Digest for Evidence

PEOPLE VS. SANTOS

GR NO. 172322

SEPTEMBER 8, 2006

FACTS: Appellant Rene Santos was charged and found guilty of Rape by the RTC of Pampanga for sexually assaulting 5year-old Veverly Ann Cabanes. The trial court and the CA gave credence to the testimony of Veverly who was only six years old when she narrated the sordid details of her ravishness. The appellant questions the credibility of the witness and further faults the trial court with “acting as the prosecutor and the judge at the same time” for allegedly initiating and propounding the questions, short of supplying the desired answer from the witness. ISSUE: WON the form of questioning to the child witness violated the uniformity rule. RULING: NO. The trend in procedural law is to give a wide latitude to the courts in exercising control over the questioning of a child witness. Under Sections 19 to 21 of the Rules on Examinationof a Child Witness, child witnesses may testify in a narrative form and leading questions may be allowed by the trial court in all stages of the examination if the same will further the interest of justice. It must be borne in mind that the offended party in this case is a 6-year old minor who was barely five when she was sexually assaulted.As a child of such tender years not yet exposed to the ways of the world, she could not have fully understood the enormity of the bestial act committed on her person.Indeed – Studies show that children, particularly very young children, make the 'perfect victims. They naturally follow the authority of adults as the socialization process teaches children that adults are to be respected. The child's age and developmental level will govern how much she comprehends about the abuse and therefore how much it affects her. If the child is too young to understand what has happened to her, the effects will be minimized because she has no comprehension of the consequences. Certainly, children have more problems in providing accounts of events because they do not understand everything they experience. They do not have enough life experiences from which to draw upon in making sense of what they see, hear, taste, smell and feel. Moreover, they have a limited vocabulary.With her limited comprehension, the child could not have a perfect way of relating that she had been sexually abused.

NAVARRO VS. CA

GR NO. 121087

AUGUST 26, 1999

FACTS: Petitioner Felipe Navarro was charged and found guilty of Homicide by the RTC of Lucena City for killing Enrique “IKE” Lingan, a reporter of the radio station DWTI in Lucena. Stanley Jalbuena, Ike's co-reporter, testified that it was Police Officer Navarro who killed the deceased. This testimony was confirmed by the voice recording he had made during the encounter in the police station. In view of RA 4200, which prohibits wire tapping, Navarro contends that the trial court erred in according weight to the testimony of Jalbuena. ISSUE: WON the tape is an admissible evidence in view of RA 4200. RULING: YES. RA 4200 provides:

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 walkie-talkie or tape-recorder, or however otherwise described: It shall also be unlawful for any person, be he a participant or not in the act or acts penalized in the next preceding sentence, to knowingly possess any tape record, wire record, disc record, or any other such record, or copies thereof, of any communication or spoken word secured either before or after the effective date of this Act in the manner prohibited by this law; or to replay the same for any other person or persons; or to communicate the contents thereof, either verbally or in writing, or to furnish transcriptions thereof, whether complete or partial, to any other person: Provided, That the use of such record or any copies thereof as evidence in any civil, criminal investigation or trial of offenses mentioned in section 3 hereof, shall not be covered by this prohibition. …. SEC. 4. Any communication or spoken word, or the existence, contents, substance, purport, effect, 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.

Thus, the law prohibits the overhearing, intercepting, or recording of private communications. Since the exchange between petitioner Navarro and Lingan was not private, its tape recording is not prohibited. Nor is there any question that it was duly authenticated. A voice recording is authenticated by the testimony of a witness (1) that he personally recorded the conversation; (2) that the tape played in court was the one he recorded; and (3) that the voices on the tape are those of the persons such are claimed to belong. In the instant case, Jalbuena testified that he personally made the voice recording; that the tape played in court was the one he recorded; and that the speakers on the tape were petitioner Navarro and Lingan. A sufficient foundation was thus laid for the authentication of the tape presented by the prosecution.

PEOPLE VS. BALLENO

GR NO. 149075

AUGUST 7, 2003

FACTS: Accused- appellant Rodrigo Balleno was charged and found guilty of RAPE by the RTC of Pasay against Jacquelyn Balandra, a 13year-old minor who is the daughter of his live-in partner. In his appeal, appellant assails Jacquelyn's credibility as a witness by referring to the inconsistency between her testimony and her sworn statement. In her statement before the police, Jacquelyn stated that there was no insertion of the penis inside her vagina "Hindi ko naramdaman na naipasok niya kasi po sa may itaas po ng pepe ko ito naramdaman. Sa loob ng labi ng ari ko." In open court, however, she testified that appellant inserted his penis inside her vagina. ISSUE: WON this inconsistency would impair the credibility of Jacquelyn. If not, what evidence should prevail between open court declarations and written affidavits? RULING: NO. Open court declarations shall prevail. It has been held that some discrepancies between the affidavit and the testimony of the witness in open court do not necessarily impair the credibility of her testimony, for affidavits are generally taken ex parte and are often incomplete or even inaccurate for lack of searching inquiries by the investigating officer. An affidavit is not a complete reproduction of what the declarant has in mind because it is generally prepared by the administering officer and the affiant simply signs it after it has been read to him. In any case, open court declarations take precedence over written affidavits in the hierarchy of evidence. Unlike written statements, there is flexibility on the part of the questioner to adapt his questions to elicit the desired answer in order to ferret out the truth.