This case has been cited 1 times or more.
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2011-04-04 |
PERALTA, J. |
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| The value of the opinion of a handwriting expert depends not upon his mere statements of whether a writing is genuine or false, but upon the assistance he may afford in pointing out distinguishing marks, characteristics and discrepancies in and between genuine and false specimens of writing which would ordinarily escape notice or detection from an unpracticed observer.[31] While admittedly this Court was unable to fully comprehend all the differences noted by Sorra given that her testimony was fairly technical in nature and description, it would, however, not be amiss to state that this Court has observed a good number of the differences noted by her. Moreover, while We are not unmindful of the testimony of Albacea, the document examiner from the NBI, this Court is more inclined to believe the findings of Sorra, because unlike Albacea, Sorra limited her examination to Exhibits "S-1 to S-11" and "S-19." Albacea, on the other hand, considered all 19 specimen signatures. Noticeably, Exhibits "S-12" to "S-18" were executed several years apart from the questioned signature which was supposedly written in 1959. However, the dates of execution of Exhibits "S-12" to "S-18" covered years ranging from 1933 to 1952 and 1974. Thus, this Court finds that Sorra was correct when she opted to disregard the said Exhibits in her examination. Lastly, while it was improper for the RTC to rely solely on Sorra's credentials, her superior credentials, compared to that of Albacea,[32] give added value to her testimony. | |||||