UNDER THE MICROSCOPE
Dr. Raymundo W. Lo
Most doctors shy away from testifying in court. It is regarded with dread and anxiety when one is faced with a subpoena to appear in court for a case one has treated in the emergency room. But the law requires that we validate or negate the claims of patients, dead or alive, due to accidents, homicide or negligence.
The forensic pathologist in particular, gets the most subpoenas to testify on medico-legal cases that were autopsied. But our only two forensic pathologists in the country think nothing of it. Like Dr. Raquel Fortun says, she eats death threats for breakfast. So, an appearance in court is peanuts for her. The other forensic pathologist, Dr. Cecilia Lim, likewise thinks nothing of testifying. You have to admire the guts of both these women.
On my part, I’ve been served subpoenas many times for paternity cases I handled in my practice at St. Luke’s Medical Center. These are purely civil cases where the judges require my personal appearance to certify that the paternity test result is genuine. As an expert witness, I have been subjected to harassing cross-examinations and judges’ interrogations. But lawyers and judges are mostly eager to learn more about DNA testing and its applications in relationship testing.
Many cases are purely to correct birth certificate entries. I’ve seen many instances of young single women who put their mothers’ names as the mother of an illegitimate child born out of wedlock to save face. When these single mothers emigrate and try to petition their children, they face a roadblock since they are not listed as the biological mothers of the petitioned persons. Immigration authorities then request DNA testing to show proof of motherhood.
In other instances, men are sued for paternal support for children they supposedly sired. Some men suspect infidelity and ask for proof of paternity. It is traumatic for the children to learn that the men they have regarded as their fathers turn out to be unrelated to them.
One particular case stands out in my memory. A Caucasian married a Filipina and they had three children. The man suspected they weren’t his, since their facial features looked purely Filipino. True enough, DNA tests results excluded him as their biological father. Turns out the woman had a Filipino lover on the side and all children were sired by this man. The furious husband sued to remove his name from the birth certificates of the children and he charged the illicit lovers with adultery.
Other men are anxious to prove their paternity. One case was that of a previously convicted child molester, a prominent politician who wanted to prove his virility by begetting a child by a 16-year-old girl. The audacity! If he was charged with child abuse or statutory rape, the results of the paternity case would send him back to jail. Go figure!
A woman whose husband had died some years ago was accused of adultery. She had five children, one of whom was said to have been fathered by another man. She sued the accuser and asked me to test them to prove that her deceased husband was the biological father of the child in question. This entailed sibship testing of all the children and the mother. The results confirmed that the child was indeed sired by the husband. Case closed.
All my testimonies in court have so far been accepted by the judges. What’s frustrating is when the opposing counsel, usually the court-appointed public attorneys, decide to play games and interpose all sorts of technicalities to delay the decisions on the cases. In some of these cases, I’ve had to return to court another day, much to my chagrin and vexation. A few judges would accept my testimony but still throw out the case due to a technicality such as the counsel not having presented a certified true copy of the birth certificate which in the first place was what was in question!
Other than the inordinate time spent in court, there is the execution of a judicial affidavit to the effect that you did the testing and you are certifying the veracity of the results. It helps that our relationship testing laboratory in St. Luke’s is accredited by the Association for the Advancement of Blood and Biotherapies (AABB), the lone accrediting body for relationship testing in the world.
The process for AABB accreditation involves satisfying all of the standards set including rigorous validation of test equipment, reagents and procedures. Our lab has been AABB-accredited since 2014 and just last week, we were re-accredited for the fifth time (re-accreditation visits are every two years). If one has the requisite documentation for a case, there is no reason for testimony to be rejected.
(Dr. Lo is an immunopathologist and director of the relationship testing laboratory, St. Luke's Medical Center, Quezon City. He has been doing paternity testing in St. Lukes Medical Center since 1990.)