G.R. No.

L-2128 May 12, 1948

MELENCIO SAYO and JOAQUIN MOSTERO, petitioners,

vs.
THE CHIEF OF POLICE and THE OFFICER IN CHARGE OF MUNICIPAL JAIL, BOTH OF CITY OF MANILA, respondents.

FACTS:

Petitioners, charged with the crime of robbery, were arrested by Benjamin Dumlao, a policeman of the City of
Manila, on April 2, 1948, and presented a complaint against them with the fiscal's office of Manila. Until April 7, 1948,
when the petition for habeas corpus filed with this Court was heard, the petitioners were still detained or under arrest,
and the city fiscal had not yet released or filed against them an information with the proper courts justice.

The case was not processed due to the lack of Justices to form a quorum in Manila. It was transferred to the
Supreme Court acting in division in Baguio for deliberation and decision.

ISSUE:

(a) Whether or not the petitioners were illegally detained.

(b) Is the city fiscal of manila a judicial authority within the meaning of the provisions of article 125 of the Revised
Penal Code?

HELD:

(A) Article 125 of the Revised Penal Code provides that "the penalties provided in the next proceeding article shall
be imposed upon the public officer or employee who shall detain any person for some legal ground and shall fail to deliver
such person to the proper judicial authorities within the period of six hours."

Article 125 of the Revised Penal Code was substantially taken from article 202 of the old Penal Code formerly in force of
these Islands, which penalized a public officer other than a judicial officer who, without warrant, "shall arrest a person
upon a charge of crime and shall fail to deliver such person to the judicial authority within twenty four hours after his
arrest." There was no doubt that a judicial authority therein referred to was the judge of a court of justice empowered by
law, after a proper investigation, to order the temporary commitment or detention of the person arrested; and not the
city fiscals or any other officers, who are not authorized by law to do so. Because article 204, which complements said
section 202, of the same Code provided that "the penalty of suspension in its minimum and medium degrees shall be
imposed upon the following persons: 1. Any judicial officer who, within the period prescribed by the provisions of the law
of criminal procedure in force, shall fail to release any prisoner under arrest or to commit such prisoner formally by written
order containing a statement of the grounds upon which the same is based."

Besides, section 1 (3), Article III, of our Constitution provides that "the right of the people to be secure in their
persons...against unreasonable seizure shall not be violated, and no warrant [of arrest, detention or confinement] shall
issue but upon probable cause, to be determined by the judge after the examination under oath or affirmation of the
complaint and the witness he may produce." Under this constitutional precept no person may be deprived of his liberty,
except by warrant of arrest or commitment issued upon probable cause by a judge after examination of the complainant
and his witness. And the judicial authority to whom the person arrested by a public officers must be surrendered can not
be any other but court or judge who alone is authorized to issue a warrant of commitment or provisional detention of the
person arrested pending the trial of the case against the latter. Without such warrant of commitment, the detention of
the person arrested for than six hours would be illegal and in violation of our Constitution.
 (B) To consider the city fiscal as the judicial authority referred to in article 125 of the Revised Penal Code, would
be to authorize the detention of a person arrested without warrant for a period longer than that permitted by law without
any process issued by a court of competent jurisdiction. The city fiscal, may not, after due investigation, find sufficient
ground for filing an information or prosecuting the person arrested and release him, after the latter had been illegally
detained for days or weeks without any process issued by a court or judge.

A peace officer has no power or authority to arrest a person without a warrant upon complaint of the offended party or
any other person, except in those cases expressly authorized by law. What he or the complainant may do in such case is
to file a complaint with the city fiscal of Manila, or directly with the justice of the peace courts in municipalities and other
political subdivisions. If the City Fiscal has no authority, and he has not, to order the arrest even if he finds, after due
investigation, that there is a probability that a crime has been committed and the accused is guilty thereof, a fortiori a
police officer has no authority to arrest and detain a person charged with an offense upon complaint of the offended party
or other persons even though, after investigation, he becomes convinced that the accused is guilty of the offense charged..
[G.R. No. 109287. April 18, 1996]
People vs. Cuizon

FACTS:

According to the Prosecution

The Reaction Group of the National Bureau of Investigation gathered information about the activities of accused
Antolin Cuizon y Ortega and his wife, Susan Cuizon. A surveillance was conducted on them. The residence of the spouses
was traced to Caloocan City.
Upon the arrival of the accused-spouses flight in NAIA before 12:00 noon of February 21, 1992, the NBI were ready
to intercept them. There, the NBI saw the accused spouses carrying four (4) travelling bags and met with accused Steve
Pua y Clofas and accused Paul Lee y Wong. Accused Pua and Lee boarded a cab travelling to Manila Peninsula Hotel. The
NBI proceeded to the accused’s hotel room where the latter allowed, in writing, the NBI to search the travelling bags
handed by the accused spouses. Three (3) of the four (4) bags each yielded a plastic package containing a considerable
quantity of white crystalline substance suspected to be methamphetamine hydrochloride or shabu.

The NBI then proceeded to the house of accused Cuizon and spouse, taking with them accused Pua and Lee along with
the 3 travel bags, and both spouses were taken into custody.

The Defenses Version(s)

Appellant Pua interjected an alibi, stating that at around 9:30 in the morning, he, along with Lee were checking in
at the hotel for a friend. At around 1:00 p.m. they received a call from the lobby informing them of the arrival of their
luggage. The NBI then went to their room and asked to be let in, however Pua did not, as he did not know them. Pua and
Lee were asked to sign a paper, which was made to understand that they were merely giving the consent for the agents
to enter their room, Pua and Lee signed the same. Whereupon, the agents told them that they will open Paul Leungs bags.
Again appellant Pua refused, saying that the bags did not belong to them. Just the same, the agents, without appellants
Pua and Lees consent, opened the bags and found the shabu. Pua and Lee were then apprehended and brought to the
NBI headquarters.

Appellant Cuizon, on the other hand, flatly rejected the prosecutions version of the incident. While admitting that on
February 21, 1992, he and his wife Susan did arrive from Hong Kong with several pieces of luggage, he denied that he met
Pua and Lee at the arrival area of the airport, much less passed to them the four pieces of luggage. According to him, only
his two-year old son, accompanied by his cousin, Ronald Allan Ong, met them outside the airport. Ong fetched them from
the airport and brought them to their home in Caloocan City. They arrived at their house around 3:00 in the afternoon.

About two hours later, while he was resting together with his wife and son on his bed, two NBI agents suddenly barged in
and poked a gun at him. They manhandled him in front of his wife and son. His hands were tied with a necktie and he was
forcibly brought out of their house while the NBI agents ransacked the place without any warrant. He, his wife Susan, and
his cousin Ronald Allan Ong, were afterwards brought to the NBI Headquarters in Manila and there the NBI agents
continued mauling him.

ISSUE:

Whether or not the search and seizure is valid.

HELD:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches
and seizures of whatever nature and for any purpose, shall be inviolable, and no search warrant or warrant of arrest shall
issue except upon probable cause to be determined personally by the judge after examination under oath or affirmation
of the complainant and the witnesses he may produce, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the
persons or things to be seized.

It further decrees that any evidence obtained in violation of said right shall be inadmissible for any purpose in any
proceeding.

However, the right against warrantless arrest and search and seizure is not absolute. Thus, under Section 5 of Rule 113 of
the Revised Rules of Court, an arrest without a warrant may be lawfully made by a peace officer or a private 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 from a penal establishment or place where he is serving
final judgment or temporarily confined while his case is pending, or has escaped while being transferred from one
confinement to another.

Scrutinizing the provisions of Sec. 5 of Rule 113 of the Rules of Court on lawful arrests without warrant, we note that par.
(c) of said section is obviously inapplicable, the appellants not being escapees from a penal institution at the time of arrest.
Par. (a) on the other hand requires that the person be arrested (i) after he has committed or while he is actually committing
or is at least attempting to commit an offense, (ii) in the presence of the arresting officer(s). These requirements are not
present in the case at bench, for at the time of their arrest, appellants Pua and Lee were merely resting in their hotel
room, and appellant Cuizon for his part was in bed resting with his wife and child inside his home. No offense had just
been committed, or was being actually committed or being attempted by any of the accused in the presence of the
lawmen.

Par. (b) of the same provision is likewise inapplicable since its equally exacting requirements have also not been met. The
prosecution failed to establish that at the time of the arrest, an offense had in fact just been committed and the arresting
officers had personal knowledge of facts indicating that the accused-appellants had committed it. Appellant Cuizon could
not, by the mere act of handing over four pieces of luggage to the other two appellants, be considered to have committed
the offense of carrying and transporting prohibited drugs. Under the circumstances of the case, there was no sufficient
probable cause for the arresting officers to believe that the accused were then and there committing a crime. The act per
se of handing over the baggage, assuming the prosecutions version to be true, cannot in any way be considered a criminal
act. It was not even an act performed under suspicious circumstances as indeed, it took place in broad daylight, practically
at high noon, and out in the open, in full view of the public. Furthermore, it can hardly be considered unusual, in an airport
setting, for travelers and/or their welcomers to be passing, handing over and delivering pieces of baggage, especially
considering the somewhat obsessive penchant of our fellow countrymen for sending along (pakikipadala) things and gifts
through friends and relatives. Moreover, one cannot determine from the external appearance of the luggage that they
contained shabu hidden beneath some secret panel or false bottom. The only reason why such act of parting with luggage
took on the color and dimensions of a felonious deed, at least as far as the lawmen were concerned, was the alleged tip
that the NBI agents purportedly received that morning, to the effect that appellant Cuizon would be arriving that same
day with a shipment of shabu. To quote from another decision of like import, (A)ll they had was hearsay information (from
the telephone caller), and about a crime that had yet to be committed.
G.R. No. 83988 September 29, 1989

RICARDO C. VALMONTE AND UNION OF LAWYERS AND ADVOCATES FOR PEOPLE'S RIGHTS (ULAP), petitioners,
vs.
GEN. RENATO DE VILLA AND NATIONAL CAPITAL REGION DISTRICT COMMAND, respondents.

FACTS:

The National Capital Region District Command (NCRDC) was activated pursuant to Letter of Instruction 02/87 of
the Philippine General Headquarters, AFP, with the mission of conducting security operations within its area of
responsibility and peripheral areas, for the purpose of establishing an effective territorial defense, maintaining peace and
order, and providing an atmosphere conducive to the social, economic and political development of the National Capital
Region. As part of its duty to maintain peace and order, the NCRDC installed checkpoints in various parts of Valenzuela,
Metro Manila.

Petitioners contend that these checkpoints are illegal and unconstitutional, as the military are subjecting cars and
vehicles to regular searches and check-up, especially at night or at dawn, without the benefit of a search warrant and/or
court order. Their alleged fear for their safety increased when, at dawn of 9 July 1988, Benjamin Parpon, a supply officer
of the Municipality of Valenzuela, Bulacan, was gunned down allegedly in cold blood by the members of the NCRDC
manning the checkpoint.

Petitioners further contend that the said checkpoints give the respondents a blanket authority to make searches and/or
seizures without search warrant or court order.

ISSUE:

Whether or not petitioners’ contentions have merit.

HELD:

According to Padilla, J.:

The constitutional right against unreasonable searches and seizures is a personal right invocable only by those
whose rights have been infringed, or threatened to be infringed. What constitutes a reasonable or unreasonable search
and seizure in any particular case is purely a judicial question, determinable from a consideration of the circumstances
involved.
Petitioner Valmonte's general allegation to the effect that he had been stopped and searched without a search
warrant by the military manning the checkpoints, without more, i.e., without stating the details of the incidents which
amount to a violation of his right against unlawful search and seizure, is not sufficient to enable the Court to determine
whether there was a violation of Valmonte's right against unlawful search and seizure. Not all searches and seizures are
prohibited. Those which are reasonable are not forbidden. A reasonable search is not to be determined by any fixed
formula but is to be resolved according to the facts of each case.

Separate opinions:
The sweeping statements in the majority opinion are as dangerous as the checkpoints it would sustain and fraught
with serious threats to individual liberty. The bland declaration that individual rights must yield to the demands of national
security ignores the fact that the Bill of Rights was intended precisely to limit the authority of the State even if asserted
on the ground of national security. What is worse is that the searches and seizures are peremptorily pronounced to be
reasonable even without proof of probable cause and much less the required warrant. The improbable excuse is that they
are aimed at 'establishing an effective territorial defense, maintaining peace and order, and providing an atmosphere
conducive to the social, economic and political development of the National Capital Region." For these purposes, every
individual may be stopped and searched at random and at any time simply because he excites the suspicion, caprice,
hostility or malice of the officers manning the checkpoints, on pain of arrest or worse, even being shot to death, if he
resists.