MANILA – In a stunning rebuke of the government's war against drugs, the Supreme Court, acquitting a drug suspect, reminded law enforcers to never sacrifice the Bill of Rights “on the altar of conveni
MANILA – In a stunning rebuke of the government's war against drugs, the Supreme Court, acquitting a drug suspect, reminded law enforcers to never sacrifice the Bill of Rights “on the altar of convenience.”
The case involved drug suspect Jerry Sapla alias Eric Salibad, who was caught in January 2014 with 4 bricks or almost 4,000 grams of marijuana while on board a jeepney in Kalinga. “[L]aw enforcers cannot act solely on the basis of confidential or tipped information. A tip is still hearsay no matter how reliable it may be. It is not sufficient to constitute probable cause in the absence of any other circumstance that will arouse suspicion,” it said.
Bagista relied on a US case where authorities had personally interacted with the accused so as to create probable cause. The SC also ruled there was no valid consent to warrantless search in this case and the recovered illegal drugs were inadmissible as evidence under the "fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine," which excludes evidence illegally obtained. This meant that there was no evidence left to support Sapla’s conviction.
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