People vs. Tan G.R. No. L-14257.

July 31, 1959

Facts: Pacita Madrigal-Gonzales and her co-accused were charged with the crime of falsification of public
documents, in their capacities as public officials and employees, for having made it appear that certain relief
supplies and/or merchandise were purchased by Gonzales for distribution to calamity indigents, in such quantities
and at such prices, and from such business establishments or persons as written in said public documents. The
truth was, no such distributions of such relief and supplies as valued and as supposedly purchased had ever been
made.

The prosecution presented as evidence a booklet of receipts from the Metro Drug Corporation in Magallanes, Cebu
City. Said booklet contained triplicate copies, the original invoices of which were sent to the company’s Manila
office, the dupicates given to customers, and the triplicates left attached to the booklet. One of the Metro Drug’s
salesmen who issued a receipt further explained that, in preparing receipts for sales, two carbon copies were used
between the three sheets, so that the duplicates and the triplicates were filed out of the use of the carbons in the
course of the preparation and signing of the originals.

The trial court judge, Hon. Bienvenido Tan, interrupted the proceeding, holding that the triplicates were not
admissible unless it was proven that the originals were lost and cannot be produced. Another witness was
presented, and he alleged that the former practice of keeping the original white copies no longer prevails as the
originals are given to the customers, while only the duplicates are submitted to the Manila office.

Issue: Are the triplicates of the receipts admissible as evidence?

Held: Yes. Under the law on evidence, the best evidence rule is that rule which requires the highest grade of
evidence obtainable to prove a disputed fact. The admissibility of duplicates or triplicates under this rule has long
been settled. “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, produced 2
facsimile upon the sheets beneath, such signatures 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 nonproduction of the others.”

Doctrine: The best evidence rule is that rule which requires the highest grade of evidence obtainable to prove a
disputed fact. Carbon copies, however, when made at the same time and on the same machine as the original, are
duplicate originals, and have been held to be as much primary evidence as the originals.