G.R. No. 200370 , June 7, 2017
MARIO VERIDIANO y SAPI, Petitioner, vs. PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, Respondent.

FACTS

Petitioner Mario Veridiano was convicted for illegal possession of marijuana. The prosecution alleged that based on a tip, police officers established a checkpoint. They flagged down a jeepney, asked passengers to disembark, and instructed them to raise their shirts and empty their pockets. From Veridiano, they recovered a tea bag containing suspected marijuana. He was arrested and the substance later tested positive. Veridiano contested the legality of his arrest and the subsequent search. He testified that armed men in civilian clothes frisked him on the jeepney and found nothing, yet he was still brought to the station where he was informed drugs were found on him.
The Regional Trial Court found him guilty, a decision affirmed by the Court of Appeals. The appellate court ruled the arrest was valid as he was caught in flagrante delicto, and that by entering a plea and participating in trial, he waived any irregularity in his arrest. It further held he consented to the search by not protesting. Veridiano filed this Petition for Review on Certiorari, arguing the warrantless arrest and search were illegal, rendering the seized item inadmissible as fruit of the poisonous tree.

ISSUE

Whether the warrantless arrest of Veridiano was valid, and consequently, whether the marijuana seized from him is admissible as evidence.

RULING

The Supreme Court GRANTED the petition and ACQUITTED Veridiano. The Court held the warrantless arrest was invalid. A valid in flagrante delicto arrest under Rule 113, Section 5(a) of the Rules of Court requires that the person arrested has committed, is actually committing, or is attempting to commit an offense in the presence of the arresting officer. Here, the police acted merely on an informant’s tip. Veridiano was merely a passenger seated in a jeepney; no overt act was demonstrated that he was committing a crime at the moment of arrest. Reliable information alone does not equate to personal knowledge of the arresting officers witnessing a crime. Therefore, the arrest lacked probable cause.
Since the arrest was illegal, the ensuing search incident to a lawful arrest could not be justified. The Court rejected the appellate court’s finding of consent, noting that acquiescence or lack of protest under coercive circumstances, such as a checkpoint with armed officers, does not constitute voluntary waiver. Consequently, the seized marijuana was obtained through an unconstitutional search and is inadmissible in evidence. With the drug evidence being the corpus delicti of the crime rendered inadmissible, Veridiano’s conviction cannot stand. The Court emphasized that the waiver of an illegal arrest by entering a plea does not waive the objection to evidence obtained from an invalid search.