ALL FREE NOW Richard Brodett, Joseph Tecson and Jorge Joseph in a photo taken in 2009, a year after their arrest INQUIRER PHOTO
A Quezon City court on Thursday acquitted the last jailed member of the so-called “Alabang Boys” trio mainly because of the “vague answers” given by an official of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) concerning the circumstances of their arrest in 2008.
Judge Elvira Panganiban of Quezon City Regional Trial Court – Branch 227 ordered the release of Joseph Tecson from the Metro Manila District Jail, four years after he and two others were arrested and charged with drug trafficking.
The charges against the two other accused—Richard Brodett and Jorge Joseph—were dismissed by the Muntinlupa Regional Trial Court in August 2011.
And like in Tecson’s case, the earlier acquittals cited a “glaring blunder” on the part of PDEA in its handling of the evidence.
In her decision, Panganiban said PDEA officer Jose Tomabini’s testimony pertaining to the drugs allegedly seized from the accused “nailed the prosecution’s case to its cross” instead of strengthening it.
Tomabini, the last prosecution witness, presented to the court a certified copy of the spot report on Tecson’s arrest on Sept. 20, 2008, a document which he claimed to have prepared himself.
But the court noted that the witness could not identify in the document the very items allegedly seized from Tecson in a buy-bust operation conducted by PDEA agents at the Araneta Center in Cubao, Quezon City.
Panganiban said this vagueness on the part of Tomabini led the court to the conclusion that there were no drugs confiscated from Tecson, who was arrested on two charges—possession of diazepam and sale of cocaine.
Tecson was entrapped following the arrest of Brodett and Joseph in the posh Ayala Alabang Village in Muntinlupa City.
The PDEA operation was led by Major Ferdinand Marcelino.
The agency said some 60 Ecstasy tablets, several packets of marijuana and sachets of cocaine were seized from the suspects.
But the judge said: “To its shock and surprise, the court discovered that the supposed items or pieces of evidence confiscated during the operation against Tecson are not included in the spot report.”
“The spot report only pertained to the items allegedly recovered from the so-called Alabang Boys,” she added.
Panganiban said the logical conclusion that could be drawn was that “no drug items may have been in fact confiscated from accused Tecson.”
“Ergo, the prosecution utterly failed to establish that the pieces of evidence presented in court are the very same pieces of evidence recovered from the accused. The integrity of the ‘corpus delicti’ has been compromised. With such serious lapses and infractions committed there is no other recourse but for this court to order the acquittal of accused in both cases.”