This case has been cited 1 times or more.
|
2013-01-21 |
DEL CASTILLO, J. |
||||
| Indeed, respondents do not deny that this amount of P863,796.00 is what they are actually charging petitioners for one month's extended use of their fishponds. If this is so, then it is truly excessive, considering that for the immediately preceding month the whole of June 1999 it costs only P244,025.00[103] for the petitioners to rent the same property. The trial court may have been impelled to accept respondents' own computation[104] of what they believed was due from petitioners on account of the fact that at that time, petitioners were declared in default and could not cross-examine the respondents' witness. But the fact remains that the July 22, 1999 demand letter[105] clearly sets forth in detail what appears to be the true, accurate and reasonable amount of petitioners' outstanding obligation. If this document were a forgery, respondents would have vehemently objected to its presentation at the very first opportunity. Yet they did not. Such document could thus be considered and given weight. "[T]he omission x x x 'to rebut that which would have naturally invited an immediate, pervasive and stiff opposition x x x create[s] an adverse inference that either the controverting [evidence] x x x presented x x x will only prejudice its case, or that the uncontroverted evidence indeed speaks of the truth'."[106] | |||||