NEW STANDARD OF RELAXED ADMISSIBILITY OF EVIDENCE IN AMPARO PETITIONS:

  In Razon, Jr. vs. Tagitis, G.R. No. 182498, December 3, 2009, the Court laid down a new standard of relaxed admissibility of evidence to enable amparo petitioners to meet the required amount of proof showing the State's direct or indirect involvement in the purported violations and found it a fair and proper rule in amparo cases “to consider all the pieces of evidence adduced in their totality” and “to consider any evidence otherwise inadmissible under our usual rules to be admissible if it is consistent with the admissible evidence adduced.” Put simply, evidence is not to be rejected outright because it is inadmissible under the rules for as long as it satisfies “the most basic test of reason – i.e., relevance of the evidence to the issue at hand and its consistency with all other pieces of adduced evidence.”

          As emphasized by Justice Arturo D. Brion (Justice Brion) during the deliberations on this case, in cases of enforced disappearance, the evidence that would directly establish a violation of the right to life, liberty and security is indubitably in the State’s possession. The same is not equally true in cases where the amparo petitioner alleges (as in this case) a threatened violation of his/her rights since the facts, circumstances and the link between these that create an actual threat to his/her life are measurably within the ability of the amparo petitioner to prove. A mere inclusion of one’s name in the Order Battle List, without more, does not suffice to discharge the burden to establish actual threat to one’s right to life, liberty and security by substantial evidence.

          In the case of Secretary of National Defense vs. Manalo, G.R. No. 180906, October 7, 2008, the Supreme Court ruled that a person's right to security is, in one sense, “freedom from fear” and that any threat to the rights to life, liberty or security is an actionable wrong. The term “any threat,” however, cannot be taken to mean every conceivable threat in the mind that may cause one to fear for his life, liberty or security. The Court explicated therein that “[f]ear is a state of mind, a reaction; threat is a stimulus, a cause of action.  In the words of Justice Brion, in the context of the Amparo rule, only actual threats, as may be established from all the facts and circumstances of the case, can qualify as a violation that may be addressed under the Rule on the Writ of Amparo. (In The Matter of the Petition for the Issuance of A Writ of Amparo in Favor of Lilibeth O. Ladaga [2012]).

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