FACTS:
Complainant Irish Sagud (Irish)
and accused Rustan were classmates at Wesleyan University in Aurora Province.
Rustan courted Irish and they became "on-and-off" sweethearts towards
the end of 2004. When Irish learned afterwards that Rustan had taken a live-in
partner (now his wife), whom he had gotten pregnant, Irish broke up with him.
Before Rustan got married,
however, he got in touch with Irish and tried to convince her to elope with
him, saying that he did not love the woman he was about to marry. Irish rejected
the proposal and told Rustan to take on his responsibility to the other woman
and their child. Irish changed her cellphone number but Rustan somehow managed
to get hold of it and sent her text messages. Rustan used two cellphone numbers
for sending his messages, namely, 0920-4769301 and 0921-8084768. Irish replied
to his text messages but it was to ask him to leave her alone.
In the early morning of June 5,
2005, Irish received through multimedia message service (MMS) a picture of a
naked woman with spread legs and with Irish’s face superimposed on the figure. The sender’s cellphone number, stated
in the message, was 0921-8084768, one of the numbers that Rustan used. Irish
surmised that he copied the picture of her face from a shot he took when they
were in Baguio in 2003.
After she got the obscene picture,
Irish got other text messages from Rustan. He boasted that it would be easy for
him to create similarly scandalous pictures of her. And he threatened to spread
the picture he sent through the internet. One of the messages he sent to Irish,
written in text messaging shorthand, read: "Madali lang ikalat yun, my
chatrum ang tarlac rayt pwede ring send sa lahat ng chatter."
Irish sought the help of the vice
mayor of Maria Aurora who referred her to the police. Under police supervision,
Irish contacted Rustan through the cellphone numbers he used in sending the
picture and his text messages. Irish asked Rustan to meet her at the Lorentess
Resort in Brgy. Ramada, Maria Aurora, and he did. He came in a motorcycle.
After parking it, he walked towards Irish but the waiting police officers
intercepted and arrested him. They searched him and seized his Sony Ericsson
P900 cellphone and several SIM cards. While Rustan was being questioned at the
police station, he shouted at Irish: "Malandi ka kasi!"
Thereafter, the public prosecutor
filed an information against Rustan before the
Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Baler, Aurora, of violation of the Anti-Violence
Against Women and Their Children Act or Republic Act (R.A.) 9262.
During the trial, the prosecutor presented the pictures
in evidence.
In a decision rendered by the RTC on August 1, 2001, Rustan was found guilty of the violation of
Section 5(h) of R.A. 9262.
On Rustan’s
appeal to the Court of Appeals (CA), the
latter rendered a decision dated January 31, 2008, affirming the RTC
decision. The CA denied Rustan’s motion for reconsideration in a resolution
dated April 25, 2008.
ISSUE:
Whether or not the RTC properly admitted in
evidence the obscene picture presented in the
case?
DECISION:
Rustan claims that the obscene
picture sent to Irish through a text message constitutes an electronic
document. Thus, it should be authenticated by means of an electronic signature,
as provided under Section 1, Rule 5 of the Rules on Electronic Evidence (A.M.
01-7-01-SC).
But, firstly, Rustan is raising
this objection to the admissibility of the obscene picture, Exhibit A, for the
first time before this Court. The objection is too late since he should have
objected to the admission of the picture on such ground at the time it was
offered in evidence. He should be deemed to have already waived such ground for
objection.
Besides,
the rules he cites do not apply to the present criminal action. The Rules on
Electronic Evidence applies only to civil actions, quasi-judicial proceedings,
and administrative proceedings.
No comments:
Post a Comment