G.R. No. 231050. February 28, 2018.
PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, Plaintiff-Appellee, vs. ROY MAGSANO y SAGAUINIT, Accused-Appellant.

FACTS

This case stemmed from a buy-bust operation conducted on May 19, 2015, in Makati City. Based on a tip, police operatives, with PO3 Luisito Marcelo as poseur-buyer, transacted with accused-appellant Roy Magsano. Magsano sold one plastic sachet of suspected shabu for PHP 500. Upon the pre-arranged signal, he was arrested, and a body search yielded two more sachets. The seized items were marked and inventoried at the barangay hall in the presence of a barangay kagawad. The items were then turned over to the investigating officer, PO3 Voltaire Esguerra, who prepared the request for examination before returning them to PO3 Marcelo for delivery to the crime laboratory. Examination confirmed the sachets contained methamphetamine hydrochloride.
Magsano denied the charges, claiming he was forcibly taken from his house and that the drugs were planted. The Regional Trial Court convicted him for illegal sale and illegal possession of dangerous drugs. The Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction, holding that the chain of custody was unbroken despite the absence of media and Department of Justice representatives during inventory, as the integrity of the evidence was preserved.

ISSUE

Whether the Court of Appeals erred in affirming Magsano’s conviction despite alleged breaches in the chain of custody of the seized dangerous drugs.

RULING

The Supreme Court acquitted Magsano due to the prosecution’s failure to establish an unbroken chain of custody, which compromised the integrity and identity of the corpus delicti. The Court emphasized that in drug cases, the identity of the dangerous drug must be established with moral certainty, and every link in the chain—from seizure, marking, inventory, laboratory examination, to presentation in court—must be duly recorded.
The buy-bust team committed unjustified deviations from the strict procedural requirements of Section 21, Article II of Republic Act No. 9165, as amended. The inventory was conducted only in the presence of a barangay kagawad, with no representative from the media or the National Prosecution Service, and the prosecution offered no justifiable ground for this omission. Furthermore, a critical gap existed in the chain: after PO3 Esguerra prepared the request for examination, he merely returned the drugs to PO3 Marcelo for delivery. There was no evidence showing how PO3 Marcelo handled, stored, or transported the items from the police station to the laboratory. This lapse created doubt about whether the items presented in court were the same ones seized from Magsano. The presumption of regularity in the performance of official duty cannot prevail over the constitutional presumption of innocence when the procedures designed to prevent tampering are not followed. Consequently, the integrity of the evidence was not preserved, warranting acquittal.