Source: http://elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocs/1/56236
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 02:51:58+00:00

Document:
PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. ARTURO ENRIQUEZ Y DE LOS REYES, ACCUSED-APPELLANT.
This is an appeal of the February 11, 2011 Decision of the Court of Appeals, in CA-G.R. CR.-H.C. No. 03430, which affirmed the Regional Trial Court’s (RTC) February 28, 2008 Decision in Criminal Case Nos. DC 03-209 and DC 03-210, wherein accused-appellant ARTURO ENRIQUEZ y DE LOS REYES (Enriquez) was found guilty beyond reasonable doubt of violating Sections 5 and 11, Article II of Republic Act No. 9165.
That on or about the 3rd day of June, 2003, in [Brgy.] Manibaug Libutad, municipality of Porac, province of Pampanga, Philippines, and within the jurisdiction of this Honorable Court, the above-named accused, ARTURO ENRIQUEZ y DELOS REYES, without any authority of law, did then and there wilfully, unlawfully and feloniously had in his possession, custody and control forty[-]five (45) small size heat-sealed transparent plastic sachets containing Methylamphetamine Hydrochloride (shabu) weighing TWO GRAMS AND SIX THOUSAND ONE TEN THOUSANDTHS (2.6001g) of a gram and one (1) pc. big size heat-sealed transparent plastic sachet containing Methylamphetamine Hydrochloride (shabu) weighing ONE THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED TWELVE TEN THOUSANDTHS (0.1212g) of a gram, a dangerous drug.
That on or about the 3rd day of June, 2003, in Brgy. Manibaug Libutad, municipality of Porac, province of Pampanga, Philippines and within the jurisdiction of this Honorable Court, the above-named accused, ARTURO ENRIQUEZ y DELOS REYES, without having been lawfully authorized, did then and there wilfully, unlawfully and feloniously, deliver and/or sell one (1) small size heat sealed transparent plastic sachet containing Methylamphetamine Hydrochloride (shabu) with an actual weight of FOUR HUNDRED TWENTY[-]TWO TEN THOUSANDTH (0.0422g) of a gram, a dangerous drug.
Enriquez pleaded not guilty to both charges upon his arraignment on June 19, 2003.
Trial on the merits ensued after the termination of the pre-trial conference on September 25, 2003.
Sometime in May 2003, Senior Police Officer (SPO) 2 Edilberto David, SPO2 Ernesto Divina, and SPO1 Saturnino Garung received reports from the barangay office and other concerned citizens of drug-dealing activities in the locality of Porac, Pampanga. They immediately conducted a casing and surveillance operation to verify the reports. About four operations were carried out, on a weekly basis, which confirmed that Enriquez was indeed dealing drugs among the truck drivers and helpers within the vicinity. After confirming the reports, SPO2 David, together with one civilian asset, conducted a test-buy on June 2, 2003. During the test-buy, SPO2 David’s asset was able to buy P200.00 worth of shabu, which he confirmed to be so by burning it, contrary to standard police procedure.
After the test-buy, SPO2 David organized a team, composed of himself, SPO2 Divina, and SPO1 Garung, to conduct a buy-bust operation. On June 3, 2003, after SPO2 Divina coordinated with the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) for their on-going narcotics operation, their Chief of Police Ricardo Erese briefed the team at Kababayan Center No. 2, at Barangay Sta. Cruz, Porac, Pampanga. At the briefing, SPO2 David was designated as the poseur-buyer, with the other two police officers as back-ups. To purchase the shabu, Chief of Police Erese gave SPO2 David a P100-peso bill and five P20-peso bills, which SPO2 David marked by placing a small bar on the lower right corner of the bills. The team thereafter proceeded to Brgy. Manibaug, Libutad in Porac, Pampanga. Upon arriving at the target area at around 11:00 a.m., SPO2 David approached Enriquez, whom they spotted sitting in a sari-sari store, while SPO2 Divina and SPO1 Garung hid behind a dump truck parked across the store. SPO2 David called the attention of Enriquez by saying “dalawang (2) piso” while handing him the P200.00. Without saying anything, Enriquez took the money and went to the back of the store. After one to two minutes, Enriquez emerged and handed SPO2 David a sachet of shabu. This prompted SPO2 David to put his hand at the back of his head, to signal his teammates that the sale had been consummated. Upon the execution of the pre-arranged signal, SPO2 Divina and SPO1 Garung approached the site of engagement, introduced themselves as police officers to Enriquez, and thereafter conducted a body search on him, which resulted to the discovery of a plastic game card containing one big and 45 small plastic sachets of white crystalline substance. SPO2 David prepared the Confiscation Receipt for the above-seized items, then subsequently brought Enriquez to the Porac Police Station, wherein the team prepared the papers necessary in filing a case against Enriquez.
As per Chemistry Report No. D-219-2003, prepared by Police Inspector and Forensic Chemical Officer Divina Mallare Dizon (P/Insp. Dizon), upon the request for laboratory examination submitted by Chief of Police Erese, the plastic sachets confiscated from Enriquez tested positive for methylamphetamine hydrochloride.
WHEREFORE, the prosecution having proven the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt in the two (2) cases, the Court finds accused ARTURO ENRIQUEZ Y DE LO[S] REYES GUILTY of the offense as charged and hereby sentences him to suffer the penalty of LIFE IMPRISONMENT and a fine of Php 500,000.00, in Criminal Case No. DC 03-210 for violation of Section 5, Art. II of R.A. 9165. Accused Enriquez is also sentenced to suffer the penalty of imprisonment of TWELVE YEARS (12) AND ONE (1) DAY, as minimum, to FOURTEEN (14) YEARS AND EIGHT (8) MONTHS, as maximum, of Reclusion Temporal in Criminal Case No. DC 03-209 for violation of Section 11 of R.A. 9165 and a fine of Php 300,000.00.
Aggrieved, Enriquez appealed to the Court of Appeals, which, on February 11, 2011, affirmed the decision of the RTC.
THE TRIAL COURT GRAVELY ERRED IN CONVICTING THE ACCUSED-APPELLANT DESPITE THE ARRESTING OFFICERS’ NON-COMPLIANCE WITH THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE PROPER CUSTODY OF SEIZED DANGEROUS DRUGS UNDER REPUBLIC ACT NO. 9165.
Enriquez questions the fact that despite a month-long surveillance and casing operation against him, the police operatives still opted to conduct a buy-bust operation instead of securing a warrant for his arrest. Moreover, Enriquez points out, the police officer, to test the substance they allegedly recovered from him during their test-buy operation, burned such substance instead of going through the proper testing procedures.
The Constitution demands that an accused in a criminal case be presumed innocent until otherwise proven beyond reasonable doubt.
When prosecuting the sale of a dangerous drug, the following elements must be proven: (1) the identities of the buyer and seller, object, and consideration; and (2) the delivery of the thing sold and the payment therefor. In cases of illegal possession of dangerous drugs, the essential requisites that must be established are: (1) the accused was in possession of the dangerous drug; (2) such possession is not authorized by law; and (3) the accused freely and consciously possessed the dangerous drug.
Fourth, the turnover and submission of the marked illegal drug seized from the forensic chemist to the court.
While non-compliance with the prescribed procedural requirements will not automatically render the seizure and custody of the items void and invalid, this is true only when “(i) there is a justifiable ground for such non-compliance, and (ii) the integrity and evidentiary value of the seized items are properly preserved.” Thus, any divergence from the prescribed procedure must be justified and should not affect the integrity and evidentiary value of the confiscated contraband. Absent any of the said conditions, the non-compliance is an irregularity, a red flag, that casts reasonable doubt on the identity of the corpus delicti.
In the case at bar, not only was there no justifiable ground offered for the non-compliance with the chain of custody requirement, there was an apparent failure to properly preserve the integrity and evidentiary value of the seized items to ensure the identity of the corpus delicti from the time of seizure to the time of presentation in court. In other words, the prosecution’s evidence failed to establish the chain that would have shown that the sachets of shabu presented in court were the very same items seized from Enriquez.
As for the third and the last links, although records show that Chief of Police Erese signed the request for laboratory examination, he was not presented in court to testify as such. The testimony of Chief of Police Erese is indispensable because he could have provided the critical link between the testimony of SPO2 David, and the tenor of the testimony of P/Insp. Dizon, which the parties have stipulated on. The unaccounted for whereabouts of the seized items from the time they were brought to the police station to the time they were submitted to P/Insp. Dizon for examination constitutes a clear break in the chain of custody. Moreover, no one testified as to how the confiscated items were handled and cared for after the laboratory examination.
Overall, the prosecution failed to observe the requirement that the testimonies of all persons who handled the specimen are important to establish the chain of custody. Of all the individuals who came into direct contact with or had physical possession of the shabu allegedly seized from Enriquez, only SPO2 David testified for the specific purpose of identifying the evidence. However, his testimony miserably failed to demonstrate an unbroken chain as it ended with his identification of the money and seized items he marked and documents he signed. In effect, the custodial link ended with SPO2 David when he testified that he brought the seized items, together with Enriquez, to the police station.
Under the above premises, it is clear that there was a break in the chain of custody of the seized substances. The failure of the prosecution to establish the evidence’s chain of custody is fatal to its case as we can no longer consider or even safely assume that the integrity and evidentiary value of the confiscated dangerous drug were properly preserved.
 Id. at 2-21; penned by Associate Justice Franchito N. Diamante with Associate Justices Josefina Guevara-Salonga and Mariflor P. Punzalan Castillo, concurring.
 CA rollo, pp. 9-22; penned by Judge Omar T. Viola.
 TSN, February 26, 2004, pp. 3-4.
 TSN, February 3, 2005, pp. 16-19.
 TSN, February 26, 2004, p. 4.
 Exhibits Folder, Certification from PDEA.
 TSN, February 3, 2005, p. 26.
 TSN, March 2, 2004, pp. 2-6.
 People v. Del Rosario, G.R. No. 188107, December 5, 2012, 687 SCRA 318, 326.
 People v. Martinez, G.R. No. 191366, December 13, 2010, 637 SCRA 791, 810.
 People v. Alcuizar, G.R. No. 189980, April 6, 2011, 647 SCRA 431, 437.
 People v. Adrid, G.R. No. 201845, March 6, 2013.
 People v. Del Rosario, supra note 29 at 329.
 People v. Adrid, supra note 32.
 G.R. No. 181494, March 17, 2009, 581 SCRA 762, 777.
 People v. Magpayo, G.R. No. 187069, October 20, 2010, 634 SCRA 441, 451.
 People v. Martinez, supra note 30 at 813.
 G.R. No. 181042, November 26, 2012, 686 SCRA 390, 403.
 People v. Somoza, G.R. No. 197250, July 17, 2013.
 TSN, October 4, 2005, pp. 4-7.
 People v. Magpayo, supra note 37 at 452-453.

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