CA acquits man in P6.8-M shabu drug bust due to chain of custody gaps

The Court of Appeals. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO/COURT OF APPEALS WEBSITE

MANILA CITY, Philippines — The Court of Appeals (CA) has acquitted a man who was arrested in a buy-bust operation in 2019 where authorities seized P6.8 million worth of shabu.

READ: P6.8 M shabu seized in Paranaque sting

Ibrahim was meted with a penalty of life imprisonment plus a P3 million fine by the Parañaque Regional Trial Court on Oct. 10, 2022.

In acquitting Bayan Ibrahim, the appeals court pointed at the gaps in the “chain of custody rule” by the arresting police officers.

“The Director of the Bureau of Corrections, Muntinlupa City is ordered to cause accused-appellant’s immediate release, unless he is being lawfully held in custody for any other reason,” the appeals court said in a ruling promulgated April 29, 2024 through its Seventh Division.

“We find that the prosecution failed to establish convincingly the chain of custody of the alleged contraband seized from accused-appellant. A close examination of the records of the case will readily make it evident that the RTC failed to take note that the prosecution miserably failed to establish an unbroken chain of custody since there were glaring gaps in the chain of custody,” the appeals court said through Associate Justice Edwin Sorongon.

The appellate court cited six violations of the chain of custody rule under the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act committed by the police officers.

First, it said, the officers violated the rule requiring the presence of the insulating witnesses during the buy-bust operation as it added that the witnesses were “merely called in during the inventory of the confiscated evidence.”

“As testified to by Pat.Yap the buy-bust operation and accused-appellant’s arrest occured at 1:30pm and the inventory happened only at 4pm as they had to wait for the arrival of the insulating witness. Under the circumstances, a significant period of time had already lapsed from the time of the accused-appellant’s arrest until the conduct of the inventory. This is not allowed,” the CA said.

Second, the CA said the weight of the plastic sachets seized was not indicated.

“The request for laboratory examination likewise failed to state the weight of the drugs,” the CA said, adding that given this failure the object of the illegal sale has “clearly not been proven beyond reasonable doubt.”

The CA stressed another visible flaw: the police officers’ failure to indicate on the seized items the date, time, and place of confiscation, in violation of the PNP Manual.

“The failure of the police officers to indicate the details on the seized items does not rule out the possibility that the items were outsourced evidence which affected the integrity of the sachets of shabu allegedly confiscated from the accused-appellant,” the appellate court said.

Another gap in the chain of custody concerns the turnover of the illegal drug seized by the apprehending officer to the investigating officer, adding that the latter never took the witness stand.

The CA added that there was also a failure on the part of the prosecution to offer the testimonies of the persons who had direct contact with the confiscated item without ample explanations, casting doubts on whether the allegedly seized shabu were the very same ones presented in court.

The CA held that while Maj.Ofelia Vallero testified regarding the conduct of qualitative examination on the drugs; her testimony was nevertheless insufficient and incomplete, given that it did not discuss how she handled the specimens from the time of receipt until their presentation in court.

The CA said the procedural lapses negate the presumption that the police officers performed their duties regularly. It added that the presumption of regularity stands only when no reason exists in the records to doubt the regularity of the performance of official duty.

The CA added that the “idea of “substantial compliance” in drug enforcement may be a spectrum of degrees of conformities that have, in far too many instances, negated the general rule of compliance, so that in the end, for purposes of protecting the rights of the accused and the trustworthiness of the prosecution, no degree is “compliant enough” until it is only but full adherence to the letter and spirit of the law.”

“When the statutory requirements and the constitutional rights of an accused are disregarded, the war on illegal drugs becomes a self-defeating and self-destructive enterprise. A battle waged against illegal drugs that tramples on the rights of the people is not a war on drugs; it is a war against the people,” the CA said.

The decision is concurred in by Associate Justices Ruben Reynaldo Roxas and Eduardo Ramos Jr.