conversations” narrows the ordinary meaning of the word “communication”
to a point of absurdity. The word communicate comes from the latin word
communicare, meaning “to share or to impart.” In its ordinary signification,
communication connotes the act of sharing or imparting, as in a
conversation, or signifies the “process by which meanings or thoughts are
shared between individuals through a common system of symbols (as
language signs or gestures)” These definitions are broad enough to include
verbal or non-verbal, written or expressive communications of “meanings or
thoughts” which are likely to include the emotionally – charged exchange, on
February 22, 1988, between petitioner and private respondent, in the
privacy of the latter’s office.
2. Zulueta vs CA GR No. 107383 February 20, 1996

Doctrine in Nachura: The right to privacy of communication may be invoked

against the wife who went to the clinic of her husband and there took
documents consisting of private communications between her husband and
his alleged paramour.

Facts:

Cecilia Zulueta is the wife of Dr. Alfredo Martin. One day, she went to the
clinic of her husband, together with her mom, her driver and Dr. Martin’s
secretary and forcibly opened the drawer of her husband’s clinic and took
157 documents consisting of private correspondence between Dr. Martin and
his alleged paramours, greetings cards, cancelled checks, diaries, Dr.
Martins passport, and photographs without Dr. Martin’s knowledge and
consent. 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.

Dr. Martin brought an action for the recovery of documents and papers, as
well as damages against her wife before the RTC. The RTC ruled in his favor,
declaring him to be the exclusive owner of such documents. The writ of
preliminary injunction was made final and petitioner Cecilia Zulueta and her
attorneys and representatives were enjoined from using or
submitting/admitting as evidence the documents and papers in question. On
appeal, the Court of Appeals affirmed the decision of the Regional Trial
Court. Hence this petition.

Cecilia’s side: She contends that the case of Alfredo Martin vs Alfonso Felix,
Jr. (NOTE: the case is between her husband, Dr. Martin and a lawyer, atty.
alfonso) where the court ruled that the documents and papers were
admissible in evidence and that the use of those documents by Atty. Alfonso
did not constitute gross malpractice and gross misconduct.

Issue:
WON the documents in question are inadmissible in evidence.

Held:

Yes. Indeed the documents and papers in question are inadmissible in

evidence. The constitutional injunction 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 husbands
infidelity) 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 a] court or when public safety or order requires
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 any one of them in
breaking the drawers and cabinets of the other and in ransacking them for
any telltale evidence of marital infidelity. A person, by contracting marriage,
does not shed his/her integrity or 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.

3. Ople vs Torres GR No. 127685, July 23, 1998

4. Sony Music Entertainment Inc. vs Judge Español GR No. 156804, March

14, 2005

5. Gaanan vs IAC GR No. L-69809, October 16, 1986

6. Morfe vs Mutuc, GR No. L-20387, January 31, 1968

7. Griswold vs Connecticut, 381 US 479, 484 (1965)

8. Spouses Bill and Victoria Hing vs Choachuy GR No. 179736, June 26,
2013

9. People vs Estrada, GR Nos. 164368-69, April 2, 2009

10. Vivares vs St. Theresa’s College GR No. 202666, September 29, 2014

11.Pollo vs Chairperson David GR No. 181881, October 18, 2011