G.R. No. 184658 ; March 6, 2013
PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, Petitioner, vs. JUDGE RAFAEL R. LAGOS, IN HIS CAPACITY AS PRESIDING JUDGE, REGIONAL TRIAL COURT, QUEZON CITY, BRANCH 79, JONATHAN DY y RUBIC, CASTEL VINCI ESTACIO y TOLENTINO, AND CARLO CASTRO y CANDO, Respondents.

FACTS

The case originated from a buy-bust operation on March 30, 2007. A confidential informant reported to the police that an alias “Brian” (later identified as respondent Castel Vinci Estacio) was selling ecstasy. A team was formed, with PO2 Marlo Frando as the poseur-buyer. After coordination, Estacio directed the team to a location in Quezon City. Estacio arrived with respondents Jonathan Dy and Carlo Castro. Castro handed PO2 Frando a plastic sachet containing pink pills, and in exchange, Frando gave the marked money to Dy. Upon Frando’s pre-arranged signal, the team arrested the respondents. The seized items were inventoried and later confirmed by forensic examination to be methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) or ecstasy. An Information for violation of Section 5, Article II of R.A. 9165 (Illegal Sale of Dangerous Drugs) was filed against them.
After the prosecution rested its case, the respondents filed a Petition for Bail and sought leave to file a demurrer to evidence. The original presiding judge denied both motions. Upon his inhibition, the case was re-raffled to respondent Judge Rafael R. Lagos. Judge Lagos granted the Petition for Bail and the leave to file a demurrer. Subsequently, in an Order dated June 24, 2008, he granted the demurrer and acquitted all respondents. The prosecution’s motion for reconsideration was denied.

ISSUE

Whether the respondent judge committed grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack or excess of jurisdiction in granting the demurrer to evidence and acquitting the respondents.

RULING

Yes, the Supreme Court granted the petition and annulled the assailed orders. The Court held that while a grant of a demurrer is generally tantamount to an acquittal and invokes double jeopardy, an exception exists when the trial court commits grave abuse of discretion. Certiorari under Rule 65 is permissible to correct such a jurisdictional error.
The Court found grave abuse of discretion in Judge Lagos’s reasoning for granting the demurrer. He ruled that the prosecution’s failure to present the confidential informant as a witness created a fatal gap in the evidence, as the informant’s testimony was allegedly indispensable to establish the transaction’s initiation and the identities of the sellers. The Supreme Court soundly rejected this legal basis. Jurisprudence consistently holds that the testimony of a confidential informant is not essential for a conviction in drug cases. The buy-bust operation’s success and the crime’s elements can be proved through the testimonies of the police officers who conducted the operation and witnessed the transaction. Here, the prosecution presented PO2 Frando (the poseur-buyer), PO2 Cubian (the back-up), the forensic chemist, and the investigating officer. Their collective testimonies and the corroborating physical evidence prima facie established the illegal sale’s elements: the identities of the buyer and seller, the object and consideration, and the delivery. By requiring the informant’s testimony as a condition for sufficient evidence, the judge disregarded settled law and capriciously dismissed the prosecution’s prima facie case. This constituted a whimsical and arbitrary exercise of judgment, equivalent to grave abuse of discretion. Consequently, the acquittal was void, and the case was ordered reinstated for trial.