The much-awaited “Insights on Evidence,” a book that contains the most updated Supreme Court revisions on the country’s rules on evidence, is now available. The book is penned by no less than 26th Supreme Court Chief Justice Diosdado Peralta and Court of Appeals Associate Justice Eduardo Peralta, Jr.
In his foreword, Justice Romeo Callejo, Sr., Vice-Chancellor of the Philippine Judicial Academy (PHILJA), said the book “aims to highlight the salient points of the 2019 Rules on Evidence, reconcile its provisions with those of the retained rules, and address the gaps or inconsistencies that might result in the application of the new procedural rules.”
He added that this latest edition will be even more comprehensive, given the recent approval of the 2019 Proposed Amendments to the Revised Rules on Evidence.
Highlighting the indispensable role of the rules on evidence in insuring “a better quality of justice for its various rules prevent the tampering of truth” so that “its mastery by our arbiters of justice is a must for its wrong application is certain to result in failure of justice,” former Chief Justice Reynato Puno, who initiated the proposed amendments to the Revised Rules on Evidence back in 2008, lauded the book for having drawn on the “wisdom of the most learned commentators on the law on evidence like McCormick, Mueller, Kirkpatrick, Lempert, Saltzburg, and others.”
Chief Justice Peralta said he is grateful and appreciative of his co-author, Justice Eduardo Peralta, Jr. “for allowing him to make a humble contribution to his opus: Perspectives of Evidence,” describing him as “one of the leading lights and a credible authority in the intricacies of remedial law.”
For his part, Justice Eduardo Peralta, Jr. said that “to collaborate with no less than the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in spurring a project on the new Rules on Evidence, following promulgation by the Supreme Court of A.M. No. 19-08-15-SC on October 8, 2019 effective May 1, 2020, was definitely a daunting task.”
He adds: “With invocation of divine intercession and focus amidst the global pandemic since December 2019, ‘Insights on Evidence’ finally materialized.”
Supreme Court Chief Justice Peralta was born in Laoag City, Ilocos Norte. He took up Law at the University of Santo Tomas Faculty of Civil Law while working part-time and graduated in 1979. He obtained his undergraduate degree in Economics from the Colegio de San Juan de Letran in 1974. He was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in October 2019 by President Rodrigo Duterte.
CA Associate Justice Eduardo Peralta, Jr. is a professor of law and an accomplished author of legal publications, particularly in Remedial Law. He graduated from the San Beda College of Law in 1988 and passed the Bar in 1989. He was Executive Judge of the Regional Trial Court of Manila until his promotion to the Court of Appeals in 2010.
He taught law in San Beda and in other top universities in the country, and holds the distinction of being the first graduate of the San Beda Graduate School of Law Masteral Degree program in 2005 and hailed cum laude for his dissertation on the law on evidence.
“Insights on Evidence” is now available at all REX Book Store branches nationwide. To order online, visit https://www.rexestore.com/home/2175-insights-on-evidence-2020-edition-cloth-bound.html