G.R. No. 959 : July 24, 1903
JUAN ISMAEL, plaintiff-appellee, vs. MANUEL GUANZON, defendant-appellant.

FACTS:
This is an appeal from a judgment of the Court of First Instance. The plaintiff, Juan Ismael, filed an action against Manuel Guanzon and two other defendants. The trial court rendered judgment in favor of the plaintiff against the appellant Guanzon, but in favor of the two other defendants. The appellant assigned two errors: first, that the trial court erred in refusing to admit as evidence certain documents certified by the municipal president of Balasan, which contained statements of persons regarding the matters in controversy; and second, that the decision of the trial court did not contain sufficient findings of fact to support the judgment, particularly as to why the two other defendants were absolved from liability.

ISSUE:
1. Whether the trial court erred in rejecting the documents certified by the municipal president.
2. Whether the decision of the trial court contained sufficient findings of fact to support the judgment, especially the exoneration of the appellant’s co-defendants.

RULING:
1. On the admissibility of the documents: The Supreme Court ruled that the trial court correctly rejected the documents. The statements contained therein were testimonial in nature. Under Section 381 of the Code of Civil Procedure, testimony must be given orally in open court, subject to cross-examination, unless taken as a deposition in accordance with the law. The documents were not depositions taken under the prescribed procedure. Furthermore, they were not “official or public writings” as defined by law, and a municipal president had no legal authority to receive and record such declarations. Their rejection was proper.

2. On the sufficiency of the factual findings: The Supreme Court held that the decision contained sufficient findings to support the judgment. The trial court found that the appellant “cut and ground the cane.” This finding necessarily meant that the appellant alone appropriated the cane for his own use, thereby excluding the participation of his co-defendants. This was a sufficient basis for the judgment in favor of the other defendants. The Court clarified that the decision did not find, but merely noted the appellant’s allegation, that he acted under the direction of his co-defendants and shared the property with them.

DISPOSITIVE PORTION:
The judgment of the lower court is AFFIRMED, with the costs of this instance against the appellant.

SEPARATE OPINION:
Justice Cooper concurred in the result but disagreed with the majority’s reasoning on the second issue. He opined that the statement “the cane was cut and ground by the defendants” was an insufficient finding of fact as it was merely a recital of evidence and did not address the ultimate issues of ownership and wrongful conversion. However, he concurred in affirming the judgment based on the presumption in favor of the correctness of trial court judgments when the evidence is not before the appellate court, and because the appellant failed to raise the objection regarding insufficient findings in the court below, thereby waiving the right to raise it for the first time on appeal.