Email and Digital Document Authenticity

I would just like to ask if the court/ law would consider emails as an authentic form of acknowledgment, acceptance etc. I know that as much as possible we should secure signatures of the concerned/ involved individuals, but I believe there are also a lot of companies out there with branches scattered in the different parts of the country. Sometimes, there are petty directives, or minor concerns that must be acknowledged but it seems impractical to have it signed personally. Does the law accept acknowledgments done through email? (e.g. after receiving the document, the personnel just replied "acknowledged).

On a related note, what about scanned signed documents? Is a signed scanned document considered as an authentic document?

I am asking about this because with the current technology now, people can easily deny things and blame technology. Here are some of the common responses that we can expect:

• Hindi ko nareceive

• Na-hack ako, hindi ako nagsend nyan

• Nawala yung original signed document, possible na "tampered" yang digital copy mo

I hope you can enlighten us on this Atty.

More power Pinoylawyer.org

1. scanned originals/signed = not authentic, hard to accept as evidence in court unless the company/organization has provisions to scan and store documents in a non-erasable technology such as NSO papers
2. email = yes, acceptable under ecommerce law.