Cuevaz v. Muñoz (G.R. No.

140520; December 18, 2000)

Facts:
The Hong Kong Magistrate’s Court at Eastern Magistracy issued a warrant for the arrest
of respondent Juan Antonio Muñoz for seven (7) counts of accepting an advantage as an
agent and seven(7) counts of conspiracy to defraud, contrary to the common law of Hong
Kong. The Department of Justice received a request for the provisional arrest of the
respondent from the Mutual Legal Assistance Unit, International Law Division of the Hong
Kong Department of Justice pursuant to Article 11(1) of the RP-Hong Kong Extradition
Agreement. Upon application of the NBI, RTC of Manila issued an Order granting the
application for provisional arrest and issuing the corresponding Order of Arrest.
Consequently, respondent was arrested pursuant to the said order, and is currently
detained at the NBI detention cell. Respondent filed with the Court of Appeals, a petition
for certiorari, prohibition and mandamus with application for preliminary mandatory
injunction and/or writ of habeas corpus assailing the validity of the Order of Arrest. The
Court of Appeals rendered a decision declaring the Order of Arrest null and void on the
grounds, among others that the request for provisional arrest and the accompanying
warrant of arrest and summary of facts were unauthenticated and mere facsimile copies
which are insufficient to form a basis for the issuance of the Order of Arrest. Thus,
petitioner Justice Serafin R. Cuevas, in his capacity as the Secretary of the Department
of Justice, lost no time in filing the instant petition.
Issue:
Whether or not the request for provisional arrest of respondent and its accompanying
documents must be authenticated.
Held:
The request for provisional arrest of respondent and its accompanying documents is valid
despite lack of authentication. There is no requirement for the authentication of a request
for provisional arrest and its accompanying documents. The enumeration in the provision
of RP-Hong Kong Extradition Agreement does not specify that these documents must be
authenticated copies. This may be gleaned from the fact that while Article 11(1) does not
require the accompanying documents of a request for provisional arrest to be
authenticated, Article 9 of the same Extradition Agreement makes authentication a
requisite for admission in evidence of any document accompanying a request for
surrender or extradition. In other words, authentication is required for the request for
surrender or extradition but not for the request for provisional arrest. The RP-Hong Kong
Extradition Agreement, as they are worded, serves the purpose sought to be achieved by
treaty stipulations for provisional arrest. The process of preparing a formal request for
extradition and its accompanying documents, and transmitting them through diplomatic
channels, is not only time-consuming but also leakage-prone. There is naturally a great
likelihood of flight by criminals who get an intimation of the pending request for their
extradition. To solve this problem, speedier initial steps in the form of treaty stipulations
for provisional arrest were formulated. Thus, it is an accepted practice for the requesting
state to rush its request in the form of a telex or diplomatic cable Respondent’s reliance
on Garvida v. Sales, Jr. is misplaced. The proscription against the admission of a
pleading that has been transmitted by facsimile machine has no application in the case
at bar for obvious reasons. First, the instant case does not involve a pleading; and
second, unlike the COMELEC Rules of Procedure which do not sanction the filing of a
pleading by means of a facsimile machine, P.D.No. 1069 and the RP Hong Kong
Extradition Agreement do not prohibit the transmission of a request for provisional arrest
by means of a fax machine.
HEIRS OF SABANPAN v. COMORPOSA
FACTS:
This case arose from a complaint for unlawful detainer filed in the MTC by petitioners
against respondents involving possession of a parcel of petitioner’s land by respondents.
Respondents argue that they have acquired just and valid ownership of the premises and
that the Regional Director of the DENR has already upheld their possession over the land
in question when it ruled that they were the rightful claimants and possessors. MTC ifo
petitioners. RTC reversed, ruled if Respondents. CA affirmed RTC.CA Ruling: Although
not yet final, the Order issued by the DENR Regional Director remained in full force and
effect. The certification that the DENR's community environment and natural resources
(CENR) officer issued was proof that when the cadastral survey was conducted, the land
was still alienable and was not yet allocated to any person. Respondents had the better
right to possess alienable and disposable land of the public domain, because they have
sufficiently proven their actual, physical, open, notorious, exclusive, continuous and
uninterrupted possession thereof since 1960.Hence, SC petition.
ISSUE (related to Evidence): Did the CA gravely abuse its discretion and err in
sustaining the RTCs ruling giving weight to the CENR Officer's Certification, which only
bears the facsimile of the alleged signature of a certain Jose F. Tagorda and, that it is a
new matter raised for the first time onappeal?
SC Held: Petition has no merit.
Ratio: Petitioners contend that the CENR Certification dated July 22, 1997 is a sham
document, because the signature of the CENR officer is a mere facsimile. In support of
their argument, they cite Garvida v. Sales Jr. and argue that the Certification is a new
matter being raised by respondents for the first time on appeal.
In Garvida, the Court held: "A facsimile or fax transmission is a process involving the
transmission and reproduction of printed and graphic matter by scanning an original copy,
one elemental area at a time, and representing the shade or tone of each area by a
specified amount of electric current.
"Pleadings filed via fax machines are not considered originals and are at best exact
copies. As such, they are not admissible in evidence, as there is no way of determining
whether they are genuine or authentic. The Certification, on the other hand, is being
contested for bearing a facsimile of the signature of CENR Officer Jose F. Tagorda. The
facsimile referred to is not the same as that which is alluded to in Garvida.
The one mentioned here refers to a facsimile signature, which is defined as a signature
produced by mechanical means but recognized as valid in banking, financial, and
business transactions.
Note that the CENR officer has not disclaimed the Certification. In fact, the DENR regional
director has acknowledged and used it as reference in his Order dated April 2, 1998.If the
Certification were a sham as petitioner claims, then the regional director would not have
used it as reference in his Order. Instead, he would have either verified it or directed the
CENR officer to take the appropriate action, as the latter was under the former's direct
control and supervision.
Petitioners' claim that the Certification was raised for the first time on appeal is incorrect.
As early as the pretrial conference at the Municipal Trial Court(MTC), the CENR
Certification had already been marked as evidence for respondents as stated in the Pre-
trial Order. The Certification was not formally offered, however, because respondents had
not been able to file their position paper. Neither the rules of procedure nor jurisprudence
would sanction the admission of evidence that has not been formally offered during the
trial. But this evidentiary rule is applicable only to ordinary trials, not to cases covered by
the rule on summary procedure -- cases in which no full-blown trial is held.