PHOTOGRAPHS as evidence in court in the Kdrama “Typhoon Family” triggered memories of my “darkroom” days as chief photographer of the Philippine Collegian of the University of the Philippines Diliman.
Typhoon Family depicts the growth period of a young chief executive officer (CEO) and the struggles of his family and employees as they strive to protect his father's small trading company during the 1997 financial crisis.
It involves using chemical processes and equipment like an enlarger to turn negatives into physical prints on light-sensitive paper.
The SC ruled that a person cannot invoke his constitutional right to privacy if the photographs and messages from his social media posts are pieces of evidence obtained by private individuals and not by law enforcers or by other government agents.
The Court said: “While the constitutional provision highlights the importance of the right to privacy and its consequent effect on the rules on admissibility of evidence, one must not lose sight of the fact that the Bill of Rights was intended to protect private individuals against government intrusions. Hence, its provisions are not applicable between and amongst private individuals.”
The SC noted that violation of the right to privacy between individuals is properly governed by the provisions of the Civil Code, the Data Privacy Act (DPA), and other pertinent laws, while its admissibility shall be governed by the rules on relevance, materiality, authentication of documents, and the exclusionary rules under the Rules on Evidence.”
In Serrano v. Cruz-Angeles, the SC ruled that screenshots qualify as admissible documentary evidence under Section 2, Rule 130 of the Rules of Court. This rule encompasses “writings, recordings, photographs or any material containing letters, words, sounds, numbers… or other modes of written expression offered as proof of their contents.” Screenshots, being stored images of online content, meet this threshold.
One of the major challenges due to technology advancement is that digital photographs can become altered more easily than film-based images and that supposed original images recorded on a camera's light-sensitive chip can be manipulated.
(Peyups is the moniker of the University of the Philippines. Atty. Dennis R. Gorecho heads the Seafarers’ Division of the Sapalo Velez Bundang Bulilan Law Offices. For comments, e-mail info@sapalovelez.com, or call 0908866578.)
