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    OPINION EVIDENCE PEOPLE v. Galleno

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    Adi Lim
    The Supreme Court of the Philippines upheld the conviction of Joeral Galleno for statutory rape of a five-year old girl. The medical experts who examined the victim testified that she sustained a laceration in her vagina from the act, though they could not conclusively determine the exact cause. Galleno claimed it was an accident, but the court found his story not credible. While witnesses generally may not provide opinions, expert testimony is allowed if it aids the court. Here, the expert medical opinions helped but did not determine the court's conclusion, which was also based on testimony of other witnesses and the inherent improbability of Galleno's defense. The conviction was affirmed.

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    OPINION EVIDENCE PEOPLE v. Galleno

    Uploaded by

    Adi Lim
    424 views3 pages
    The Supreme Court of the Philippines upheld the conviction of Joeral Galleno for statutory rape of a five-year old girl. The medical experts who examined the victim testified that she sustained a laceration in her vagina from the act, though they could not conclusively determine the exact cause. Galleno claimed it was an accident, but the court found his story not credible. While witnesses generally may not provide opinions, expert testimony is allowed if it aids the court. Here, the expert medical opinions helped but did not determine the court's conclusion, which was also based on testimony of other witnesses and the inherent improbability of Galleno's defense. The conviction was affirmed.

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    The Supreme Court of the Philippines upheld the conviction of Joeral Galleno for statutory rape of a five-year old girl. The medical experts who examined the victim testified that she sustained a laceration in her vagina from the act, though they could not conclusively determine the exact cause. Galleno claimed it was an accident, but the court found his story not credible. While witnesses generally may not provide opinions, expert testimony is allowed if it aids the court. Here, the expert medical opinions helped but did not determine the court's conclusion, which was also based on testimony of other witnesses and the inherent improbability of Galleno's defense. The conviction was affirmed.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    424 views3 pages

    OPINION EVIDENCE PEOPLE v. Galleno

    Uploaded by

    Adi Lim
    The Supreme Court of the Philippines upheld the conviction of Joeral Galleno for statutory rape of a five-year old girl. The medical experts who examined the victim testified that she sustained a laceration in her vagina from the act, though they could not conclusively determine the exact cause. Galleno claimed it was an accident, but the court found his story not credible. While witnesses generally may not provide opinions, expert testimony is allowed if it aids the court. Here, the expert medical opinions helped but did not determine the court's conclusion, which was also based on testimony of other witnesses and the inherent improbability of Galleno's defense. The conviction was affirmed.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 3

    PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, plaintiff-appellee,

    vs.
    JOERAL GALLENO, accused-appellant.
    G.R. No. 123546, July 2, 1998

    FACTS:

    The Regional Trial Court of Roxas City convicted Galleno for


    the crime of statutory rape. The five-year old victim, Evelyn,
    sustained a laceration in her vagina which resulted in profuse
    bleeding due to her tender age. Galleno denied the accusation.
    He claimed that his left ring finger with long fingernail was
    accidentally inserted into the vagina of the child while they were
    playing, and that he applied the sap from the leaves of a madre
    de cacao tree on her vagina to stop the bleeding. The case was
    elevated to the Supreme Court for automatic review. Galleno
    claimed that the testimonies of the three expert witnesses,
    medical doctors who examined Evelyn, failed to conclusively and
    sufficiently establish the cause of the laceration of Evelyn's
    vagina.

    ISSUE:

    Whether the testimonies of the medical doctors as expert


    witnesses be considered as opinion evidence and are admissible

    HELD:

    No. As a general rule, witnesses must state facts and not


    draw conclusions or give opinions. It is the court's duty to draw
    conclusions from the evidence and form opinions upon the facts
    proved. However, conclusions and opinions of witnesses
    are received in many cases, and are not confined to expert
    testimony, based on the principle that either because of
    the special skill or expert knowledge of the witness, or
    because of the nature of the subject matter under
    observation, or for other reasons, the testimony will aid
    the court in reaching a judgment. In the case at bar, the
    trial court arrived at its conclusions not only with the aid
    of the expert testimony of doctors who gave their opinions
    as to the possible cause of the victim's laceration, but also
    the testimony of the other prosecution witnesses,
    especially the victim herself. In other words, the trial court
    did not rely solely on the testimony of the expert
    witnesses. Such expert testimony merely aided the trial
    court in the exercise of its judgment on the facts. Hence,
    the fact that the experts enumerated various possible causes of
    the victim's laceration does not mean that the trial court's
    inference is wrong. The Supreme Court, in People vs. Fulgencio
    Baquiran, 20 SCRA 451, (held that) evidence, to be believed must
    not only proceed from the mouth of a credible witness, but it
    must be credible in itself. Human perception can be warped by
    the impact of events and testimony colored by the unconscious
    workings of the mind. No better test has yet been found to
    measure the value of a witness' testimony than its conformity to
    the knowledge and common experience of mankind. Sec. 4, Rule
    128 of the Rules of Court provides that "(e)vidence must have
    such a relation to the fact in issue as to induce belief in its
    existence or non-existence." This simply means that relevancy is
    determinable by the rules of logic and human experience. There
    is no precise and universal test of relevancy provided by law.
    However, the determination of whether particular evidence is
    relevant rests largely at the discretion of the court, which must
    be exercised according to the teachings of logic and everyday
    experience. The proverb "the wicked fleeth even when no man
    pursueth, but the innocent are as bold as a lion" was correctly
    adopted by the trial court in drawing its conclusions. The
    loopholes are palpable and manifest, and clearly work against the
    credibility of accusedappellant's story on which his defense is
    based. Besides, the trial court's conclusions find support in the
    testimony of accusedappellant's own witness, Dr. Lourdes Lañada
    (who was earlier presented during the trial as a prosecution
    witness), who testified that a laceration is caused by a blunt
    instrument and that a fingernail is not a blunt but a sharp
    instrument.

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