PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. JUNE SANCHEZ Y CARMONA, DEFENDANT-APPELLANT.

A Decision of the Regional Trial Court, National Capital Region,
Branch 133, Makati,
dated 15 June 1986,
convicting the accused June Sanchez y Carmona of the
crime of Violation of Article II, Section 4 of Republic Act No. 6425 known as
the Dangerous Drugs Act of 1972, is before us on appeal.

The information, dated 3
June 1985, against the accused read as follows:

“I N F O
R M A T I O N

The undersigned Assistant Fiscal accuses JUNE SANCHEZ y CARMONA, of
the crime of Violation of Article II, Section 4 of R.A. 6425, committed as
follows:

That on or about the 24th
day of May 1985, in the Municipality of Makati, Metro
Manila, Philippines, and within the jurisdiction of this Honorable Court, the
above-named accused, did, then and there wilfully,
unlawfully and feloniously sell sixteen (16) grams of marijuana leaves and
seeds wrapped with a magazine page, which is prohibited drug, in violation of
the above cited law.

Contrary
to law.”

Upon arraignment on 16
September 1985, the accused waived the reading of the information
and pleaded not guilty.

After trial, the trial court rendered a decision dated 15 June 1986, the dispositive
portion of which read as follows:

“WHEREFORE, the Court
finds JUNE SANCHEZ y CARMONA
guilty beyond reasonable doubt of violation of Article II, Section 4, R.A.
6425, as amended and is hereby sentenced to suffer life imprisonment, to pay a
fine of P20,000.00 and pay the
costs.”

The marijuana leaves and
seeds (Exhibits “F” to “F-5”) are hereby confiscated and
forfeited in favor of the government and turned over to the Dangerous Drugs
Board for proper disposal.

SO ORDERED.”

The present appeal assigns the following as errors allegedly
committed by the trial court:

“I

The Court a quo gravely erred
in giving weight and credence to the testimonies of the prosecution witnesses
and in disregarding the theory of the defense.

II

The Court a quo gravely erred
in holding that the appellant was indeed selling prohibited drug.

III

The
Court a quo gravely erred in not finding that there was an
inducement to commit the crime.

IV

The Court a quo gravely erred
in convicting the appellant for violation of Section 4 of Article II, R.A.
6425, as amended, despite the failure of the prosecution to prove his guilt
beyond reasonable doubt.”^[1]

The evidence for the prosecution consisted principally of the
testimonies of Sgts. Axelito
Palmero and Artemio Serrano
and of Teresa Ann Bugayong Cid.

The testimony of Sgt. Palmero, a
Philippine Constabulary Non-Commissioned Officer with the Narcotics Command,
and that of Sgt. Serrano, a Philippine Marine also connected with the Regional
Unit of the Narcotics Command, may be summarized in the following terms:

At about 1:00 p.m. on 24 May 1985, a police informer (whose
identity was never revealed) reported to Capt. Gabriel Paile,
a Detachment Chief of the Narcotics Command, that one “Boy” Sanchez
was selling marijuana at Zobel
St., Barangay La Paz, Makati.  Capt. Paile
dispatched Sgts. Palmero, Serrano and Lachica to carry out a
“buy-bust” operation.  The team
proceeded to the place in Makati designated by the former and there they
found the accused together with one Jimmy Mirabueno.  Sgt. Serrano, having been assigned to act as poseur-buyer, and the informer proceeded to negotiate with
the accused for the sale of marijuana, while Sgts. Palmero and Lachica positioned
themselves some ten (10) to fifteen (15) meters away from the group.  The accused and his companion Jimmy left the
scene and returned some twenty (20) minutes later with the marijuana.  Jimmy Mirabueno
handed over to Sgt. Serrano about twenty-five (25) grams of marijuana worth
about P50.00.  At that particular moment, Sgt. Serrano
revealed himself to the accused and Mirabueno as an
agent of the Narcotics Command.  The
other members of the team then closed in on the group and arrested the accused
and Jimmy Mirabueno. 
Upon prodding of the team members to reveal his supplier of marijuana, Mirabueno accompanied the team to his house in Topacio St. where the team found and confiscated an
additional fifty (50) to one hundred (100) grams of marijuana.  The team then brought Mirabueno^[2] and the accused to their Detachment
Headquarters for investigation and booking.

Teresa Ann Bugayong Cid, Forensic
Chemist of the Philippine
Constabulary-INP Crime Laboratory, testified that she had examined the contents
of a package (Exhibit “F”) seized from the accused.  She stated that said contents consisted of
marijuana and submitted a Chemistry Report (Exhibit “G”) and
Certification of Laboratory Result No. D-480-85 (Exhibit “G-1”),
setting forth the results of her laboratory examination.

The accused had, as may
be expected, a different version of the events of 24 May 1985.  In his
testimony, the accused said that between 1:00 and 2:00 p.m. on that day, he was
waiting for a ride at the corner of Esmeralda and Zobel
Sts. when, all of a sudden, two (2) men whom he did not previously know and who
identified themselves as “persons in authority” approached him and
“frisked him,” searching him bodily for a firearm.  Failing to find one but still insisting that
he possessed a firearm, the police officers, according to the accused, brought
him to the house of Capt. Paile where the latter
threatened to file charges against him if he did not produce his gun. 
The accused denied that he had been caught selling marijuana leaves and
that he knew or was a friend of Jimmy Mirabueno.  He stated that he did not see Jimmy sell
marijuana to the police officers; and that the police had insisted that he
(accused) had a firearm which he did not.

The accused impugned the credibility of the prosecution eye
witnesses, Sgts. Serrano and Palmero,
as doubtful and questionable because of alleged discrepancies in the
testimonies of the two (2) police officers. 
The accused claimed that Sgt. Serrano testified, on the one hand, that
the accused and Mirabueno were brought to the
Narcotics Command Detachment Office after their arrest, while, upon the other
hand, Sgt. Palmero had testified that Mirabueno and the accused had been first brought to Mirabueno’s house before they were taken to the Detachment
Office after their arrest.  The
discrepancy in the testimony of the two (2) police officers is, however, more
apparent than real.  Sgt. Serrano did
testify that he and the other Narcotics Command agents involved had brought the
accused and Mirabueno to their Detachment Office
after their arrest.  His testimony did not,
however, end there for he also testified that he and his companions had gone to
the house of Mirabueno right after the accused and Mirabueno had been arrested:

“Q:   Before the two suspects one of whom is June
Sanchez, was (sic) brought for investigation did you conduct investigation as
to the marijuana?

A:   After they were arrested, we tried to prod
these two to point to the rest of the marijuana and this Jimmy Mirabueno accompanied us to his house in Topacio, and told him that in order that others will not be
using the same to bring out the rest, so he brought out some marijuana.

Q:  In that particular occasion that Jimmy Mirabueno accompanied you in his house in Topacio where more marijuana were found by you, about June
Sanchez, where was he?

A:   He was with us when we went to the house of
Jimmy Mirabueno.”^[3]

There appears no conflict in fact between
the above testimony and that of
Sgt. Palmero which read thus:

Q:  What did you do after that when you were able to
arrest accused Sanchez and this alias ‘Jimmy’?

A:   We were accompanied by this alias ‘Jimmy’ to
his house and there we were able to get some marijuana.^[4]

As is so common in criminal cases of this kind, there is here a
direct conflict between the positive testimony of the arresting officers, Sgts. Palmero and Serrano, and
the testimony of the accused.  The trial
court which had the opportunity to observe the detailed demeanor of the
prosecution witnesses and of the accused on the witness stand, and to listen to
their respective testimonies, gave more credence to the statements of the
arresting officers, Sgts. Palmero
and Serrano.  The trial court pointed out
that these government agents had no known motive or reason falsely to impute a
serious and unfounded charge against the accused.  The accused had been a complete stranger to
the police officers until they encountered him in the course of performance of
their duties as members of the Narcotics Command.^[5]
The testimony of the two (2) police agents carries with it the presumption of
the regularity of the performance of official functions.  The resulting applicable principle has been
stated in People v. Patog^[6] in the following terms:

Where there is no evidence and nothing to indicate the principal
witness for the prosecution was [moved] by improper motives the presumption is
that he was not so [moved] and his testimony is entitled to full faith and
credit.”^[7]

The trial court found the testimony of Sgts. Palmero and Serrano had not
been shaken on cross-examination; that the details of such testimony while
“unsophisticated” were “logical” and “very
plausible.” We have carefully examined the records of this case and have
found no substantial basis for overturning and disregarding the conclusions
reached by the trial court.

The accused pleaded, alternatively, the defense of inducement or
instigation.  The distinction between
inducement on one hand and entrapment on the other, is
of course critical in the instant case. 
The accused was, however, totally unable to show that the arresting team
had in fact induced him to commit a crime that he would not otherwise have
committed.  The record shows that the
accused and Mirabueno had a ready supply of marijuana
for sale and disposition to anyone willing to pay the price asked for the
prohibited material.  Thus, it appears
that the crime of illegal possession of prohibited drugs had already been
committed by the accused and Mirabueno when the
Narcotics Command agents resolved to entrap them into revealing such possession
and selling the prohibited drugs.  The
acts of the arresting officers in the instant case constituted entrapment, a
process or operation sanctioned by the Revised
Penal Code.^[8]

The accused also objected to the failure of the prosecution to
submit in evidence the money utilized in the entrapment operation, and to
present as a witness or even to identify the police informer whose report had
triggered off the entrapment operation. 
The accused also complained that it was
“contrary to human experience”^[9]
that a seller of prohibited drugs would agree to sell marijuana to a person unknown to the seller, and that the
prosecution had not identified the person responsible for negotiation of the
sale of the prohibited drugs.  The
presentation in evidence of the “buy-bust” money is not indispensable
for conviction of the accused since the sale of marijuana had been adequately
proven by the independent testimony of the two (2) police officers.  Since the testimony of the police informer
was similarly not essential for conviction of the accused, his identity may
remain confidential:  there are strong
practical reasons for such continued secrecy, including the continued health
and safety of the informer and the encouragement of others to report wrong
doing to the police authorities.  The accused’s theory that it is “contrary to human
experience” that a drug “pusher” would sell drugs to a total
stranger is not persuasive.  In real life, “pushers”, especially
small-quantity or retail “pushers”,
sell their prohibited wares to customers, be they strangers or not, who have
the price of the drug and this the Court has recognized.^[10] Finally, the prosecution had in fact
presented an eye witness, indeed two (2) eye witnesses, who could and did
identify the accused as the person responsible for negotiation of the sale of
the prohibited drug in the instant case, in the persons of Sgts.
Serrano and Palmero.

We conclude that the trial court did not commit any error in
finding the accused guilty beyond reasonable doubt of violation of Section 4,
Article II of R.A. No. 6425.

WHEREFORE, the Decision of the trial court
convicting the accused and sentencing him to suffer life imprisonment and to
pay a fine of P20,000.00 plus costs, is hereby AFFIRMED.

SO ORDERED.

Fernan, C.J., (Chairman), Gutierrez,
Jr., Bidin, and
Cortes, JJ., concur.

^[1]
Appellant’s Brief, p. 1.

^[2]
Mirabueno, according to a manifestation of the trial
fiscal in open court on 16 October
1985, was apparently charged in a separate
information and had pleaded guilty. 
Records, p. 128.

^[3]
TSN, 30 November 1985, p.
144.

^[4]
TSN, 16 October 1985, p.
128.

^[5]
Rollo, p. 18.

^[6]
144 SCRA 429 (1986).

^[7]
144 SCRA at 437. 
See also People v. Francia, 154
SCRA 495 (1987); and People v. Gamayon, 121
SCRA 642 (1983).

^[8]
People v. Valmores, 122 SCRA 922 (1983),; and People v. Gatong-O,
et al., G.R. No. 78698, December 29,
1988.

^[9]
Appellant’s brief p. 7.

^[10]
People vs. Tejada, G.R. No. 81520, 21 February 1989; People vs. Paco, G.R. No. 76893, 27 February 1989.