Reyes vs. People, GR 229380, 6 June 2018

Reyes vs. People, GR 229380, 6 June 2018 

FACTS:

• At around eight (8) o'clock in the evening of November 6, 2012, a group of police officers from Cardona, Rizal was patrolling the diversion road of Barangay Looc, Cardona, Rizal when two (2) teenagers approached and informed them that a woman with long hair and a dragon tattoo on her left arm had just bought shabu in Barangay Mambog in which a woman identified to be Reyes.

• The latter asked if she bought shabu and ordered her to bring it out. Reyes answered, "Di ba bawal kayong magkapkap ng babae?" and at that point, turned her back, pulled something out from her breast area and held a small plastic sachet on her right hand. PO1 Monteras immediately confiscated the sachet and brought it to the police station where he marked it with "LRC-1”.

• Thereafter, PO1 Monteras proceeded to the Rizal Provincial Crime Laboratory and turned over the seized item for examination to Police Senior Inspector Beaune Villaraza (PSI Villaraza), who confirmed10 that the substance inside the sachet tested positive for 0.04 gram of methamphetamine hydrochloride or shabu, a dangerousdrug.

• Reyes denied the charges, claiming that the incident happened on November 5, 2012 and not November 6. On said date, she came from a drinking spree and was about to board a jeepney, when a man approached and asked if she knew a certain person. After answering in the negative, she rode the jeepney until it was blocked by two (2) civilian men in motorcycles whom she identified to be one PO1 Dimacali. The latter ordered her to alight and bring out the shabu in her possession which she denied having. She was then brought to the police station where the police officers extorted from her the amount of P35,000.00 in exchange for her freedom. But since she failed to give the money, the police officers took her to Taytay for inquest proceedings.

 
ISSUE:
Whether or not the arrest of the petitioner is lawful.
 
RULING:
No. Under Section 5, Rule 113 of the Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure, it identifies three (3) instances when warrantless arrests may be lawfully affected. These are: (a) an arrest of a suspect in flagrante delicto; (b) an arrest of a suspect where, based on personal knowledge of the arresting officer, there is probable cause that said suspect was the perpetrator of a crime which had just been committed; and (c) an arrest of a prisoner who has escaped from custody serving final judgment or temporarily confined during the pendency of his case or has escaped while being transferred from one confinement to another.
 
Here in this case, the Court finds that no lawful arrest was made on Reyes. PO1 Monteras himself admitted that Reyes passed by them without acting suspiciously or doing anything wrong, except that she smelled of liquor.38 As no other overt act could be properly attributed to Reyes as to rouse suspicion in the mind of PO1 Monteras that she had just committed, was committing, or was about to commit a crime, the arrest is bereft of any legal basis. As case law demonstrates, the act of walking while reeking of liquor per se cannot be considered a criminal act.

In order to deem as valid a consensual search, it is required that the police authorities expressly ask, and in no uncertain terms, obtain the consent of the accused to be searched and the consent thereof established by clear and positive proof, which were not shown in this case. In fine, there being no lawful warrantless arrest, the sachet of shabu purportedly seized from Reyes on account of the search is rendered inadmissible in evidence for being the proverbial fruit of the poisonous tree. And since the shabu is the very corpus delicti of the crime charged, Reyes must necessarily be acquitted and exonerated from criminal liability.