NextGen Day

MANILA, Philippines — During the inventory of seized banned narcotics from suspects, the Supreme Court (SC) reminds law enforcement to ensure the presence of all mandatory witnesses needed by law.

This comes after the Supreme Court overturned a lower court’s conviction of a man on drug charges owing to a technicality.

The court’s first division reversed the Court of Appeals (CA) and the Bacolod City Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 52’s ruling and acquitted Bienvenido Chavez Jr. in a five-page resolution dated Dec. 7, 2021, and published on the SC website on Thursday.

The court pointed out that “one of the obligatory witnesses—the DOJ (Department of Justice) representative—was not present in the inventory” in Chavez’s case, according to the certificate of inventory of seized items.

While the CA accepted the absence since the presence of an additional elective official presumably sufficed to cover the vacuum, the SC noted the CA’s judgment “is neither supported by the letter of the statute nor by jurisprudence.”

On June 30, 2009, in Bacolod City, Chavez was detained in a narcotics bust with 13 grams of shabu, which he sold to an undercover cop. Chavez’s appeal of his conviction by the RTC, which sentenced him to life in jail and a fine of PHP800,000 was dismissed by the CA.

“More importantly, the apprehending officers made no attempt to explain why no member of the Department of Justice was present during the inventory of the seized materials,” the court stated.

The seized items in drug operations must be inventoried and photographed immediately after seizure or confiscation, in the presence of the accused or his or her representative or counsel, an elected official, a representative from the media, and a representative from the Department of Justice, “all of whom shall be required to sign the copies of the inventory and be given a copy of the same and the sworn statement,” according to Section 21, Article II of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.

The court stated, “The Court has frequently emphasized that the attendance of all third-party witnesses at the time of the inventory and photography is obligatory, and the legislation imposes said requirement since the presence of said witnesses will guarantee against the planting of evidence and frame-up.”

The presence of these uninterested witnesses “will protect the apprehension and incrimination proceedings from any taint of illegitimacy or irregularity,” according to the document.

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