FIRST DIVISION
[ G.R. No. 218803, July 10, 2019 ]
PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, V. JACK MUHAMMAD Y GUSTAHAM, A.K.A. "DANNY ANJAM Y GUSTAHAM," A.K.A. "KUYA DANNY," ACCUSED-APPELLANT.
D E C I S I O N
BERSAMIN, C.J.:
The CA modified the judgment of the RTC only as to the penalty for the violation of Section 5 in Criminal Case No. 6016(22733) by adding that the accused-appellant would not be eligible for parole.
Antecedents
The accused-appellant was charged under separate informations the accusatory portions of which read:
Criminal Case No. 6016(22733)
That on or about August 2, 2006, in the City of Zamboanga, Philippines and within the jurisdiction of this Honorable Court, the above-named accused, not being authorized by law to sell, deliver, transport, distribute or give away to another any dangerous drug, did then and there willfully, unlawfully and feloniously, delivered to PO3 APOLINARIO PANAMOGAN NARAGA, PNP, presently assigned with the Anti-Illegal Drugs Special Operations Task Force of the Intelligence Section, at Police Station 06, Tetuan, this city, who acted as poseur-buyer, one (1) piece heat-sealed transparent plastic sachet containing white crystalline substance weighing 0.0077 gram which when subjected to qualitative examination gave positive result to the test for the presence of methamphetamine hydrochloride (shabu), said accused knowing well that the same is a dangerous drug.[3]
Criminal Case No. 6017(22734)
That on or about August 2, 2006, in the City of Zamboanga, Philippines and within the jurisdiction of this Honorable Court, the above-named accused, not being authorized by law, did then and there [willfully,] unlawfully and feloniously, had in his possession and under his control, a cigarette foil wrapper with one (1) piece heat-sealed transparent plastic sachet containing white crystalline substance weighing 0.0115 grams which when subjected to qualitative examination gave positive result to the test for the presence of methamphetamine hydrochloride (shabu), knowing well that the same to be a dangerous drug.[4]
Criminal Case No. 6018(22735)
That on or about August 2, 2006, in the City of Zamboanga, Philippines and within the jurisdiction of this Honorable Court, the above-named accused, not being authorized by law, did then and there unlawfully and feloniously, possessed or had under his control, two (2) unused plastic sachets, two (2) pink and blue disposable lighters and three (3) unused folded aluminum foils, which are instrument or paraphernalia fit or intended for smoking, consuming or introducing dangerous drugs to the body in flagrant violation of the abovementioned law.[5]
The accused-appellant pleaded not guilty to the informations.
Version of the Prosecution
At around 1:45 p.m. on August 2, 2006, PO3 Apolinario Naraga of Police Station 6 situated in Tetuan, Zamboanga City received information from a confidential informant about a certain Kuya Danny of Alvarez St., Talon-Talon, Zamboanga City being engaged in distributing illegal drugs. PO3 Naraga relayed the information to SPO3 Nelson Enad, his team leader, who forthwith decided to mount a buy-bust operation against the suspect. In the briefing, PO3 Naraga was assigned as the poseur-buyer, and he was given a marked P200.00 bill.
Upon arrival at the target area, the members of the police team spotted a male person seated at the stairway of the house. PO3 Naraga and the informant approached the person, and the informant said to him: Kuya Danny, bili kami. The latter asked: Magkano?, to which PO3 Naraga replied: P200. The suspect then demanded for the money, and PO3 Naraga handed over the marked P200 bill. The suspect entered the house, and returned after a few minutes and gave one heat-sealed plastic sachet to PO3 Naraga. After PO3 Naraga examined the contents of the sachet, he introduced himself as a policeman. Kuya Danny ran towards the area for drying fish, hotly pursued by PO3 Naraga and another member of the police team, PO3 Raz, until they caught up with him. They placed him under arrest. PO3 Raz apprised him of his constitutional rights, frisked him and confiscated from his side pockets another heat-sealed plastic sachet, two pieces of empty plastic sheets, three pieces of folded aluminum foil, and two lighters.[6] The suspect turned out to be the accused-appellant.
The members of the buy-bust team later on brought the accused appellant from the fish drying area to Alvarez Street, where PO3 Naraga put his markings on the items confiscated from the accused-appellant. PO3 Naraga turned over the seized items to investigator PO2 Tuballa. The officers brought the accused-appellant to Police Station 6 where they recorded the arrest in the complaint assignment sheet. PO2 Tuballa filed the charges against the accused-appellant.[7]
The plastic sachets seized from the accused-appellant were referred to the laboratory for qualitative examination. The sachets and their contents were found to be positive for the presence of methamphetamine hydrochloride, or shabu, a dangerous drug.[8]
Version of the Accused
At around one o'clock in the afternoon of August 2, 2006, five male persons approached the accused-appellant while he was heading home from the baluran, the fish drying area situated on Alvarez Drive, Talon-Talon, in Zamboanga City. They asked if he knew a certain Jack Muhammad, but he replied to them in the negative. He soon overheard them commenting that they had erred about their target. They left, but one of them returned and pointed to him, saying: This is the very one. They ordered him to go with them. They brought him to the police station on board a tricycle.
The accused-appellant maintained his innocence before investigator PO2 Tuballa, but the latter simply advised him to file a waiver, and to just reveal his boss and to divulge the names of the drug addicts in his area. The police kept on asking him about Jack Muhammad, but he did not know such person.
Judgment of the RTC
On October 28, 2011, the RTC convicted the accused-appellant of the crimes charged, its judgment disposing thus:
WHEREFORE, in light of all the foregoing, this Court finds:
SO ORDERED.[9]
Decision of the CA
On appeal, the accused-appellant claimed that the police officers had committed serious lapses in the handling of the seized shabu and paraphernalia; that they had not coordinated with the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) in violation of Section 86 of R.A. No. 9165; that they had not taken any physical inventory or photograph of the seized items in his presence and that of his counsel, or in the presence of a representative from the media and the Department of Justice (DOJ); that PO3 Naraga's testimony had lacked details about how the confiscated items had been handled after his arrest; and that no details had been provided on who had custody of the seized items, who had brought the seized items to the crime laboratory, and who had received the seized items at the crime laboratory.[10]
On March 16, 2015, however, the CA promulgated the assailed decision affirming the convictions with modification, to wit:
WHEREFORE, premises considered, the appeal is DENIED. The Decision dated 28 October 2011 rendered by the Regional Trial Court of Zamboanga City, Branch 13, in Crim. Case Nos. 6016(22733); 6017 (22734); and 6018(22735) is hereby AFFIRMED with MODIFICATION, in that with respect to the penalty for violation of Section 5, Article II of RA 9165, the accussed-appellant shall not be eligible for parole.
SO ORDERED.[11]
Issue
In this appeal, the accused-appellant urges that the CA erred in affirming his convictions.
Ruling of the Court
We reverse the CA.
In the prosecution under R.A. No. 9165 of the crimes of illegal sale[12] and illegal possession[13] of dangerous drugs like shabu, the contraband seized from the accused constitutes the corpus delicti. The Prosecution, in order to discharge its duty of establishing the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt, must prove the corpus delicti by presenting the drug subject of the sale or possession no less.[14] This is possible only by showing an unbroken chain of custody of the contraband from the moment of the seizure until its presentation as evidence in the trial court. Gaps in the chain of custody of the seized dangerous drugs necessarily raise doubts on the authenticity of the evidence presented in court. Accordingly, the integrity and identity of the seized drugs must be shown to have been duly preserved by the arresting officers through the unbroken chain of custody.
Section 1(b) of Dangerous Drugs Board Regulation No. 1, Series of 2002, which implements R.A. No. 9165, defines chain of custody thusly:
"Chain of Custody" refers to the duly recorded authorized movements and custody of seized drugs or controlled chemicals or plant sources of dangerous drugs or laboratory equipment at each stage, from the time of seizure/confiscation, to receipt in the forensic laboratory, to safekeeping, to presentation in court for destruction. Such record of movements and custody of seized items shall include the identity and signature of the person who held temporary custody of the seized item, the date and time when such transfer of custody were made in the course of safekeeping and use in court as evidence, and the final disposition.
As a means of ensuring the establishment of the chain of custody, Section 21(1) of R.A. No. 9165 pertinently states:
x x x x
(a) The apprehending officer/team having initial custody and control of the drugs shall, immediately after seizure and confiscation, physically inventory and photograph the same in the presence of the accused or the person/s from whom such items were confiscated and/or seized, or his/her representative or counsel, a representative from the media and the Department of Justice (DOJ), and any elected public official who shall be required to sign the copies of the inventory and be given a copy thereof: Provided, that the physical inventory and photograph shall be conducted at the place where the search warrant is served; or at the nearest police station or at the nearest office of the apprehending officer/team, whichever is practicable, in case of warrantless seizures; Provided, further, that non compliance with these requirements under justifiable grounds, as long as the integrity and the evidentiary value of the seized items are properly preserved by the apprehending officer/team, shall not render void and invalid such seizures of and custody over said items;
x x x x
Without doubt, the strict compliance with the procedural safeguards provided by Section 21 is required of the arresting officers. Yet, the law recognizes that a departure from the safeguards may become necessary, and has incorporated a saving clause ("Provided, further, that non-compliance with these requirements under justifiable grounds, as long as the integrity and the evidentiary value of the seized items are properly preserved by the apprehending officer/team, shall not render void and invalid such seizures of and custody over said items"). To rely on the saving clause, the Prosecution should prove the concurrence of the twin conditions, namely: (a) the existence of justifiable grounds for the departure, and (b) the preservation of the integrity and the evidentiary value of the seized items.[15]
Our judicious review and examination of the records compel us to declare that the chain of custody was not unbroken.
There are ostensibly four links in the chain of custody that should be established: first, the seizure and marking, if practicable, of the illegal drug recovered from the accused by the apprehending officer; second, the turnover of the illegal drug seized by the apprehending officer to the investigating officer; third, the turnover by the investigating officer of the illegal drug to the forensic chemist for laboratory examination; and fourth, the turnover and submission of the marked illegal drug seized from the forensic chemist to the court.[16]
The first link in the chain of custody would have been established by the testimony of PO3 Naraga to the effect that he had placed his markings on the items confiscated from the accused-appellant immediately following the seizure; and that he had then turned over the items to investigator PO3 Tuballa right at the crime scene itself.[17] As observed in People v. Relato,[18] the marking immediately after seizure was the starting point in the custodial link, because succeeding handlers of the prohibited drugs or related items will use the markings as reference; the marking further serves to segregate the marked evidence from the corpus of all other similar and related evidence from the time they are seized from the accused until they are disposed of at the end of the criminal proceedings, obviating switching, "planting," or contamination of evidence.[19] However, the regularity of the procedures undertaken in the incrimination of the accused-appellant was apparently upended. For one, PO3 Raz, himself one of the arresting officers, stated that no physical inventory and photograph had been taken at the crime scene in violation of Section 21, supra, and this was because the officers had immediately brought the arrestee with them to the police station.[20] Also, SPO3 Enad, the team leader, had supposedly issued a PDEA certification to the effect that a physical inventory of the confiscated items had been taken,[21] the same even bearing the signature of one Leila D. Vicente as a witness representing media, but the veracity of the certification was highly suspect in light of PO3 Naraga recalling during the trial that there had been no PDEA operative or representative from the media around in the entire time from the conduct of the briefing on the buy bust operation until the bringing of the accused-appellant to the police station.
Another puzzling circumstance to be noted is that notwithstanding he claim of PO3 Naraga of having turned over the seized items to PO3 Tuballa at the crime scene itself the latter did not even sign the certification on the turnover. The omission added to the suspiciousness of the operation mounted against the accused-appellant, and raised more doubts about the sincerity of the lawmen in establishing an unbroken chain of custody. As if compounding the puzzle, the Prosecution did not present PO3 Tuballa as a witness despite him being the only person who could have probably shed some light on whatever happened to the seized items following the turnover to him by PO3 Naraga.
The third link in the chain of custody, that is, the movement of the dangerous drugs and the turnover by the investigating officer to the forensic chemist who conducted the tests on the subject drugs, was likewise not sufficiently shown. We note that Forensic Chemist Police Chief Inspector Mercedes Delfin Diesto did not testify in court because the Prosecution was content in merely proposing for stipulation what she would have attested to had she actually testified, which was to simply affirm the existence of the seized items, and the existence of the request and the laboratory results. Her non-presentation resulted in denying enlightenment to the trial court on who had actually received the subject drugs when they were brought to the crime laboratory for the qualitative examination. At any rate, the Prosecution confirmed during the trial that it was not the Forensic Chemist who had personally received the drugs when they were brought to the laboratory for the examination, and also that the Forensic Chemist did not have personal knowledge "as to where the items, subject of examination, [had come] from."[22] The gaps in the chain of custody just became much bigger.
Lastly, the fourth link, i.e., the turnover of the seized dangerous drugs by the Forensic Chemist to the trial court, did not arise considering that the Forensic Chemist did not personally appear in court to attest thereto. In the absence of any admission on the part of the accused-appellant, the outcome is that the safekeeping and handling of the seized items from the moment of their turnover to the laboratory until their presentation as evidence in court during the trial were not established.
The various omissions noted herein were immediately fatal to the success of the criminal prosecution of the accused-appellant. As pointed out in Malillin v. People,[23] the chain of custody rule, as a method of authenticating evidence, requires that the admission of an exhibit should be preceded by a sufficient showing to support a finding that the matter in question is what the proponent claims it to be. The records should include testimony about every link in the chain of custody, from the moment the item was picked up to the time it is offered into evidence, in such a way that every person who touched the exhibit would describe how and from whom it was received, where it was and what happened to it while in said witness' possession, the condition in which it was received and the condition in which it was delivered to the next link in the chain. The witnesses should then describe the precautions taken to ensure that there had been no change in the condition of the item, and no opportunity for someone not in the chain to have taken possession or hold of the same.[24] The many glaring omissions contravened the notion that the chain of custody ought to be "the duly recorded authorized movements and custody of seized drugs xxx at each stage, from the time of seizure/confiscation, to receipt in the forensic laboratory, to safekeeping, to presentation in court for destruction." Indeed, any gap in the chain of custody renders the case for the State less than complete in terms of proving the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt.[25]
We should not tire in reiterating that in the prosecution of the crimes of illegal sale and illegal possession of methamphetamine hydrochloride under R.A. No. 9165, the State not only carries the heavy burden of proving the elements of the offense, but also bears the obligation to prove the corpus delicti, failing in which the State does not discharge its basic duty of proving the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt. It is settled that the State fails in establishing the corpus delicti when the substance subject of the prosecution is missing, or when substantial gaps in the chain of custody of the substance raise grave doubts about the authenticity of the prohibited substance presented as evidence in court.
WHEREFORE, the Court REVERSES and SETS ASIDE the decision promulgated on March 16, 2015 by the Court of Appeals; ACQUITS accused-appellant JACK MUHAMMAD y GUSTAHAM, a.k.a DANNY ANJAM y GUSTAHAM, a.k.a. KUYA DANNY; and ORDERS his IMMEDIATE RELEASE from confinement unless he is being held for some other lawful cause.
Let the copy of this decision be served on the Superintendent of the San Ramon Prison and Penal Farm in Zamboanga City for implementation. The Superintendent is directed to report the action taken to this Court within five (5) days from receipt of this decision.
SO ORDERED.
Del Castillo, Jardeleza, Gesmundo, and Carandang, JJ., concur.
[1] CA rollo, pp. 115-123; penned by Associate Justice Oscar V. Badelles with Associate Justice Romulo V. Borja and Associate Justice Maria Filomena D. Singh concurring.
[2] Id. at 54-64; penned by Presiding Judge Eric D. Elumba.
[3] Rollo, pp. 3-4.
[4] Id. at 4.
[5] Id. at 4-5.
[6] Id. at 5.
[7] Id. at 5-6.
[8] Id. at 6.
[9] CA rollo, pp. 63-64.
[10] Id. at 119.
[11] Rollo, p. 10.
[12] The elements of the crime of illegal sale of shabu are: (1) the identity of the buyer and the seller, the object and the consideration; and (2) the delivery of the thing sold and the payment therefor.
[13] The elements of the crime of illegal possession of shabu requires the concurrence of the following elements, namely: (1) the accused is in possession of an item or object which is identified as shabu; (2) such possession is not authorized by law; and (3) the accused freely and consciously possessed the drug.
[14] People v. Montevirgen, G.R. No. 189840, December 11, 2013, 712 SCRA 459, 468.
[15] People v. Ancheta, G.R. No. 197371, June 13, 2012, 672 SCRA 604, 618.
[16] People v. Zaragoza, G.R. No. 223142, January 17, 2018; People v. Holgado, G.R. No. 207992, August 11, 2014, 732 SCRA 554, 571.
[17] Rollo, pp. 15-16.
[18] G.R. No. 173794, January 18, 2012, 663 SCRA 260, 270-271.
[19] See People v. Denoman, G.R. No. 171732, August 14, 2009, 596 SCRA 257, 276.
[20] Rollo, p. 9.
[21] Exhibit Folder, p. 8.
[22] TSN, July 13, 2011, p. 5.
[23] G.R. No. 172953, April 30, 2008, 553 SCRA 619.
[24] Id. at 632-633.
[25] People v. Relato, supra, note 18.