Can a Court grant a PPO even if the applicant-victim is out of the country?      An opponent of ours thinks not. According to him, the PPO will be useless since it’s only enforceable within Philippine territory; in fac ...   Read More

     Does substantial evidence mean that the hearing officer or tribunal can disregard basic rules of evidence, such as the inadmissibility of hearsay statements, considering that its own rules of procedure says that it is not bound by the t ...   Read More

We’ve requested for production of documents which are in the possession of the defendants. We don't think that there'll be any dispute that the documents are relevant to the case, since they were, in fact, mentioned in the defendants' answer, alth ...   Read More

        We received yesterday an opposition (to our motion for production of documents) which argues that our motion should be denied because it was “nothing but a fishing expedition”. It says that we were just fishing beca ...   Read More

Question: You find yourself defending an essentially indefensible R.A 9262 case. What do you do? Answer: You attack the lawyer of the complainant! You file a case against her, preferably something criminal, like falsification. And who cares if it&rsqu ...   Read More

     I got such favorable results from using the modes of discovery in a civil case (it got settled almost immediately) that I resolved to use them more in future cases.      However, one case later made me realize that, unlike the judge in that ea ...   Read More

We instinctively think of cross-examination as a tool to destroy the other side’s case. Rarely do we use it constructively, that is, to enhance our own case. Rarer still do we cross-examine to authenticate an otherwise problematic document, as we’ve done below:   In ...   Read More

  (... continued) ATTY. OPENA TO THE WITNESS: Q:     And after your son was slumped, what did you do? A:     I went to my son and carried him to take him to the hospital. Q:     How many shots did you hear? A:  ...   Read More

(... continued) ATTY. OPENA TO WITNESS: Q:    When you said end of sofa which portion, the left side or the right side? A:    The right.   Apparently, the positions of the witness and the victim, the locations of the sofa and the window are important. So, ...   Read More

The following is a transcript of a direct examination in a criminal case for murder. We decided to comment on it (see the paragraphs in italics). See if you agree with our comments and suggestions on how to make it better. This was taken from People vs. Lee, G.R. No. 139070,  May 29, ...   Read More

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