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EN BANC

[G.R. No. 123595. December 12, 1997]

SAMMY MALACAT y MANDAR, Petitioner, v. COURT OF APPEALS, and PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, Respondents.

D E C I S I O N

DAVIDE, JR., J.:

In an Information¹ filed on 30 August 1990, in Criminal Case No. 90-86748 before the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Manila, Branch 5, petitioner Sammy Malacat y Mandar was charged with violating Section 3 of Presidential Decree No. 1866,² as follows:

That on or about August 27, 1990, in the City of Manila, Philippines, the said accused did then and there willfully, unlawfully and knowingly keep, possess and/or acquire a hand grenade, without first securing the necessary license and/or permit therefor from the proper authorities.

At arraignment³ on 9 October 1990, Petitioner, assisted by counsel de oficio, entered a plea of not guilty.

At pre-trial on 11 March 1991, petitioner admitted the existence of Exhibits A, A-1, and A-2,⁴ while the prosecution admitted that the police authorities were not armed with a search warrant nor warrant of arrest at the time they arrested petitioner.⁵cräläwvirtualibräry

At trial on the merits, the prosecution presented the following police officers as its witnesses: Rodolfo Yu, the arresting officer; Josefino G. Serapio, the investigating officer; and Orlando Ramilo, who examined the grenade.

Rodolfo Yu of the Western Police District, Metropolitan Police Force of the Integrated National Police, Police Station No. 3, Quiapo, Manila, testified that on 27 August 1990, at about 6:30 p.m., in response to bomb threats reported seven days earlier, he was on foot patrol with three other police officers (all of them in uniform) along Quezon Boulevard, Quiapo, Manila, near the Mercury Drug store at Plaza Miranda. They chanced upon two groups of Muslim-looking men, with each group, comprised of three to four men, posted at opposite sides of the corner of Quezon Boulevard near the Mercury Drug Store. These men were acting suspiciously with [t]heir eyes moving very fast.⁶cräläwvirtualibräry

Yu and his companions positioned themselves at strategic points and observed both groups for about thirty minutes. The police officers then approached one group of men, who then fled in different directions. As the policemen gave chase, Yu caught up with and apprehended petitioner. Upon searching petitioner, Yu found a fragmentation grenade tucked inside petitioners front waist line.⁷ Yus companion, police officer Rogelio Malibiran, apprehended Abdul Casan from whom a.38 caliber revolver was recovered. Petitioner and Casan were then brought to Police Station No. 3 where Yu placed an X mark at the bottom of the grenade and thereafter gave it to his commander.⁸cräläwvirtualibräry

On cross-examination, Yu declared that they conducted the foot patrol due to a report that a group of Muslims was going to explode a grenade somewhere in the vicinity of Plaza Miranda. Yu recognized petitioner as the previous Saturday, 25 August 1990, likewise at Plaza Miranda, Yu saw petitioner and 2 others attempt to detonate a grenade. The attempt was aborted when Yu and other policemen chased petitioner and his companions; however, the former were unable to catch any of the latter. Yu further admitted that petitioner and Casan were merely standing on the corner of Quezon Boulevard when Yu saw them on 27 August 1990. Although they were not creating a commotion, since they were supposedly acting suspiciously, Yu and his companions approached them. Yu did not issue any receipt for the grenade he allegedly recovered from petitioner.⁹cräläwvirtualibräry

Josefino G. Serapio declared that at about 9:00 a.m. of 28 August 1990, petitioner and a certain Abdul Casan were brought in by Sgt. Saquilla¹⁰ for investigation. Forthwith, Serapio conducted the inquest of the two suspects, informing them of their rights to remain silent and to be assisted by competent and independent counsel. Despite Serapios advice, petitioner and Casan manifested their willingness to answer questions even without the assistance of a lawyer. Serapio then took petitioners uncounselled confession (Exh. E), there being no PAO lawyer available, wherein petitioner admitted possession of the grenade. Thereafter, Serapio prepared the affidavit of arrest and booking sheet of petitioner and Casan. Later, Serapio turned over the grenade to the Intelligence and Special Action Division (ISAD) of the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit for examination.¹¹chanroblesvirtuallawlibrary

On cross-examination, Serapio admitted that he took petitioners confession knowing it was inadmissible in evidence.¹²cräläwvirtualibräry

Orlando Ramilo, a member of the Bomb Disposal Unit, whose principal duties included, among other things, the examination of explosive devices, testified that on 22 March 1991, he received a request dated 19 March 1991 from Lt. Eduardo Cabrera and PO Diosdado Diotoy for examination of a grenade. Ramilo then affixed an orange tag on the subject grenade detailing his name, the date and time he received the specimen. During the preliminary examination of the grenade, he [f]ound that [the] major components consisting of [a] high filler and fuse assembly [were] all present, and concluded that the grenade was [l]ive and capable of exploding. On even date, he issued a certification stating his findings, a copy of which he forwarded to Diotoy on 11 August 1991.¹³cräläwvirtualibräry

Petitioner was the lone defense witness. He declared that he arrived in Manila on 22 July 1990 and resided at the Muslim Center in Quiapo, Manila. At around 6:30 in the evening of 27 August 1990, he went to Plaza Miranda to catch a breath of fresh air. Shortly after, several policemen arrived and ordered all males to stand aside. The policemen searched petitioner and two other men, but found nothing in their possession. However, he was arrested with two others, brought to and detained at Precinct No. 3, where he was accused of having shot a police officer. The officer showed the gunshot wounds he allegedly sustained and shouted at petitioner [i]to ang tama mo sa akin. This officer then inserted the muzzle of his gun into petitioners mouth and said, [y]ou are the one who shot me. Petitioner denied the charges and explained that he only recently arrived in Manila. However, several other police officers mauled him, hitting him with benches and guns. Petitioner was once again searched, but nothing was found on him. He saw the grenade only in court when it was presented.¹⁴cräläwvirtualibräry

The trial court ruled that the warrantless search and seizure of petitioner was akin to a stop and frisk, where a warrant and seizure can be effected without necessarily being preceded by an arrest and whose object is either to maintain the status quo momentarily while the police officer seeks to obtain more information.¹⁵ Probable cause was not required as it was not certain that a crime had been committed, however, the situation called for an investigation, hence to require probable cause would have been premature.¹⁶ The RTC emphasized that Yu and his companions were [c]onfronted with an emergency, in which the delay necessary to obtain a warrant, threatens the destruction of evidence¹⁷ and the officers [h]ad to act in haste, as petitioner and his companions were acting suspiciously, considering the time, place and reported cases of bombing. Further, petitioners group suddenly ran away in different directions as they saw the arresting officers approach, thus [i]t is reasonable for an officer to conduct a limited search, the purpose of which is not necessarily to discover evidence of a crime, but to allow the officer to pursue his investigation without fear of violence.¹⁸cräläwvirtualibräry

The trial court then ruled that the seizure of the grenade from petitioner was incidental to a lawful arrest, and since petitioner [l]ater voluntarily admitted such fact to the police investigator for the purpose of bombing the Mercury Drug Store, concluded that sufficient evidence existed to establish petitioners guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

In its decision¹⁹ dated 10 February 1994 but promulgated on 15 February 1994, the trial court thus found petitioner guilty of the crime of illegal possession of explosives under Section 3 of P.D. No. 1866, and sentenced him to suffer:

[T]he penalty of not less than SEVENTEEN (17) YEARS, FOUR (4) MONTHS AND ONE (1) DAY OF RECLUSION TEMPORAL, as minimum, and not more than THIRTY (30) YEARS OF RECLUSION PERPETUA, as maximum.

On 18 February 1994, petitioner filed a notice of appeal²⁰ indicating that he was appealing to this Court. However, the record of the case was forwarded to the Court of Appeals which docketed it as CA-G.R. CR No. 15988 and issued a notice to file briefs.²¹cräläwvirtualibräry

In his Appellants Brief ²² filed with the Court of Appeals, petitioner asserted that:

1. THE LOWER COURT ERRED IN HOLDING THAT THE SEARCH UPON THE PERSON OF ACCUSED-APPELLANT AND THE SEIZURE OF THE ALLEGED HANDGRENADE FROM HIM WAS AN APPROPRIATE INCIDENT TO HIS ARREST.

2. THE LOWER COURT ERRED IN ADMITTING AS EVIDENCE AGAINST ACCUSED-APPELLANT THE HANDGRENADE ALLEGEDLY SEIZED FROM HIM AS IT WAS A PRODUCT OF AN UNREASONABLE AND ILLEGAL SEARCH.

In sum, petitioner argued that the warrantless arrest was invalid due to absence of any of the conditions provided for in Section 5 of Rule 113 of the Rules of Court, citing People vs. Mengote.²³ As such, the search was illegal, and the hand grenade seized, inadmissible in evidence.

In its Brief for the Appellee, the Office of the Solicitor General agreed with the trial court and prayed that its decision be affirmed in toto.²⁴cräläwvirtualibräry

In its decision of 24 January 1996,²⁵ the Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court, noting, first, that petitioner abandoned his original theory before the court a quo that the grenade was planted by the police officers; and second, the factual finding of the trial court that the grenade was seized from petitioners possession was not raised as an issue. Further, respondent court focused on the admissibility in evidence of Exhibit D, the hand grenade seized from petitioner. Meeting the issue squarely, the Court of Appeals ruled that the arrest was lawful on the ground that there was probable cause for the arrest as petitioner was attempting to commit an offense, thus:

We are at a loss to understand how a man, who was in possession of a live grenade and in the company of other suspicious character[s] with unlicensed firearm[s] lurking in Plaza Miranda at a time when political tension ha[d] been enkindling a series of terroristic activities, [can] claim that he was not attempting to commit an offense. We need not mention that Plaza Miranda is historically notorious for being a favorite bomb site especially during times of political upheaval. As the mere possession of an unlicensed grenade is by itself an offense, Malacats posture is simply too preposterous to inspire belief.

In so doing, the Court of Appeals took into account petitioners failure to rebut the testimony of the prosecution witnesses that they received intelligence reports of a bomb threat at Plaza Miranda; the fact that PO Yu chased petitioner two days prior to the latters arrest, or on 27 August 1990; and that petitioner and his companions acted suspiciously, the accumulation of which was more than sufficient to convince a reasonable man that an offense was about to be committed. Moreover, the Court of Appeals observed:

The police officers in such a volatile situation would be guilty of gross negligence and dereliction of duty, not to mention of gross incompetence, if they [would] first wait for Malacat to hurl the grenade, and kill several innocent persons while maiming numerous others, before arriving at what would then be an assured but moot conclusion that there was indeed probable cause for an arrest. We are in agreement with the lower court in saying that the probable cause in such a situation should not be the kind of proof necessary to convict, but rather the practical considerations of everyday life on which a reasonable and prudent mind, and not legal technicians, will ordinarily act.

Finally, the Court of Appeals held that the rule laid down in People v. Mengote,²⁶ which petitioner relied upon, was inapplicable in light of [c]rucial differences, to wit:

[In Mengote] the police officers never received any intelligence report that someone [at] the corner of a busy street [would] be in possession of a prohibited article. Here the police officers were responding to a [sic] public clamor to put a check on the series of terroristic bombings in the Metropolis, and, after receiving intelligence reports about a bomb threat aimed at the vicinity of the historically notorious Plaza Miranda, they conducted foot patrols for about seven days to observe suspicious movements in the area. Furthermore, in Mengote, the police officers [had] no personal knowledge that the person arrested has committed, is actually committing, or is attempting to commit an offense. Here, PO3 Yu [had] personal knowledge of the fact that he chased Malacat in Plaza Miranda two days before he finally succeeded in apprehending him.

Unable to accept his conviction, petitioner forthwith filed the instant petition and assigns the following errors:

1. THE RESPONDENT COURT ERRED IN AFFIRMING THE FINDING OF THE TRIAL COURT THAT THE WARRANTLESS ARREST OF PETITIONER WAS VALID AND LEGAL.

2. THE RESPONDENT COURT ERRED IN HOLDING THAT THE RULING IN PEOPLE VS. MENGOTE DOES NOT FIND APPLICATION IN THE INSTANT CASE.

In support thereof, petitioner merely restates his arguments below regarding the validity of the warrantless arrest and search, then disagrees with the finding of the Court of Appeals that he was attempting to commit a crime, as the evidence for the prosecution merely disclosed that he was standing at the corner of Plaza Miranda and Quezon Boulevard with his eyes moving very fast and looking at every person that come (sic) nearer (sic) to them. Finally, petitioner points out the factual similarities between his case and that of People v. Mengote to demonstrate that the Court of Appeals miscomprehended the latter.

In its Comment, the Office of the Solicitor General prays that we affirm the challenged decision.

For being impressed with merit, we resolved to give due course to the petition.

The challenged decision must immediately fall on jurisdictional grounds. To repeat, the penalty imposed by the trial court was:

[N]ot less than SEVENTEEN (17) YEARS, FOUR (4) MONTHS AND ONE (1) DAY OF RECLUSION TEMPORAL, as minimum, and not more than THIRTY (30) YEARS OF RECLUSION PERPETUA, as maximum.

The penalty provided by Section 3 of P.D. No. 1866 upon any person who shall unlawfully possess grenades is reclusion temporal in its maximum period to reclusion perpetua.

For purposes of determining appellate jurisdiction in criminal cases, the maximum of the penalty, and not the minimum, is taken into account. Since the maximum of the penalty is reclusion perpetua, the appeal therefrom should have been to us, and not the Court of Appeals, pursuant to Section 9(3) of the Judiciary Reorganization Act of 1980 (B.P. Blg. 129),²⁷ in relation to Section 17 of the Judiciary Act of 1948,²⁸ Section 5(2) of Article VIII of the Constitution²⁹ and Section 3(c) of Rule 122 of the Rules of Court.³⁰ The term life imprisonment as used in Section 9 of B.P. Blg. 129, the Judiciary Act of 1948, and Section 3 of Rule 122 must be deemed to include reclusion perpetua in view of Section 5(2) of Article VIII of the Constitution.

Petitioners Notice of Appeal indicated that he was appealing from the trial courts decision to this Court, yet the trial court transmitted the record to the Court of Appeals and the latter proceeded to resolve the appeal.

We then set aside the decision of the Court of Appeals for having been rendered without jurisdiction, and consider the appeal as having been directly brought to us, with the petition for review as petitioners Brief for the Appellant, the comment thereon by the Office of the Solicitor General as the Brief for the Appellee and the memoranda of the parties as their Supplemental Briefs.

Deliberating on the foregoing pleadings, we find ourselves convinced that the prosecution failed to establish petitioners guilt with moral certainty.

First, serious doubt surrounds the story of police officer Yu that a grenade was found in and seized from petitioners possession. Notably, Yu did not identify, in court, the grenade he allegedly seized. According to him, he turned it over to his commander after putting an X mark at its bottom; however, the commander was not presented to corroborate this claim. On the other hand, the grenade presented in court and identified by police officer Ramilo referred to what the latter received from Lt. Eduardo Cabrera and police officer Diotoy not immediately after petitioners arrest, but nearly seven (7) months later, or on 19 March 1991; further, there was no evidence whatsoever that what Ramilo received was the very same grenade seized from petitioner. In his testimony, Yu never declared that the grenade passed on to Ramilo was the grenade the former confiscated from petitioner. Yu did not, and was not made to, identify the grenade examined by Ramilo, and the latter did not claim that the grenade he examined was that seized from petitioner. Plainly, the law enforcement authorities failed to safeguard and preserve the chain of evidence so crucial in cases such as these.

Second, if indeed petitioner had a grenade with him, and that two days earlier he was with a group about to detonate an explosive at Plaza Miranda, and Yu and his fellow officers chased, but failed to arrest them, then considering that Yu and his three fellow officers were in uniform and therefore easily cognizable as police officers, it was then unnatural and against common experience that petitioner simply stood there in proximity to the police officers. Note that Yu observed petitioner for thirty minutes and must have been close enough to petitioner in order to discern petitioners eyes moving very fast.

Finally, even assuming that petitioner admitted possession of the grenade during his custodial investigation by police officer Serapio, such admission was inadmissible in evidence for it was taken in palpable violation of Section 12(1) and (3) of Article III of the Constitution, which provide as follows:

SEC. 12 (1). Any person under investigation for the commission of an offense shall have the right to be informed of his right to remain silent and to have competent and independent counsel preferably of his own choice. If the person cannot afford the services of counsel, he must be provided with one. These rights cannot be waived except in writing and in the presence of counsel.

x x x

(3) Any confession or admission obtained in violation of this or Section 17 hereof shall be inadmissible in evidence against him.

Serapio conducted the custodial investigation on petitioner the day following his arrest. No lawyer was present and Serapio could not have requested a lawyer to assist petitioner as no PAO lawyer was then available. Thus, even if petitioner consented to the investigation and waived his rights to remain silent and to counsel, the waiver was invalid as it was not in writing, neither was it executed in the presence of counsel.

Even granting ex gratia that petitioner was in possession of a grenade, the arrest and search of petitioner were invalid, as will be discussed below.

The general rule as regards arrests, searches and seizures is that a warrant is needed in order to validly effect the same.³¹ The Constitutional prohibition against unreasonable arrests, searches and seizures refers to those effected without a validly issued warrant,³² subject to certain exceptions. As regards valid warrantless arrests, these are found in Section 5, Rule 113 of the Rules of Court, which reads, in part:

Sec. 5. -- Arrest, without warrant; when lawful -- A peace officer or a private person may, without a warrant, arrest a person:

(a) When, in his presence, the person to be arrested has committed, is actually committing, or is attempting to commit an offense;

(b) When an offense has in fact just been committed, and he has personal knowledge of facts indicating that the person to be arrested has committed it; and

(c) When the person to be arrested is a prisoner who has escaped ***

A warrantless arrest under the circumstances contemplated under Section 5(a) has been denominated as one "in flagrante delicto," while that under Section 5(b) has been described as a "hot pursuit" arrest.

Turning to valid warrantless searches, they are limited to the following: (1) customs searches; (2) search of moving vehicles; (3) seizure of evidence in plain view; (4) consent searches;³³ (5) a search incidental to a lawful arrest;³⁴ and (6) a "stop and frisk."³⁵chanroblesvirtuallawlibrary

In the instant petition, the trial court validated the warrantless search as a stop and frisk with the seizure of the grenade from the accused [as] an appropriate incident to his arrest, hence necessitating a brief discussion on the nature of these exceptions to the warrant requirement.

At the outset, we note that the trial court confused the concepts of a "stop-and-frisk" and of a search incidental to a lawful arrest. These two types of warrantless searches differ in terms of the requisite quantum of proof before they may be validly effected and in their allowable scope.

In a search incidental to a lawful arrest, as the precedent arrest determines the validity of the incidental search, the legality of the arrest is questioned in a large majority of these cases, e.g., whether an arrest was merely used as a pretext for conducting a search.³⁶ In this instance, the law requires that there first be a lawful arrest before a search can be made -- the process cannot be reversed.³⁷ At bottom, assuming a valid arrest, the arresting officer may search the person of the arrestee and the area within which the latter may reach for a weapon or for evidence to destroy, and seize any money or property found which was used in the commission of the crime, or the fruit of the crime, or that which may be used as evidence, or which might furnish the arrestee with the means of escaping or committing violence.³⁸cräläwvirtualibräry

Here, there could have been no valid in flagrante delicto or hot pursuit arrest preceding the search in light of the lack of personal knowledge on the part of Yu, the arresting officer, or an overt physical act, on the part of petitioner, indicating that a crime had just been committed, was being committed or was going to be committed.

Having thus shown the invalidity of the warrantless arrest in this case, plainly, the search conducted on petitioner could not have been one incidental to a lawful arrest.

We now proceed to the justification for and allowable scope of a "stop-and-frisk" as a "limited protective search of outer clothing for weapons," as laid down in Terry, thus:

We merely hold today that where a police officer observes unusual conduct which leads him reasonably to conclude in light of his experience that criminal activity may be afoot and that the persons with whom he is dealing may be armed and presently dangerous, where in the course of investigating this behavior he identifies himself as a policeman and makes reasonable inquiries, and where nothing in the initial stages of the encounter serves to dispel his reasonable fear for his own or others' safety, he is entitled for the protection of himself and others in the area to conduct a carefully limited search of the outer clothing of such persons in an attempt to discover weapons which might be used to assault him. Such a search is a reasonable search under the Fourth Amendment ***³⁹cräläwvirtualibräry

Other notable points of Terry are that while probable cause is not required to conduct a "stop and frisk,"⁴⁰ it nevertheless holds that mere suspicion or a hunch will not validate a "stop and frisk." A genuine reason must exist, in light of the police officer's experience and surrounding conditions, to warrant the belief that the person detained has weapons concealed about him.⁴¹ Finally, a "stop-and-frisk" serves a two-fold interest: (1) the general interest of effective crime prevention and detection, which underlies the recognition that a police officer may, under appropriate circumstances and in an appropriate manner, approach a person for purposes of investigating possible criminal behavior even without probable cause; and (2) the more pressing interest of safety and self-preservation which permit the police officer to take steps to assure himself that the person with whom he deals is not armed with a deadly weapon that could unexpectedly and fatally be used against the police officer.

Here, here are at least three (3) reasons why the stop-and-frisk was invalid:

First, we harbor grave doubts as to Yus claim that petitioner was a member of the group which attempted to bomb Plaza Miranda two days earlier. This claim is neither supported by any police report or record nor corroborated by any other police officer who allegedly chased that group. Aside from impairing Yu's credibility as a witness, this likewise diminishes the probability that a genuine reason existed so as to arrest and search petitioner. If only to further tarnish the credibility of Yu's testimony, contrary to his claim that petitioner and his companions had to be chased before being apprehended, the affidavit of arrest (Exh. "A") expressly declares otherwise, i.e., upon arrival of five (5) other police officers, petitioner and his companions were "immediately collared."

Second, there was nothing in petitioners behavior or conduct which could have reasonably elicited even mere suspicion other than that his eyes were moving very fast an observation which leaves us incredulous since Yu and his teammates were nowhere near petitioner and it was already 6:30 p.m., thus presumably dusk. Petitioner and his companions were merely standing at the corner and were not creating any commotion or trouble, as Yu explicitly declared on cross-examination:

Q And what were they doing?

A They were merely standing.

Q You are sure of that?

A Yes, sir.

Q And when you saw them standing, there were nothing or they did not create any commotion?

A None, sir.

Q Neither did you see them create commotion?

A None, sir.⁴²cräläwvirtualibräry

Third, there was at all no ground, probable or otherwise, to believe that petitioner was armed with a deadly weapon. None was visible to Yu, for as he admitted, the alleged grenade was discovered inside the front waistline of petitioner, and from all indications as to the distance between Yu and petitioner, any telltale bulge, assuming that petitioner was indeed hiding a grenade, could not have been visible to Yu. In fact, as noted by the trial court:

When the policemen approached the accused and his companions, they were not yet aware that a handgrenade was tucked inside his waistline. They did not see any bulging object in [sic] his person.⁴³chanroblesvirtuallawlibrary

What is unequivocal then in this case are blatant violations of petitioners rights solemnly guaranteed in Sections 2 and 12(1) of Article III of the Constitution.

WHEREFORE, the challenged decision of the Seventeenth Division of the Court of Appeals in CA-G.R. CR No. 15988 is SET ASIDE for lack of jurisdiction on the part of said Court and, on ground of reasonable doubt, the decision of 10 February 1994 of Branch 5 of the Regional Trial Court of Manila is REVERSED and petitioner SAMMY MALACAT y MANDAR is hereby ACQUITTED and ORDERED immediately released from detention, unless his further detention is justified for any other lawful cause.

Costs de oficio.

SO ORDERED.

Narvasa, C.J., Regalado, Romero, Bellosillo, Melo, Puno, Vitug, Kapunan, Mendoza, Francisco, and Martinez, JJ., concur.

Panganiban, J., please see separate opinion.