This case has been cited 1 times or more.
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2015-08-19 |
DEL CASTILLO, J. |
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| On the question of probable cause,[36] it must be said that against the respondent, no probable cause existed to warrant his prosecution for violation of the provisions of RA 3720. There is no legal ground to suppose that respondent was involved in a syndicate which sold Marsman's bad medicines in Parañaque; the supposed tipster Miguel was not presented in court to identify the alleged perpetrators of the illegal act - hence, the basis for the accusation is lacking. Although informants are usually not presented in court because of the need to hide their identity and maintain their valuable service to the police,[37] this rule cannot apply in Miguel's case because he was not a confidential informant; his identity was precisely divulged. Likewise, there is no evidence to prove that respondent was involved in or committed any act violative of RA 3720. He was not even part of the group that was arrested by the NBI on May 7, 1993; he was arrested and detained - illegally, in fact - only the next day. His participation in any manner or degree has not been shown. Quite the contrary, the evidence indicates that on May 7, 1993, respondent was with the BIR representative Rotoni and Duncan Pharmaceuticals employee Ferrer the whole time. Rotoni testified as well that on that day, all the bad medicines were placed in a single pile, poured with gasoline, and burned, and nothing was left in the 10-wheeler truck and van that brought the bad medicines to the destruction site; this he made sure before he left - only that he, Ferrer and respondent left without making sure that all the bad medicines in the pile were completely destroyed. Nonetheless, if anything was recovered from the burning pile after Rotoni and respondent left, respondent did not actually participate in the recovery as he had to take Rotoni and Ferrer home. Moreover, if it is true that the NBI recovered bad medicines from respondent's colleagues on May 7, 1993 when they were arrested, this does not appear to constitute a violation of RA 3720: according to Mercado, the bottled bad medicines could not be burned in the pile because they would explode - which is true as a matter of experience -and thus, they had to be brought to a location in Taguig where their contents would be emptied, destroyed and the bottles recovered and given to the helpers as compensation, in accordance with accepted practice sanctioned by the petitioners. However, before they could get to the said location, they were intercepted and arrested by the NBI. Also, prior surveillance operations conducted by the NBI in March 1993 do not even indicate that respondent and his colleagues were involved in a syndicate relative to the sale of bad medicines; the testimony of NBI agent Lavin yields nothing other than that they conducted surveillance and tailing operations; he does not even know the identities of the individuals they were tailing at the time. The photographs taken during the operations do not show that respondent was there, or that he was performing illegal acts or omissions. Petitioners' very own witness, Marsman Employee Manager Efren Cruz, admitted that he doubted the accuracy of the surveillance operations.[38] | |||||