FACTS:
Petitioner
MCC Industrial Sales (MCC), a domestic corporation with office at Binondo,
Manila, is engaged in the business of importing and wholesaling stainless steel
products. One
of its suppliers is the Ssangyong Corporation (Ssangyong), an
international trading company with head office in Seoul, South Korea
and regional headquarters in Makati City, Philippines. The
two corporations conducted business through telephone calls and facsimile or
telecopy transmissions. Ssangyong would send the pro forma invoices
containing the details of the steel product order to MCC; if the latter
conforms thereto, its representative affixes his signature on the faxed copy
and sends it back to Ssangyong, again by fax.
Following the failure of MCC
to open a letters of credit to facilitate the payment of imported stainless
steel products, Ssangyong through counsel wrote a letter to MCC, on September
11, 2000, canceling the sales contract under ST2-POSTS0401-1 /ST2-POSTS0401-2,
and demanding payment of US$97,317.37 representing losses, warehousing
expenses, interests and charges.
Ssangyong then filed, on
November 16, 2001, a civil action for damages due to breach of contract against
defendants MCC, Sanyo Seiki and Gregory Chan before the Regional Trial Court of
Makati City. In its complaint, Ssangyong alleged that defendants breached their
contract when they refused to open the L/C in the amount of US$170,000.00 for
the remaining 100MT of steel under Pro Forma Invoice
Nos. ST2-POSTS0401-1 and ST2-POSTS0401-2.
After
Ssangyong rested its case, defendants filed a Demurrer to Evidence alleging
that Ssangyong failed to present the original copies of the pro forma invoices
on which the civil action was based. In an Order dated April 24, 2003, the
court denied the demurrer, ruling that the documentary evidence presented had
already been admitted in the December 16, 2002 Orde and
their admissibility finds support in Republic Act (R.A.) No. 8792, otherwise
known as the Electronic Commerce Act of 2000. According to the aforesaid Order, considering that both testimonial
and documentary evidence tended to substantiate the material allegations in the
complaint, Ssangyong's evidence sufficed for purposes of a prima facie case.
ISSUE:
Whether the
print-out and/or photocopies of facsimile transmissions are electronic evidence
and admissible in evidence as such?
DECISION:
R.A. No. 8792, otherwise
known as the Electronic Commerce Act of 2000, considers an electronic data
message or an electronic document as the functional equivalent of a written
document for evidentiary purposes. The Rules on Electronic Evidence regards
an electronic document as admissible in evidence if it complies with the rules
on admissibility prescribed by the Rules of Court and related laws, and is
authenticated in the manner prescribed by the said Rules. An
electronic document is also the equivalent of an original document under the
Best Evidence Rule, if it is a printout or output readable by sight or other
means, shown to reflect the data accurately.
Thus, to be admissible in
evidence as an electronic data message or to be considered as the functional
equivalent of an original document under the Best Evidence Rule, the writing
must foremost be an "electronic data message" or an "electronic
document."
In an
ordinary facsimile transmission, there exists an original paper-based information
or data that is scanned, sent through a phone line, and re-printed at the
receiving end. Be it noted that in enacting the Electronic Commerce Act of
2000, Congress intended virtual or paperless writings
to be the functional equivalent
and to have the same legal function as
paper-based documents. Further, in a virtual or paperless
environment, technically, there is no original copy to speak of, as all direct
printouts of the virtual reality are the same, in all respects, and are
considered as originals. Ineluctably, the law's definition of
"electronic data message," which, as aforesaid, is interchangeable
with "electronic document," could not have included facsimile transmissions, which have an original paper-based copy as sent and
a paper-based facsimile copy as received. These two copies
are distinct from each other, and have different legal effects. While Congress
anticipated future developments in communications and computer technology when
it drafted the law, it excluded the early forms of technology, like telegraph,
telex and telecopy (except computer-generated faxes, which is a newer
development as compared to the ordinary fax machine to fax machine
transmission), when it defined the term "electronic data message."We,
therefore, conclude that the terms "electronic data message" and
"electronic document," as defined under the Electronic Commerce Act
of 2000, do not include a facsimile transmission. Accordingly, a facsimile
transmission cannot be considered as electronic evidence. It is not the
functional equivalent of an original under the Best Evidence Rule and is not
admissible as electronic
evidence.
Since a facsimile
transmission is not an "electronic data message" or an
"electronic document," and cannot be considered as electronic
evidence by the Court, with greater reason is a photocopy of such a fax
transmission not electronic evidence. In the present case, therefore, Pro Forma
Invoice Nos. ST2-POSTS0401-1 and ST2-POSTS0401-2
(Exhibits "E" and "F"), which are mere
photocopies of
the original fax transmittals, are not electronic evidence, contrary to the
position of both the trial and the appellate courts.
No comments:
Post a Comment