Case Digest (G.R. No. 164909)
Facts:
Ronnie Ambait y Saura v. The Court of Appeals and People of the Philippines, G.R. No. 164909, April 30, 2008, Supreme Court Second Division, Quisumbing, J., writing for the Court.On October 13, 1995, police officers from the Bacolod City PNP—Chief Inspector Pedro Merced, SPO2 Freddie Natividad and SPO1 Arthur Yusay—acting on information from an informant codenamed Savio, conducted a surveillance and entrapment operation at a house in Banago District. The informant handed betting paraphernalia and collections to a person identified as Barry, who passed them to petitioner; the police then entered and found petitioner seated at a table with gambling paraphernalia and bets totaling P1,799. When officers noticed a bulge in petitioner's pocket and asked him to produce its contents, he yielded a brown coin purse containing a small sachet later alleged to be methamphetamine hydrochloride ("shabu"). A subsequent frisk produced a Smith & Wesson .38 revolver (no serial number) and three live rounds.
Two informations followed: Criminal Case No. 95-17377 charging illegal/unlawful possession of firearms under P.D. No. 1866, and Criminal Case No. 95-17378 charging possession of a regulated drug under Section 16, Article III of R.A. No. 6425, as amended (the Dangerous Drugs Act). At trial, the Firearms and Explosives Unit testified that petitioner was not a registered firearm holder and had no license; a PNP forensic chemist reported that the specimen from the coin purse tested positive for shabu.
On September 5, 2000, the Regional Trial Court (Branch 41, Bacolod City) convicted petitioner of both offenses and sentenced him accordingly. The Court of Appeals in CA-G.R. CR No. 26050 affirmed the RTC decision in a Decision dated July 25, 2003 and denied petitioner’s motion for reconsideration by Resolution dated August 11, 2004. Petitioner then brought the matter to the Supreme Court seeking reversal of the Court of Appeals’ Decision and its denial of reconsideration, raising challenges to witness credibility, the admissibility of the seized items, the lawfulness of the search and seizure (including the claim that seizure was not incidental to a l...(Pro-only)
Issues:
- Did the Court of Appeals err in giving full faith and credit to the testimonies of the prosecution witnesses?
- Were the gun, ammunition and sachet of shabu admissible in evidence—i.e., was the warrantless search and seizure lawful as plain view or as incidental to a lawful arrest (flagrante delict...(Pro-only)
Ruling:
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Ratio:
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Doctrine:
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