"The accused cannot be convicted beyond reasonable doubt."
"The accused cannot be convicted beyond reasonable doubt."
On Nov. 9, 2021, the Inquirer reported that Department Justice Menardo Guevarra was brought to the hospital that Tuesday morning. The DOJ chief, 64, was not feeling well.
I don’t know if Guevarra’s feeling unwell has no any relation to the DOJ’s Oct. 18, 2021 resolution charging Julian Roberto S. Ongpin with possession of illegal drugs, a non-bailable offense. It was claimed that the son of tycoon Bobby Ongpin violated Section 11, Article II of the Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002 (RA 9165).
The resolution was made by a three-person DOJ panel formed by Guevarra on Sept. 24, 2021 at Padre Faura, Manila. The DOJ team filed the information against Ongpin at the Regional Trial Court of San Juan town, La Union. Legal circles consider the panel’s work a botched job, or defective at best.
Around 4 am of Sept. 18, 2021, Ongpin sought assistance after discovering his girlfriend, Bree Patricia Jonson Agunod, hanging and lifeless in the toilet of their room SV2 of the Flotsam & Jetsam Hostel in San Juan, La Union. The night before, or 12 hours before the incident, the couple had checked into the hotel.
Before 5 that morning, a four-man SOCO team (a police lieutenant, a sergeant and two patrolmen) dutifully arrived. Among the pieces of evidence they found was a black pouch that allegedly contained cocaine in ten sealed plastic sachets. The pouch was retrieved from a bag that contained the medication of Bree—“Lamotrigine,” a drug to prevent extreme mood swings, among its other uses.
Ongpin denied owning the coke. The sachets of white powder were not in his possession nor in his body. Just the same, the DOJ panel declared Ongpin was in “constructive possession” of the illegal drugs. That argument is the same as saying: “You know, I think you own it, therefore, you indeed possess it.” It’s constructing a case out of pure imagination.
Outraged, Dennis Manalo, Ongpin’s lawyer, has assailed the DOJ resolution and sought the dismissal of the case on two grounds: 1) lack of evidence that Ongpin possessed illegal drugs; and 2) the panel violated the Chain of Custody rule in the handling of illegal drugs.
RA 9165 prescribes a strict procedure for handling object evidence, particularly the custody of confiscated dangerous drugs by law enforcement agencies and by the courts. Non-compliance with the said procedure renders the evidence non-admissible, resulting in the eventual acquittal of the accused if there is no other sufficient evidence to convict him.
Section 21 of R.A. No. 9165 directs the apprehending team having initial custody and control of the drugs to immediately undertake a physical inventory of the confiscated drugs, and to take photographs of the same, in the presence of the accused or the person/s from whom such items were confiscated and/or seized, or his/her representative or counsel. The law also requires a representative from the media and the Department of Justice (DOJ), and any elected public official who shall be required to sign the copies of the inventory.
At the time of the inventory of the drugs in the morning of Sept. 18, 2021, Ongpin was not inside the SV2 room where the search and inventory were being conducted. Media was not present. No elected public official to sign the copies of the inventory was present. Ongpin did not have his lawyer with him. Finally, the pouch belonged to the deceased Agunod. “The evidence relied upon by the panel does not establish probable cause that Respondent/Appellant (Ongpin) was in possession of the subject drugs,” argued Manalo in his petition for review of the case submitted to the DOJ.
In a trial for illegal drugs, the prosecution has the burden of proving the chain of custody — i.e., the prosecutor must prove that the sample of drugs being presented into evidence forms part of the inventory of drugs at the time and place of confiscation. Moreover, the prosecutor must prove that the said drugs being presented as evidence are the same substances taken from the possession of the accused.
Substantial gaps in the testimony of witnesses on the chain of custody of the seized dangerous drugs can raise doubts about the authenticity of the evidence presented in court. Therefore, the accused cannot be convicted beyond reasonable doubt.
Lawyer Manalo is seeking the dismissal of the case of illegal drugs against his client, Julian Ongpin.
In the meantime, I wish Secretary Guevarra to get well soon. He is said to be in stable condition. An Ateneo Law graduate and a bar topnotcher, Guevarra is one of the more decent members of the Duterte cabinet.
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