Salcedo-Ortanez v.

CA
Facts:
Private Respondent Rafael Ortanez filed a complaint before the RTC for
annulment of marriage against petitioner Teresota Salcedo-Ortanez on
the grounds of lack of marrage license and psychological incapacity.
Private Respondent offered in evidence three cassette tapes of alleged
telephone conversations between petitioner and unidentified persons.
The petitioner objected, but the trial court admitted all of private
respondents evidence.
A petition for certiorari was then filed to the CA questioning the
admissibility of such evidence.
CA ruled for the validity of the admission, for two basic reasons:
o 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.
o A petition for certiorari is notoriously inappropriate to rectify a
supposed error in admitting evidence adduced during trial.
Issue: WON the cassette tapes containing the conversation of the petitioner
is admissible as evidence.
Ruling: NO.

Unauthorized tape recordings of telephone conversations not

admissible in evidence. RA 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.
o The relevant provisions of RA 4200 are as follows:
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 taperecorder, 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.
Clearly, respondents trial court and the Court of Appeals failed to consider
the provisions of the law in admitting in evidence the cassette tapes in
question. 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.