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Warrantless arrests based solely on reliable information are generally not allowed. However, arrests may be justified if the arresting officer has personal knowledge or observes an overt act indicating a crime has been, is being, or will be committed. Peeking through an open door or window may constitute a valid warrantless search if the area viewed is also viewable from outside. Tipped information alone can provide sufficient probable cause for arrest in special cases where prior surveillance of the suspect was conducted, or time was lacking to obtain a warrant due to on-the-spot tip information. The use of informants is consistent with Philippine law.
Deskripsi Asli:
apprehension on Illegal Drugs
Judul Asli
Legality of Warrantless Arrest Based on Reliable Info (Dangerous Drugs Cases)
Warrantless arrests based solely on reliable information are generally not allowed. However, arrests may be justified if the arresting officer has personal knowledge or observes an overt act indicating a crime has been, is being, or will be committed. Peeking through an open door or window may constitute a valid warrantless search if the area viewed is also viewable from outside. Tipped information alone can provide sufficient probable cause for arrest in special cases where prior surveillance of the suspect was conducted, or time was lacking to obtain a warrant due to on-the-spot tip information. The use of informants is consistent with Philippine law.
Warrantless arrests based solely on reliable information are generally not allowed. However, arrests may be justified if the arresting officer has personal knowledge or observes an overt act indicating a crime has been, is being, or will be committed. Peeking through an open door or window may constitute a valid warrantless search if the area viewed is also viewable from outside. Tipped information alone can provide sufficient probable cause for arrest in special cases where prior surveillance of the suspect was conducted, or time was lacking to obtain a warrant due to on-the-spot tip information. The use of informants is consistent with Philippine law.
BASED ON RELIABLE INFORMATION (DANGEROUS DRUGS CASES) Is arrest without warrant allowed under our laws and rules?
Sec. 5, Rule 113 of the Rules of Court provides the ff:
1. In flagrante delicto 2 Elements: 1. The person to be arrested must execute an overt act indicating that he has just committed, is actually committing, or is attempting to commit a crime; and 2. Such overt act is done in the presence or within the view of the arresting officer. 2. Hot pursuit
2 Elements:
1. An offense has in fact just been committed; and
2. The arresting officer has personal knowledge of
facts indicating that the person to be arrested committed an offense. However, with the enactment of RA 9165, the PNP and other government agencies mandated to enforce the said law, have relied a great deal upon reliable information passed on to them by their assets and informants. Is warrantless arrest based on reliable information allowed?
Reliable information alone is not sufficient to justify a
warrantless arrest. (People vs Rancho, GR No. 186529, Aug. 3, 2010) What other elements are required for warrantless arrest based on reliable information to be justified?
The rule requires that:
1. The accused perform some overt act that would indicate that he has committed, is actually committing, or is attempting to commit and offense;
2. The overt act must be done in the presence
or within the view of the arresting officer;
3. The overt act need not necessarily be the
entirety of the offense 3. The overt act need not necessarily be the entirety of the offense itself, but rather, that it “indicates” that there is an offense;
4. The behavior or conduct of the person to be
arrested must be clearly indicative of a criminal act.
If there is no outward indication at all that calls for
an arrest, the suspect cannot be validly apprehended, notwithstanding a tip from an informant that he would at the time be undertaking a felonious enterprise. (Concurring opinion of Justice Artemio V Panganiban in People vs Doria, 301 SCRA 668) Is personal knowledge in such arrests important?
In People vs Martinez, the court held illegal the arrest
of suspects who were surprised by police officers who were tipped that a pot session was on-going in the place mentioned. It appears that the main reason for the illegality of the arrest is the fact that upon entering the house of the accused and arresting them, the police officers had no personal knowledge of the illegality activity being conducted. The only basis was the tipped information. In Zalameda vs People, the court held that the warrantless arrest was lawful. The accused therein were arrested after a police officer received a tip from an unknown caller, went to the address indicated and peeped through a door, and saw an on-going pot session.
Reconciling these two differing decision of the Court, it
may be said that an arrest following a tip from an informer may be lawful if the arrest is preceded by or accompanied with some form of personal knowledge on the part of the arresting officer. When do we consider peeking through an open door or window to be a valid search without a warrant?
The act of the police officer of peeking to be valid
search without a warrant must not consist of physical intrusion into the space within the building. Any activity which the police officer views by peeping should be viewable from outside the building. As held in US vs Delos Reyes and Esguerra, 20 Phil 467, 473 “The mere fact that a man is an officer, whether of high or low degree, gives him no more right than is possessed by the ordinary private citizen to break in upon the privacy of the home and subject its occupant to the indignity of a search for the evidence of a crime, without a legal warrant procured for the purpose.xxx” May a tipped information be considered as sufficient probable cause?
The court has ruled in several dangerous drugs cases
that tipped information is sufficient probable cause, and thus adequate basis for warrantless arrest.
These special cases include instances where there is:
1. Lack of information as to the description of the vehicle and time of arrival.
In People vs Maspil, GR No. 85177, Aug. 20, 1990,
police officers were tipped off by some confidential informers that the accused would be transporting a large volume of marijuana to Baguio City. By reason of the received information, a checkpoint was set-up which in turn intercepted a jeepney driven by the accused. Upon inspection, the vehicle was found loaded with several bundles of suspected dried marijuana leaves. The court has held that the accused were caught in flagrante delicto since they were transporting the prohibited drugs at the time of their arrest. Be it noted that the court ruled that at the time of the arrest, a crime was actually being committed. In Aminnudin, 163 SCRA 402 (1988) the court ratiocinated that in the above-mentioned case, the police officers have sufficient time and adequate information to have obtained a warrant, which time and information, in the case of Maspil, is wanting and lacking. 2. Prior surveillance of the accused.
In People vs Balingan, GR No. 105834, Feb.
13, 1995, the Narcotics Intelligence Division of the Baguio CPS received a telephone call from an unnamed male informant that the accused was going to Manila transporting a bag of marijuana. Immediately, a surveillance team was formed with the end goal of monitoring the movement of the accused. With the team deployed in different places within the city, the accused was then sighted boarding a bus. When he was already seated, and his luggage safely tucked in the luggage carrier above her head, one of the team members identified himself as a police officer and that a routinary check- up will be conducted. He then asked the accused for permission to open her bag. The accused did not respond and merely looked outside the bus window. The officer opened the luggage and found suspected marijuana inside the bag which fact was made the ground for the arrest of the accused. In ruling that the arrest was lawful and with sufficient basis, the court said that the warrantless search is not bereft of a probable cause. The conduct of prior surveillance gave the officers conducting the search sufficient knowledge about the movement of the accused and the fact that she will be transporting illegal drugs. 3. On the spot information
In People vs Valdez, GR No. 127801, Mar.
3, 1999, the police officer received a tipped information that a thin Ilocano person with a green bag was about to transport marijuana from Banaue, Ifugao. When the policeman received the information, he was waiting for a ride in Banaue to report for work in Lagawe. Responding to call of duty, the policeman proceeded to Hingyon, Ifugao whereby he flagged down buses bound for Baguio City and Manila looking for the person fitting the description of the informer. When he found the person as described, he conducted a search which yielded positive. He then put the person under arrest. The court ruled that due to lack of enough time to secure a warrant, coupled with the inkling of identity of the person he was looking for, the acts of the police officer in conducting the search and subsequent arrest were valid. Is the use of informants and tipster consistent with the law?
Yes. The law allowed the grant of compensation,
reward and award to any person providing information and to law enforcers participating in the operation, which results in the successful confiscation, seizure or surrender of dangerous drugs, plant sources of dangerous drugs, and controlled precursors and essential chemicals. (Sec. 22 of RA 9165)