THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF, VS. ERNESTO YABUT Y TORRES, DEFENDANT.

This is an appeal from the decision of the Regional Trial Court
of Valenzuela, Metro Manila (Br. 172)* finding
the accused guilty of violating Republic Act No. 6425, as amended, otherwise
known as the Dangerous Drugs Act of 1972, and sentencing him to life
imprisonment and payment of the prescribed fine of Twenty Thousand Pesos
(P20,000.00).

The information filed by Assistant Provincial Fiscal Benjamin
Aquino, Jr., against the accused reads as follows:

“That on or about the 8th day of April 1986, in the
municipality of Valenzuela, Metro Manila, Philippines and within the
jurisdiction of this Honorable Court, the above-named accused, together with
Luis Alejandrino who is still at large, without authority of law or any legal
justifi­cation, and while in possession and control of one (1) tea bag of marijuana dried leaves, did
then and there wilfully, unlawfully and feloniously sell, dispose of and
deliver the said marijuana dried leaves to another person knowing fully well
the same to constitute a prohibited and dangerous drug.”

Upon arraignment, the accused entered a plea of not guilty. Trial thereupon commenced. To prove the merits of its case, the
prosecution presented the testimonial evidence of the arresting officer, S/Sgt.
Pablito Reyno of the Philippine Constabulary and Daisy Babor, Forensic Chemist
of the PC Crime Laboratory based in Camp Olivas, Pampanga.

The prosecution alleges that on 8 April 1985 at about 5:00 p.m.,
a civilian informant went to Camp Olivas, Pampanga to report on the alleged
drug trafficking acti­vities of the accused-appellant Yabut and his co-accused
Alejandrino at Pulo, Palayan, Valenzuela, Metro Manila. Upon evaluating the information, recounts
the prosecution witness Reyno, he formed a team composed of S/Sgt. Ruben Bazar,
Sgt. Venusto Homisulamin, two (2) FMIB agents, and himself, and together with
the informant, they proceeded to the reported site of the illegal activity to
conduct a buy-bust operation designed to entrap the accused-appellant and
Alejandrino. Bazar was designated to
act as poseur-buyer.

Upon arrival at Pulo, Bazar and the civilian informant were
allegedly met by the appellant and brought to the house of Luis
“Gigi” Alejandrino who met them there. From a distance of twenty (20) meters, witness Reyno, who had
positioned himself at the corner of the entrance of the alley leading to
Alejandrino’s house, saw Bazar talk to Alejandrino after which the latter
handed over one plastic bag of marijuana to Bazar who in turn gave a marked ten-peso bill to the
appellant as payment for the drug. Thereupon, Bazar gave the pre-arranged handsignal and Reyno proceeded to
arrest the appellant and recovered from him the marked money. The team thereafter brought
accused-appellant to Camp Olivas.

The tea bag, also recovered from the scene, was subse­quently
submitted for examination to the witness Daisy Babor whose tests confirmed the
same to be the prohibited substance of marijuana.

In his defense, the accused-appellant alleged that during the
night and hour in question, he was standing by the house of his co-accused
Alejandrino, chatting with the latter who was looking out from his window. During their conversation, a group of four (4) men arrived,
looking for Alejandrino and expressing the desire to buy marijuana. Alejandrino however said he had nothing to
sell and thereafter went to the inner portion of his house. Accused-appellant further alleged that since
the group’s efforts, insofar as Alejandrino was concerned, had been thwarted,
he (appellant) then became the focus of their attention and was subjected to a search of his person; and thereafter
he was brought blindfolded to Camp Olivas. There, he was confronted with a tea bag of marijuana, but he denied any
knowledge as to the same, as well as having
received P10.00 from Sgt. Bazar.

As earlier stated, the trial court found the accused’s guilt to
have been established beyond reasonable doubt, and accordingly imposed sentence
on him.

In support of the present appeal, the accused-appellant raises
the following errors of the court a quo:

I

The trial court erred in not considering
the non-presentation of Sgt. Ruben Bazar, the alleged poseur-buyer to the
witness stand as a fatal flaw to the cause of the prosecution.

II

The trial court erred in
giving full faith and credence to the testimony of S/Sgt. Pablito Reyno.

III

The trial court gravely
erred in finding the accused guilty beyond reasonable doubt of the crime
charged in the information.

This Court finds for the accused-appellant.

Well-established is the rule that when the inculpatory facts and
circumstances are capable of two (2) or more expla­nations, one of which is
consistent with the innocense of the accused and the other consistent with his
guilt, then the evidence does not fulfill the test of moral certainty and is
not sufficient to support a conviction.^[1] In
the present case, accused-appellant’s version of the circumstances leading to
his apprehension constitutes a total denial of the prosecution’s
allegations. In this regard, this Court
has ruled that when there is such a divergence of accounts?

“it becomes incumbent upon the prosecution
to rebut appellant’s allegations by presenting xxx xxx the alleged
poseur-buyer. This it failed to do,
giving rise to the presumption that evidence willfully suppressed would be
adverse if produced. (Rule 131, Sec.
5[e]). This failure constitutes a total
flaw in the prosecution’s evidence since the so-called informant who was never
presented as a witness and never identified, is the best witness for the
prosecution. xxx “^[2]
(emphasis supplied)

Who would have been the best witness for the prosecution? According to the prosecution’s own version,
Sgt. Bazar, being the alleged poseur-buyer, was the only person who could
definitely and categorically attest to the circumstances surrounding the arrest
of the accused?appellant. He was
the one who transacted with the latter and he was the one who allegedly
exchanged a marked P10.00 bill for a tea bag of marijuana. In short, he could have provided the most
accurate account of the case. Yet, he
was not presented as a witness by the prosecution, and his failure to testify
remains unexplained. In such a
situation, People vs. De Guzman^[3] is
enlightening where this Court said:

“The court can only wonder why the prosecu­tion did not
present Querubin, who allegedly bought the marijuana from de Guzman and paid
him the marked money. xxx xxx It is
true that each party has the discretion to plot its own strategy, as we have
said often enough in many cases, but under the circumstances of this particular
case the choice by the prosecution of its witnesses was less than tactical. Querubin was the best witness to narrate the transaction; Bazar could at
best only corroborate. xxx xxx.

The prosecution suggests that if the defense really felt that
Querubin would advance its cause, there was nothing to prevent it from calling
him as its own witness, as it had a right to do under the Bill of Rights and
the Rules of Court. It forgets however,
that it was the obligation of the prosecution to prove its allegations, not of
the defense to disprove them. Bazar’s
testimony against de Guzman being insufficient to convict, it was incumbent on
the prosecution to bolster its case by calling Querubin to the stand.”

Anent the court a quo‘s imputed error of giving
credence to the testimony of Sgt. Reyno, this Court’s own examination of the
record shows that Reyno was positioned some twenty (20) meters away from where
Bazar, Alejandrino and the accused were supposed to be transacting the purchase
of the prohibited substance. At that
distance, considering the lateness of the hour and with no indication that the
surrounding area was illuminated in any way, it becomes reasonable to doubt
that Reyno actually saw what he testified to have seen. It is a truism that evidence to be believed
must not only proceed from the mouth of credible witnesses (which is itself
already in doubt in this instance) but must be credible in itself.^[4]
No better test has yet been found to measure the value and weight of a witness’ testimony than its
conformity to the knowledge and common experience of mankind.^[5]
The Court, therefore, cannot give such testimony of Reyno the same credence as
the trial court gave to it, despite the entrenched rule that accords great
weight to trial court’s findings of fact. In the situation at bar, the exception to the rule is in order, in the
same way that exceptions to such rule have been recog­nized by this Court (1)
when the conclusion is a finding based entirely on speculation; (2) when the
inference made is manifestly mistaken, absurd or impossible; (3) where there is
grave abuse of discretion; (4) when the judgment is based on a misapprehension
of facts; and (5) when the court, in making its findings, went beyond the
issues of the case and the same are contrary to the admissions of both the
appellant and appellee.^[6] It is
significant to point out that even the Solicitor-General, as counsel for the
appellee, recommends the acquittal of the accused-appellant.

Considering the above discussion, the third assigned error
requires no further elucidation. One
final question, however, remains which further clouds the veracity of the
prosecution’s version. This has to do
with appellant’s co-accused who, according to the Information, remains at
large. As alleged by the prosecution,
said co-accused (Alejandrino) was with the accused-appellant and Bazar during
the alleged transaction, yet, when the police operatives moved in to arrest the
accused, co-accused Alejandrino appears to have been ignored. Was he arrested but was able to escape, or
did he escape immediately? On the other
hand, was he even there in the first place? This appears to be the more likely situation, given the version of the
accused-appellant who had testified that after Alejandrino’s avowal that he had
no marijuana to sell, he retreated to the inner portion of his house. This detail appears to have been suppressed
by the prosecution or overlooked by the court a quo,
yet, it remains quite a damaging indication that the case of the prosecution is
tainted with misrepresentations, if not contrived incidents.

This is again an occasion to remind law enforcement authorities,
particularly the rank and file thereof, to be more circumspect in the
undertaking of anti-narcotics operations, conducted mostly through the use of
civilian informants and buyer-poseurs, where abuse, harrassment, and yes,
mistake is more than possible. It is
perhaps time to take the hierarchy of our police officials to task, for this is
not the first time that these entrapment procedures have been revealed to be a
little more than plain police misrepre­sentation to cover up incompetence or
corruption.

WHEREFORE, premises
considered, the appealed decision is hereby REVERSED and the accused-appellant is ACQUITTED on reasonable
doubt.

SO ORDERED.

Narvasa, C.J., (Chairman), Paras, Regalado, and Nocon, JJ., concur.

* Judge Teresita Dizon-Capulong,
presiding.

^[1]
People vs. Taruc, G.R. No. 74655, 20 January 1988, 157 SCRA 178

^[2]
People vs. Salcedo, G.R. No. 86975, 18 March 1991, 195 SCRA 345

^[3]
G.R. No. 86172, 4 March 1991, 194 SCRA 601

^[4]
People vs. Dimacili, G.R. No. 68036, 31 August 1987 153 SCRA 454

^[5]
People vs. Baquiran, L-20153, 29 June 1967, 20 SCRA 451

^[6]
People vs. Taruc, supra