In several successful motions for quashal of search warrants or case dismissals this year, what seems to be consistent are the inconsistent claims of the police in their crackdown operation against activists, journalists and critics.
Besides this, red-tagging, remotely-obtained search warrants via gun running syndicate narrative, midnight police raids, and planting of evidence against progressives became the evident pattern in the continuing counter-insurgency campaign of the Duterte administration.
And again on July 1, the Angeles City Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 58 found similar bases to dismiss the charges of illegal possession of firearms and ammunition charges to the former Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) chairman and New People’s Army (NPA) commander Rodolfo Salas.
Salas, also known as Kumander Bilog, has long retired and was rebuilding his life with his family in Angeles, said his lawyers from the Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG).
In a 27-page resolution, Judge Ramon Corazon Blanco ruled to acquit Salas on the basis of reasonable doubt. This decision was served to Salas only last August 6.
“The search conducted is clearly in violation of the constitutional right of the accused against unreasonable search and seizure. As a consequence, the firearm and ammunitions confiscated from the accused are inadmissible as evidence in court applying the exclusionary rule Article III Section 3(2) for being fruit of the poisonous tree,” ruled Judge Blanco.
Salas was arrested on February 18 last year in line with the murder raps filed by Manila RTC in 2019 against him along with CPP founder Jose Maria “Joma” Sison, National Democratic Front (NDF) senior adviser Luis Jalandoni, among other revolutionary movement personalities on their alleged involvement in a mass grave discovered in Leyte in 2006. The illegal possession charges were added to his cases after police supposedly found them in plain view in his house at the time of his arrest.
Salas and several others have been accused of carrying out a purge of suspected government spies since the 1980s. FLAG asserted that Salas is shielded from prosecution for all acts committed in furtherance of rebellion (also known as the Hernandez Doctrine) following the plea bargain that became the basis for his conviction for rebellion in 1991 and for which he was jailed from 1986 to 1992.
A mouthful of contradiction
A presumption that duties were performed with regularity had been a common immediate counter-offense by the Duterte administration in replying to motions to dismiss or appealing case dismissals. But Judge Blanco made clear that it cannot be invoked in this case of the warrantless search operations were rebutted by “contradiction that flowed from their own mouths”.
During the time of arrest, three police agents claimed to have found a pistol and ammunition. Soon as they went to trial, the court noted major inconsistencies in the police testimonies when asked for the locations of the confiscated items.
One police agent claimed that they asked Salas if he had documents for the firearms after seeing it on top of the computer table. Another police said that they found it in the drawer of the computer table, then on the filing cabinet near the said table. Another police said they searched the whole house.
“Lingering doubts now arise if they indeed saw the confiscated items in plain view or a product of a deliberate, intentional and meticulous search, thus violating the constitutional right of the accused against unreasonable search and seizure making the seized evidence proverbial fruit of the poisonous tree,” ruled Judge Blanco.
Even the witnessing barangay official affirmed that he only stood by the door and did not saw any firearms and ammunitions on the table. The official further testified that he saw the weapons only when he was told to come near to sign the document.
“Verily, the Prosecution’s case has no leg to stand on. The firearm and ammunitions being the very corpus delicti of the crime charged, Salas must be acquitted by way of granting their demurrer to evidence,” the resolution concluded.
In March 2020, the Supreme Court granted Salas’ petition for bail for the murder case and was released since then. The case remain pending in a Manila court.
