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Saturday, December 11, 2004
'Drug dealer' acquitted due to foul-up by cops
By Rimaliza Opiņa
BAGUIO CITY -- A suspected drug dealer was acquitted for violation of the drugs law when the court found procedural lapses in his arrest.
Judge Antonio Reyes of the Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 61, in a nine-page decision, noted the search of the suspect's home and seizure of prohibited drugs from there were "unlawful".
He said Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) agents violated the Constitution's provision against warrantless searches and seizures.
On May 15, 2002, according to court records, Mark Dumeg allegedly sold to a CIDG agent in an entrapment operation a small plastic sachet containing a white crystalline substance weighing 0.2675 gram for P700.
After the sale, CIDG agents alleged barged into the rented room of the accused and bodily searched him.
Recovered from the accused 14 small plastic bags weighing approximately 3.6070 grams and containing white crystalline substances stored in a separate box together with P14,000 cash.
Dumeg, when brought in for laboratory examination, also allegedly tested positive for drug use as per the laboratory analysis done on his urine.
Also present in both his hands were traces of fluorescent powder, which indicated contact with the money used by the CIDG agent to buy the drug.
But Dumeg argued that when he was brought to the Baguio City Police Office (BCPO) for laboratory examination, he was forced to handle the money tainted with fluorescent powder so as to make it appear that a buy and sell of drugs took place, and that allegedly, he was also forced to drink water from an unsealed bottle of water, which allegedly contained drugs, reason why he tested positive for drug use.
The court, however, ruled that while it does not doubt that Dumeg may be a drug dealer as proven by the evidence recovered, the testimony of the police officers who conducted the buy-bust operation were inconsistent.
Accordingly, one officer testified there was a pre-planned buy-bust operation while another told the court the operation was done right after they conducted surveillance on Dumeg together with their informant.
The testimony of the CIDG personnel that they do not have any knowledge of who Dumeg was at the time of the supposed "buy-bust" and that there was no arrangement with the informant for them to be introduced to the accused, all the more made the court doubt their operation.
"The story of the buy-bust angle must be discredited and the only possible means left by which the police officers were able to accomplish their mission was by gaining entry into the quarters of the accused, an entry that was not in accord with the law," the decision stated.
"The buy-bust operation was fiction, used as a tool and then merely infused into the police officers' story to present an impression of legality. The arrest of the accused, who may indeed be the drug dealer, was accomplished only because of an illegal search, a conscious design in complete disregard of the constitution by the officers," it added.
(December 11, 2004 issue)
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