July 31, 1959
Ponente: Labrador, J.
FACTS
Pacita Madrigal-Gonzales and others were charged with the crime of falsification of public documents, in their capacities as public officials and employees, by making it appear that relief supplies and/or merchandise were purchased by Pacita for distribution to calamity indigents or sufferers, when in fact no such distributions of said relief and supplies had ever been made.
In order to prove the charge of falsification, the prosecution presented to a witness a booklet of receipts, which was marked Exh. "D", containing value invoices numbered 101301 to 101400 of the Metro Drug Corporation in Cebu. The booklet contained triplicate copies: the original invoices were sent to Manila office of the company, the duplicates to the customers, so that the triplicate copies remained in the booklet. (Note: In preparing receipts for sales, two carbons were used between the three sheets, the original, the duplicate and triplicate so that the duplicates and the triplicates were filed out by the use of the carbons in the course of the preparation and signing of the originals.)
As the witness was explaining the figures or words appearing on the triplicates, Hon. Bienvenido M. Tan, then presiding in the CFI of Manila, interrupted the proceeding, holding that the triplicates are not admissible unless it is first proven that the originals were lost and can not be produced.
Another witness, accountant of the Metro Drug Corporation in Manila, was also called by the prosecution to testify. He said that the original practice of keeping the original white copies no longer prevails as the originals are given to the customers, while only the duplicate or pink copies are submitted to the central office in Manila.
After the cross-examination of this last witness, the prosecution again went back to the identification of the triplicate invoice, Exh. D-1. It was at this stage that Judge Tan told the prosecution that the law applicable is Section 46, Rule 123 of the Rules of Court, which requires the production of the originals.
Hence, the petition for certiorari filed by the prosecution.
RULING
Petition granted. CFI ordered to proceed with the trial.
Whether triplicates (or duplicate originals) are admissible as evidence even without presenting the originals. – YES
The SC cited commentators and jurisprudence to underscore the admissibility of duplicates as evidence in court:
Moran (annotator on the Rules of Court): When carbon sheets are inserted between two or more sheets of writing paper so that the writing of a contract upon the outside sheet, including the signature of the party to be charged thereby, produces 2 facsimile upon the sheets beneath, such signature being thus reproduced by the same stroke of the pen which made the surface or exposed impression, all of the sheets so written on are regarded as duplicate originals and either of them may be introduced in evidence as such without accounting for the non-production of the others
People v. Quinones: The [subject document], being a carbon copy of the original and bearing as it does the signature of the appellant, is admissible in evidence and possess all the probative value of the original, and the same does not require an accounting for the non-production of the original.
People v. Stone: The best evidence rule is that rule which requires the highest grade of evidence obtainable to prove a disputed fact. A "duplicate sales slip" has been held to be primary evidence.
International Harvester Co. vs. Elfstrom: Where letters are produced by mechanical means and, concurrently with the original, duplicate are produced, as by placing carbon paper and writing on the exposed surface at the same time, all are duplicate originals, and any one of them may introduced in evidence without accounting for the nonproduction of the other.
U.S. vs. Manton: Carbon copies, however, when made at the same time and on the same machine as the original, are duplicate originals, and these have been held to be as much primary evidence as the originals.
DOCTRINE
The best evidence rule is that rule which requires
the highest grade of evidence obtainable to prove a disputed fact.
Granted, triplicates formed by the use of carbon papers are admissible
in evidence.
