Pubdate: Mon, 25 Apr 2005
Source: Sun.Star Cebu (Philippines)
Copyright: 2005 Sun.Star
Contact:  http://www.sunstar.com.ph/cebu/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1690
Author: GN
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/areas/Philippines

'ILLEGAL' SEARCH SAVES JAIL OFFICER FROM PRISON

A JAIL officer escaped what could have been life imprisonment when the
court acquitted him of drug possession.

Regional Trial Court Branch 58 Judge Gabriel Ingles did not even have
to hear the defense's side in dismissing the case.

SJO1 Edwin Alviola Sarcon had claimed that the raid in his house in
Villa del Rio in Bacayan, Cebu City by the Criminal Investigation and
Intelligence Bureau last Dec. 13, 2003 was illegal.

Because the raiding team failed to ask Sarcon and occupants in his
house to witness the search, the court ruled that the 55.13 grams
allegedly found in Sarcon's kitchen could not be admitted as evidence.

PO2 Brazilio Borinaga, in his testimony, said both Sarcon and his wife
were seated with him in the living room while the search was done.

But PO2 Edward Abatayo and barangay tanod Luciano Aninon claimed that
the wife was with them when they started searching the house.

Gun, Drugs

The raiding team found a .38 revolver with three live cartridges and
the prohibited drugs on top of a table in the kitchen.

Sarcon pleaded not guilty and wanted the case dismissed.

He claimed that the prohibited drugs reportedly taken from his house
could not be admitted as evidence, since the search was illegal.

Sarcon, who had served a one-year suspension in his work prior to his
arrest for alleged drug use, said that although the policemen had a
search warrant, they were not allowed to witness the search.

In dismissing the case, Judge Ingles said Borinaga's admission that
Sarcon and his wife were with him in the living room during the search
showed that no one from Sarcon's family witnessed the search.

Inconsistent

While Abatayo and Aninon claimed that Sarcon's wife accompanied them
during the search, the inconsistency in the testimonies of the
prosecution witnesses cast doubts.

"Such inconsistency cannot be simply disregarded as minor because it
bears upon the legality of the search. And this court simply is
confused as to who it should believe, the assigned recorder (Borinaga)
or the searchers (Abatayo and Aninon)," Ingles said in his ruling.

Ingles added that the presence of the two barangay tanods in the
search is not enough to make the raid legal because the prosecution
failed to prove that Sarcon or any of his family members refused to
accompany the searchers.

"No search of a house, room or any other premises shall be made except
in the presence of the lawful occupant thereof of any member of his
family or in the absence of the latter, two witnesses of sufficient
age and discretion residing in the same locality," Ingles said.
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