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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 theCA gave credence to the testimony of Veverly who was only six years old when shenarrated the sordid details of her ravishness.

The appellant questions the credibility of the witness and further faults the trialcourt with acting as the prosecutor and the judge at the same time for allegedlyinitiating and propounding the questions, short of supplying the desired answer from thewitness.

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 andleading questions may be allowed by the trial court in all stages of the examination if thesame will further the interest of justice. It must be borne in mind that the offended partyin this case is a 6-year oldminor who was barely five when she was sexually assaulted.Asa child of such tender years not yet exposed to the ways of the world, she could not havefully understood the enormity of the bestial act committed on her person.Indeed

Studies show that children, particularly very young children, make the 'perfectvictims. They naturally follow the authority of adults as the socialization process teacheschildren that adults are to be respected. The child's age and developmental level willgovern how much she comprehends about the abuse and therefore how much it affectsher. 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, childrenhave more problems in providing accounts of events because they do not understandeverything they experience. They do not have enough life experiences from which todraw upon in making sense of what they see, hear, taste, smell and feel. Moreover, theyhave a limited vocabulary.With her limited comprehension, the child could not have a

perfect way of relating that she had been sexually abused.

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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 inLucena.

Stanley Jalbuena, Ike's co-reporter, testified that it was Police Officer Navarro whokilled the deceased. This testimony was confirmed by the voice recording he had madeduring the encounter in the police station.

In view of RA 4200, which prohibits wire tapping, Navarro contends that the trialcourt 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 4200provides:SECTION 1. It shall be unlawful for any person, not being authorized by all the parties to any privatecommunication or spoken word, to tap any wire or cable, or by using any other device or arrangement, tosecretly overhear, intercept, or record such communication or spoken word by using a device commonlyknown as a dictaphone or dictagraph or detectaphone or walkie-talkie or tape-recorder, or however otherwisedescribed:It shall also be unlawful for any person, be he a participant or not in the act or acts penalized in the nextpreceding 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 ofthis Act in the manner prohibited by this law; or to replay the same for any other person or persons; or tocommunicate the contents thereof, either verbally or in writing, or to furnish transcriptions thereof, whethercomplete or partial, to any other person: Provided, That the use of such record or any copies thereof asevidence in any civil, criminal investigation or trial of offenses mentioned in section 3 hereof, shall not becovered by this prohibition. .

SEC. 4. Any communication or spoken word, or the existence, contents, substance, purport, effect, ormeaning of the same or any part thereof, or any information therein contained obtained or secured by anyperson 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 privatecommunications. Since the exchange between petitioner Navarro and Lingan was notprivate, its tape recording is not prohibited.

Nor is there any question that it was duly authenticated. A voice recording isauthenticated by the testimony of a witness (1) that he personally recorded theconversation; (2) that the tape played in court was the one he recorded; and (3) that thevoices 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 playedin court was the one he recorded; and that the speakers on the tape were petitionerNavarro and Lingan. A sufficient foundation was thus laid for the authentication of thetape presented by the prosecution.

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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 hislive-in partner.

In his appeal, appellant assails Jacquelyn's credibility as a witness by referring tothe inconsistency between her testimony and her sworn statement. In her statementbefore the police, Jacquelyn stated that there was no insertion of the penis inside hervagina "Hindi ko naramdaman na naipasok niya kasi po sa may itaas po ng pepe ko itonaramdaman. Sa loob ng labi ng ari ko." In open court, however, she testified thatappellant 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 testimonyof the witness in open court do not necessarily impair the credibility of her testimony, foraffidavits are generally taken ex parte and are often incomplete or even inaccurate forlack of searching inquiries by the investigating officer. An affidavit is not a completereproduction of what the declarant has in mind because it is generally prepared by theadministering officer and the affiant simply signs it after it has been read to him. In anycase, open court declarations take precedence over written affidavits in the hierarchy ofevidence. Unlike written statements, there is flexibility on the part of the questioner toadapt his questions to elicit the desired answer in order to ferret out the truth.