SEC.

3
I.
RAMIREZ V CA
G.R. No. 93833 | September 28, 1995
Facts:
A civil case damages was filed by petitioner Socorro Ramirez in the Quezon City
RTC alleging that the private respondent, Ester Garcia, in a confrontation in the
latters office, allegedly vexed, insulted and humiliated her in a hostile and furious
mood and in a manner offensive to petitioners dignity and personality, contrary to
morals, good customs and public policy.
In support of her claim, petitioner produced a verbatim transcript of the event and
sought damages. 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 petitioners 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 Pasay RTC 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 filed a Motion to Quash the Information, which the RTC later on granted,
on the ground that the facts charged do not constitute an offense, particularly a
violation of R.A. 4200.
The CA declared the RTCs decision null and void and denied the petitioners MR,
hence the instant petition.
Issue:
W/N the Anti-Wiretapping Act applies in recordings by one of the parties in the
conversation

Held:
Yes. Section 1 of R.A. 4200 entitled, An Act to Prohibit and Penalized Wire
Tapping and Other Related Violations of Private Communication and Other
Purposes, provides:
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 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 statutes
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.
A perusal of the Senate Congressional Records, moreover, supports the respondent
courts conclusion that in enacting R.A. 4200 our lawmakers indeed contemplated to
make illegal, unauthorized tape recording of private conversations or
communications taken either by the parties themselves or by third persons.
The nature of the conversations 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.
Petitioners 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 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 latters office. Any doubts about the
legislative bodys meaning of the phrase private communication are, furthermore,
put to rest by the fact that the terms conversation and communication were
interchangeably used by Senator Taada in his Explanatory Note to the Bill.

Facts of the case: Soccoro Ramirez was scolded by Ester Garcia inside Garcias office. Ramirez taped the conversation and later filed charges against Garcia for insulting and
humiliating her, using as evidence the transcript of the conversation, based on the tape recording.
Garcia filed criminal charges against Ramirez for violating the anti-wire tapping act, because it was done without her knowledge and consent. Ramirez claimed that what the law
forbids is for other parties, who are not part of the conversation, to record it using the instruments enumerated in the law (there was an earlier case that was dismissed because
the instrument used was not mentioned in the law).
The trial court ruled in favor of Ramirez, granting a motion to quash on the ground that the facts charged do not constitute an offense, but the Court of Appeals reversed it.

Issue: Does the anti-wiretapping law, RA 4200, allow parties to a conversation to tape it without the consent of all those involved?

RULING;

Petition denied. Decision of CA affirmed. Costs against Ramirez.

What was construed:

The word any in Sec. 1 of RA 4200: 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.

Ratio: First, the court noted that the provision makes it clear that it is illegal for any person to secretly record a conversation, unless authorized by all parties involved.
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 congressional records also showed that the intent was that permission must be sought from all parties in the conversation. This is a complete ban on tape recorded
conversations taken without the authorization of all the parties, Sen. Tanada said during the deliberations.
The provision seeks to penalize even those privy to the private communications. Where the law makes no distinctions, one does not distinguish.

Decision: Petition denied. Decision of CA affirmed. Costs against Ramirez.

SALCEDO-ORTANEZ V CA

NOV

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 walkie-talkie
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.

III. tapos na to.

Navarro vs. Court of Appeals, 313 SCRA 153

(1999)
FACTS:
Two local media men, Stanley Jalbuena, Enrique Lingan, in Lucena City wnet to the police
station to report alledged indecent show in one of the night establishment shows in the City. At
the station, a heated confrontation followed between victim Lingan and accused policeman
Navarro who was then having drinks outside the headquarters, lead to a fisticuffs. The victim
was hit with the handle of the accused's gun below the left eyebrow, followed by a fist blow,
resulted the victim to fell and died under treatment. The exchange of words was recorded on
tape, specifically the frantic exclamations made by Navarro after the altercation that it was the
victim who provoked the fight. During the trial, Jalbuena, the other media man , testified.
Presented in evidence to confirm his testimony was a voice recording he had made of the
heated discussion at the police station between the accused police officer Navarro and the
deceased, Lingan, which was taken without the knowledge of the two.
ISSUES:
1. Whether or not the voice recording is admissible in evidence in view of RA 4200, which
prohibits wire tapping.
2. Whether the mitigating circumstances of sufficient provocation or threat on the part of the
offended party and lack of intention to commit so grave a wrong may be appreciated in favor of
the accused.
HELD:
1. The answer is affirmative, the tape is admissible in view of RA 4200, which prohibits wire
tapping. Jalbuena's testimony is confirmed by the voice recording he had made.
The law prohibits the overhearing, intercepting, or recording of private
communications(Ramirez v Cpourt of Appeals, 248 SCRA 590 [1995]). Snce the exchange
between petitioner Navarro and Lingan was not private, its tape recording is not prohibited.
2. The remarks of Lingan, which immediately preceded the acts of the accused, constituted
sufficient provocation. Provocation is said to be any unjust or improper conduct of the offended
party capable of exciting, annoying or irritating someone. The provocation must be sufficient and
must immediately precede the act; and in order to be sufficient, it must be adequate to excite a
person to commit the wrong, which must be accordingly proportionate in gravity. The mitigating
circumstance of lack of intention to commit so grave a wrong must also be considered. The
exclamations made by Navarro after the scuffle that it was Lingan who provoked him showed
that he had no intent to kill the latter.

Tapos na to