1 RAMIREZ VS.

CA
Petitioner vigorously argues, as her main and principal issue7 that the applicable provision of Republic
Act 4200 does not apply to the taping of a private conversation by one of the parties to the conversation.
She contends that the provision merely refers to the unauthorized taping of a private conversation by a
party other than those involved in the communication. Finally, petitioner argues that R.A. 4200 penalizes
the taping of a private communication, not a private conversation and that consequently, her act of
secretly taping her conversation with private respondent was not illegal under the said act.

Section 1 of R.A. 4200 entitled, An Act to Prohibit and Penalize Wire Tapping and Other Related Violations
of Private Communication and Other Purposes, provides: Section 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 tape recorder, or however otherwise described.

The aforestated provision clearly and unequivocally makes it illegal for any person, not authorized by all
the parties to any private communication to secretly record such communication by means of a tape
recorder. The law makes no distinction as to whether the party sought to be penalized by the statute
ought to be a party other than or different from those involved in the private communication. The
statutes intent to penalize all persons unauthorized to make such recording is underscored by the use of
the qualifier any. Consequently, as respondent Court of Appeals correctly concluded, even a (person)
privy to a communication who records his private conversation with another without the knowledge of
the latter (will) qualify as a violator13 under this provision of R.A. 4200.

Second, the nature of the conversation is immaterial to a violation of the statute. The substance of the
same need not be specifically alleged in the information. What R.A. 4200 penalizes are the acts of secretly
overhearing, intercepting or recording private communications by means of the devices enumerated
therein. The mere allegation that an individual made a secret recording of a private communication by
means of a tape recorder would suffice to constitute an offense under Section 1 of R.A. 4200.

Finally, petitioners contention that the phrase private communication in Section 1 of R.A. 4200 does
not include private conversations narrows the ordinary meaning of the word communication to a
point of absurdity. The word communicate comes from the latin word communicare, meaning to share
or to impart. In its ordinary signification, communication connotes the act of sharing or imparting, as in
a conversation,15 or signifies the process by which meanings or thoughts are shared between individuals
through a common system of symbols (as language signs or gestures)16 These definitions are broad
enough to include verbal or non-verbal, written or expressive communications of meanings or thoughts
which are likely to include the emotionallycharged exchange, on February 22, 1988, between petitioner
and private respondent, in the privacy of the latters office. Any doubts about the legislative bodys
meaning of the phrase private communication are, furthermore, put to rest by the fact that the terms
conversation and communication were interchangeably used by Senator Tanada in his Explanatory
Note to the bill.

2 ZULUETA VS. CA
Petitioner Cecilia Zulueta is the wife of private respondent Alfredo Martin. On March 26, 1982, petitioner
entered the clinic of her husband, a doctor of medicine, and in the presence of her mother, a driver and
private respondents secretary, forcibly opened the drawers and cabinet in her husbands clinic and took
157 documents consisting of private correspondence between Dr. Martin and his alleged paramours,
greeting cards, cancelled checks, diaries, Dr. Martins passport, and photographs. The documents and
papers were seized for use in evidence in a case for legal separation and for disqualification from the
practice of medicine which petitioner had filed against her husband.

Indeed the documents and papers in question are inadmissible in evidence. The constitutional injunction
declaring the privacy of communication and correspondence [to be] inviolable3 is no less applicable
simply because it is the wife (who thinks herself aggrieved by her husbands infidelity) who is the party
against whom the constitutional provision is to be enforced. The only exception to the prohibition in the
Constitution is if there is a lawful order [from a] court or when public safety or order requires otherwise,
as prescribed by law.4 Any violation of this provision renders the evidence obtained inadmissible for
any purpose in any proceeding.5

The intimacies between husband and wife do not justify any one of them in breaking the drawers and
cabinets of the other and in ransacking them for any telltale evidence of marital infidelity. A person, by
contracting marriage, does not shed his/her integrity or his right to privacy as an individual and the
constitutional protection is ever available to him or to her.

The law insures absolute freedom of communication between the spouses by making it privileged. Neither
husband nor wife may testify for or against the other without the consent of the affected spouse while
the marriage subsists.6 Neither may be examined without the consent of the other as to any
communication received in confidence by one from the other during the marriage, save for specified
exceptions.7 But one thing is freedom of communication; quite another is a compulsion for each one to
share what one knows with the other. And this has nothing to do with the duty of fidelity that each owes
to the other.

3 NAVARRO VS. CA
Indeed, Jalbuenas testimony is confirmed by the voice recording he had made. It may be asked whether
the tape is admissible in view of R.A. No. 4200, which prohibits wire tapping. The answer is in the
affirmative. The law provides:
SECTION 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 tape-recorder, or however
otherwise described: It shall also be unlawful for any person, be he a participant or not in the act or acts
penalized in the next preceding sentence, to knowingly possess any tape record, wire record, disc record,
or any other such record, or copies thereof, of any communication or spoken word secured either before
or after the effective date of this Act in the manner prohibited by this law; or to replay the same for any
other person or persons; or to communicate the contents thereof, either verbally or in writing, or to
furnish transcriptions thereof, whether complete or partial, to any other person: Provided, That the use
of such record or any copies thereof as evidence in any civil, criminal investigation or trial of offenses
mentioned in section 3 hereof, shall not be covered by this prohibition. . . . . SEC. 4. Any communication
or spoken word, or the existence, contents, substance, purport, effect, 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.

Nor is there any question that it was duly authenticated. A voice recording is authenticated by the
testimony of a witness (1) that he personally recorded the conversation; (2) that the tape played in court
was the one he recorded; and (3) that the voices on the tape are those of the persons such are claimed to
belong.30 In the instant case, Jalbuena testified that he personally made the voice recording;31 that the
tape played in court was the one he recorded;32 and that the speakers on the tape were petitioner
Navarro and Lingan.33 A sufficient foundation was thus laid for the authentication of the tape presented
by the prosecution.