SECOND DIVISION
[G.R. No. 198953. June 4, 2014.]
PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, plaintiff-appellee, vs. MICHELLE REYES AND AUGOSTO FALLURIN, accused-appellants.
NOTICE
Sirs/Mesdames :
Please take notice that the Court, Second Division, issued a Resolution dated04 June 2014which reads as follows:
G.R. No. 198953 (People of the Philippines v. Michelle Reyes and Augosto Fallurin). — We resolve the appeal, filed by appellant Michelle Reyes, challenging the April 26, 2011 decision of the Court of Appeals (CA) in CA-G.R. CH-HC. No. 04312. 1
In its decision dated November 26, 2009, 2 the Regional Trial Court (RTC), Branch 23, Manila convicted the appellant and Augosto Fallurin of illegal sale of shabu under Section 5, in relation to Section 26, Article II of Republic Act (R.A.) No. 9165. 3 The RTC found the testimonies of Police Officer (PO) 3 Edgar Lacson and Police Inspector Marites Mariano, the poseur buyer and the forensic chemist, respectively, credible and convincing. It also rejected the appellant's version of the events since the latter failed to present sufficient evidence to corroborate her claim. Accordingly, the RTC sentenced the appellant and Fallurin to suffer the penalty of life imprisonment, and ordered them to pay a P500,000.00 fine.
The appellant filed an appeal with the CA, docketed as CA-G.R. CH-HC. No. 04312. In its decision dated April 26, 2011, the CA affirmed the decision. It ruled that the prosecution was able to establish all the elements of illegal sale of shabu; it also found unmeritorious the appellant's defenses. DCTSEA
Our Ruling
We dismiss the present appeal.
The elements necessary in every prosecution for the illegal sale of shabu are: (1) the identity of the buyer and the seller, the object, and consideration; and (2) the delivery of the thing sold and the payment therefor. 4 What is material is proof that the transaction or sale actually took place, coupled with the presentation in court of evidence of corpus delicti. Clearly, the commission of the offense of illegal sale of dangerous drugs, like shabu, merely requires the consummation of the selling transaction, which happens the moment the buyer receives the drug from the seller. As long as the police officer went through the operation as a buyer, whose offer was accepted by appellant, followed by the delivery of the dangerous drugs to the former, the crime is already consummated. 5
All these elements have been properly established in the present case. The presented evidence showed that the appellant and Fallurin sold shabu to PO3 Lacson in exchange for the marked money. Both were arrested pursuant to a buy-bust operation which, under prevailing jurisprudence, is recognized as a form of entrapment resorted to for trapping and capturing felons in the execution of their criminal plan. "Unless there is clear and convincing evidence that the members of the buy-bust team were inspired by any improper motive or were not properly performing their duty, their testimonies with respect to the operation deserve full faith and credit." 6
It is clear from PO3 Lacson's testimony that there was conspiracy between Reyes and Fallurin in selling shabu to him. To recall, when PO3 Lacson handed the marked money to Fallurin, the latter instructed Reyes to give the shabu to PO3 Lacson. Upon receiving the suspected illicit drug, PO3 Lacson gave the pre-arranged signal to his companions, prompting them to rush to the scene and arrest the appellant and Fallurin.
Significantly, the totality of the evidence also accounted for an unbroken chain of custody of the confiscated item. The records bear out that after the police arrested the appellant and Fallurin, PO3 Lacson marked the seized specimen with "S-1-2", and then handed them to PO2 Julius Malindog for investigation. PO2 Malindog prepared the request for laboratory examination, and delivered the marked seized item to the crime laboratory where it was examined by P/Insp. Mariano. After a qualitative analysis by P/Insp. Mariano, the submitted specimen tested positive for the presence of shabu, a dangerous drug. On the basis of the above discussion, we thus find the integrity and the evidentiary value of the drugs seized from the appellant not to have been compromised.
We are not unaware that the apprehending team failed to strictly comply with the requirements of Section 21, Article II of R.A. No. 9165. Nonetheless, we hold that mere lapses in procedures need not invalidate a seizure if the integrity and evidentiary value of the seized items can be shown to have been properly preserved and safeguarded, i.e., its identity, quantity and quality remained untarnished. In the present case, it had been sufficiently shown that the shabu taken from the appellant was the same specimen forwarded to the crime laboratory for examination, and brought to court for identification.
WHEREFORE, the Decision dated April 26, 2011 of the Court of Appeals in CA-G.R. CR-HC. No. 04312 is hereby AFFIRMED.
SO ORDERED. EaTCSA
Very truly yours,
(SGD.) MA. LOURDES C. PERFECTODivision Clerk of Court
By:
TERESITA AQUINO TUAZONDeputy Division Clerk of Court
Footnotes
1. Penned by Associate Justice Fernanda Lampas Peralta, and concurred in by Associate Justices Priscilla J. Baltazar-Padilla and Agnes Reyes-Carpio; rollo, pp. 2-21.
2. Docketed as Criminal Case No. 04-223309, CA rollo, pp. 17-22.
3. Otherwise known as the Comprehensive Drugs Act of 2002.
4. People v. Uy, G.R. No. 129019, August 16, 2000, 338 SCRA 232.
5. See People v. Unisa, G.R. No. 185721, September 28, 2011, 658 SCRA 305.
6. People v. Lee Hoi Ming, G.R. No. 145337, October 2, 2003, 412 SCRA 550, 556.