Friday, October 10, 2008 Woman sentenced to 15 yrs for shabu possession
JUDGE Edgar Garvilles of the Regional Trial Court Branch 47 sentenced Thursday in absentia to a maximum of 15 years imprisonment a woman found guilty of possessing 0.14 gram of shabu.
Court records showed that Gina Hilado was also ordered to pay a fine of P300,000.
She was caught with five elongated heat-sealed transparent plastic packets containing white crystalline substance that later turned out to be shabu during a stakeout operation by operatives of the Bacolod City Police Office Station 2 in Purok Sigay, Barangay 2 in Bacolod City last May 7, 2005.
Prosecution evidence noted that around 1:30 p.m. that day, SPO1 Nelson Grijaldo, PO3 Charlie Sebastian, PO3 Niel Exaltado, PO2 Alain Sonido, PO2 Leo Anthony Gineta and PO1 May Lumawag, led by SPO4 Ernesto Gonzales, were on stakeout operation in said area.
While PO1 Aliposa and PO1 Lumawag were at a footway in the interior part of the Purok, they saw two persons - a male and a female - walking towards them.
The man was reportedly cleaning a tooter while the female, who was later identified as Hilado, was holding and checking out several plastic sachets containing white crystalline substance. Suspecting these sachets to contain shabu, the undercover police personnel arrested the two.
When arraigned, Hilado pleaded not guilty.
When the case was called for initial trial on September 3, 2008, Hilado failed to appear in court despite signing the subpoena on June 18, 2008.
Consequently, she was ordered arrested while her bail, amounting to P90,000 for her provisionary liberty, was ordered confiscated and forfeited in favor of the government.
In his six-page of decision, Judge Garvilles found that flight is a clear indication of guilt.
Flight is an evasion of the course of justice by voluntarily withdrawing oneself in order to avoid arrest, detention or the institution or continuance of criminal proceedings.
But he stressed that his judgment was not on the basis of the legal inference on the flight or of Hilado's jumping bail but "on the adequate and sufficient evidence presented by the prosecution through the testimony of the police officers, proving the essential elements of the crime of illegal of possession of dangerous drugs".
He added that trial in absentia is constitutionally sanctioned and procedurally recognized as per the Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure. (Merlinda Pedrosa)
