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(CD) Sydeco vs. People

1) Police officers stopped Eusebio's swerving pickup truck at a checkpoint and claimed he smelled of liquor. When Eusebio refused a body search and yelled at the officers, he was arrested for resistance. 2) Eusebio claimed the officers beat him, took his money, and detained him without cause. He was brought to the hospital where a doctor falsely claimed his breath tested positive for alcohol. 3) The court found the officers did not follow proper traffic stop procedures and had no cause to arrest Eusebio for resistance. His refusal to exit his vehicle did not constitute a crime. The officers acted in excess of their authority.

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120 views2 pages

(CD) Sydeco vs. People

1) Police officers stopped Eusebio's swerving pickup truck at a checkpoint and claimed he smelled of liquor. When Eusebio refused a body search and yelled at the officers, he was arrested for resistance. 2) Eusebio claimed the officers beat him, took his money, and detained him without cause. He was brought to the hospital where a doctor falsely claimed his breath tested positive for alcohol. 3) The court found the officers did not follow proper traffic stop procedures and had no cause to arrest Eusebio for resistance. His refusal to exit his vehicle did not constitute a crime. The officers acted in excess of their authority.

Uploaded by

Raine
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Eusebio, Erlein Raine T.

2014067352
Sydeco vs. People
G.R. No. 202692, 12 November 2014
Velasco, JR., J.
FACTS:
Aguilar, SPO4 Bodino, PO3 Benedict Cruz III and another officer were manning a checkpoint when
they spotted a swerving red Ford Ranger pick up. Petitioner was behind the wheel. The team
members, flagged the vehicle down and asked the petitioner to alight from the vehicle so he could
take a rest at the police station situated nearby, before he resumes driving. Petitioner, who the
policemen claimed was smelling of liquor, denied being drunk and insisted he could manage to
drive.
Then in a raised voice, petitioner started talking rudely to the policemen and in fact yelled at
P/Insp. Aguilar. At that remark, P/Insp. Aguilar, who earlier pointed out to petitioner that his team
had seen him swerving and driving under the influence of liquor, proceeded to arrest petitioner
who put up resistance. Despite petitioner’s efforts to parry the hold on him, the police eventually
succeeded in subduing him who was then brought to the hospital where he was examined and
found to be positive of alcoholic breath per the medical certificate issued by that hospital. Petitioner
was then turned over to the police station for disposition.
Petitioner claimed to be a victim in the incident in question, adding in this regard that he has in fact
filed criminal charges for physical injuries, robbery and arbitrary detention against P/Insp. Aguilar
et al. In his Counter-Affidavit and his Complaint-Affidavit appended thereto, petitioner averred that
on the way home from on board his pick-up when signaled to stop by police officers at the area
immediately referred to above.
The policemen then asked the petitioner to open the vehicle’s door and alight for a body and vehicle
search. Instead, he opened the vehicle window, uttering, "plain view lang boss, plain view lang."
Obviously irked by this remark, one of the policemen, P/Insp. Aguilar, then told the petitioner that
he was drunk, pointing to three cases of empty beer bottles in the trunk of the vehicle. Petitioner’s
explanation about being sober and that the empty bottles adverted to came from his restaurant was
ignored as P/Insp. Aguilar suddenly boxed him on the mouth and poked a gun at his head.
The officers then pulled the petitioner out of the driver’s seat and pushed him into the police mobile
car, whereupon he, petitioner, asked his companions to call up his wife. The policemen then
brought petitioner to the hospital where they succeeded in securing a medical certificate under the
signature of one Dr. Balucating depicting petitioner as positive of alcoholic breath, although he
refused to be examined and no alcohol breath examination was conducted.
He was thereafter detained from 3:00 a.m. of June 12, 2006 and released in the afternoon of June
13, 2006. Before his release, however, he was allowed to undergo actual medical examination
where the resulting medical certificate indicated that he has sustained physical injuries but
negative for alcohol breath. Ten days later, petitioner filed his Complaint-Affidavit against Dr.
Balucating, P/Insp. Aguilar and the other police officers.
Petitioner also stated that, under Sec. 29 of R.A. 4136, or the Land Transportation and Traffic Code,
the procedure for dealing with a traffic violation is not to place the erring driver under arrest, but to
confiscate his driver’s license.
The MeTC rendered judgment finding petitioner guilty as charged. Petitioner appealed to the RTC
to which it affirmed the conviction of the petitioner. Hence, this petition.
ISSUE:
Whether or not the petition is meritorious.
HELD:
Yes. In the case at bar, the men manning the checkpoint in the subject area and during the period
material appeared not to have performed their duties as required by law, or at least fell short of the
norm expected of peace officers. They spotted the petitioner’s purported swerving vehicle. They
then signaled him to stop which he obeyed. But they did not demand the presentation of the
driver’s license or issue any ticket or similar citation paper for traffic violation as required under
the particular premises by Sec. 29 of RA 4136.
Going over the records, it is fairly clear that what triggered the confrontational stand-off between
the police team, on one hand, and petitioner on the other, was the latter’s refusal to get off of the
vehicle for a body and vehicle search juxtaposed by his insistence on a plain view search only.
Petitioner’s twin gestures cannot plausibly be considered as resisting a lawful order. He may have
sounded boorish or spoken crudely at that time, but none of this would make him a criminal. It
remains to stress that the petitioner has not, when flagged down, committed a crime or performed
an overt act warranting a reasonable inference of criminal activity. He did not try to avoid the road
block established. He came to a full stop when so required to stop. The two key elements of
resistance and serious disobedience punished under Art. 151 of the RPC are: (1) That a person in
authority or his agent is engaged in the performance of official duty or gives a lawful order to the
offender; and (2) That the offender resists or seriously disobeys such person or his agent.
There can be no quibble that P/Insp. Aguilar and his apprehending team are persons in authority or
agents of a person in authority manning a legal checkpoint. But surely petitioner’s act of exercising
one’s right against unreasonable searches to be conducted in the middle of the night cannot, in
context, be equated to disobedience let alone resisting a lawful order in contemplation of Art. 151
of the RPC. As has often been said, albeit expressed differently and under dissimilar circumstances,
the vitality of democracy lies not in the rights it guarantees, but in the courage of the people to
assert and use them whenever they are ignored or worse infringed. Moreover, there is, to stress,
nothing in RA 4136 that authorized the checkpoint-manning policemen to order petitioner and his
companions to get out of the vehicle for a vehicle and body search. And it bears to emphasize that
there was no reasonable suspicion of the occurrence of a crime that would allow what
jurisprudence refers to as a "stop and frisk" action. None of the police officers, to note, categorically
denied the petitioner’s allegation about being physically hurt before being brought to the hospital
to be tested for intoxication. What the policemen claimed was that it took the three of them to
subdue the fifty-five year old petitioner. Both actions were done in excess of their authority granted
under RA 4136.

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