PAPER INDUSTRIES CORPORATION OF THE PHILIPPINES vs JUDGE MAXIMO ASUNCION

Case Digest of G.R. No. 122092.  May 19, 1999

PAPER INDUSTRIES CORPORATION OF THE PHILIPPINES vs JUDGE MAXIMO ASUNCION

FACTS:

Police Chief Inspector Napoleon B. Pascua applied for a search warrant before Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Quezon City, that the Paper Industries Corporation of the Philippines located at Bislig, Surigao De Sur is in possession or has in its control high powered firearms, ammunitions, explosives, which are the subject of the offense.

ISSUE:

Whether the Search Warrant is Valid?

HELD:

No, petition for Certiorari and prohibition is hereby granted and Search Warrant No. 799 accordingly declared null and void, TRO permanent.

RATIONALE:

There is a question of fact when the doubt arises as to the truth or falsity of the alleged facts.

Main Issue: Validity of Search Warrrant (Article III, Section 2, 1987, 1987 Constitution & Rule 126, Sections 3&4 of Rules of Court).

Requisites of Valid Search Warrant are:

1.       Probable Cause is present

2.       Such presence is determined personally by the Judge

3.       The complainant and the Witnesses he or she may produce are personally examined by the Judge, in writing and under oath or affirmation

4.       The applicant and the Witnesses testify on facts personally known to them

5.       The Warrant specifically describes the place to be searched and things to be seized

a.       Present case, the Search Warrant is INVALID because

                                                               i.      The Trial Court failed to examine personally the complainant and the other dependents

                                                             ii.      SP03 Bacolod had no personal knowledge that petitioners were not licensed to possess the subject firearms

                                                           iii.      The place to be searched was not described with particularity

Mere affidavits of the complainant and his witnesses does are thus not sufficient. The examining Judge has to take depositions in writing of the complainant and the witnesses he may produce and attached them to the record.

Particularity of the Place to be searched:

The belief to value privacy of home and person and to afford it constitutional protection against the long reach of government is no less than to value human dignity, and that his privacy must not be disturbed except in case of overriding social need and then only under stringent procedural safeguards.

The aforementioned premises, did not specify such premises. The warrant identifies only one place and that is Paper Industries Corporation of the Philippines, located at PICOP compound. However; it was made of 200 offices / building, 15 plants, 84 staffs houses, airstrip, 3 piers / wharves, and 23 warehouses.

Jurisprudence: People vs CA

What is material in determining the validity of a search is the place stated in the warrant itself, not what the applicants had in their thoughts, or had represented in the proofs they submitted to the Court issuing the warrant.

-      It would concede to police officers the power of choosing the place to be searched, even if not delineated in the warrant

-   The particularization of the description of the place to be searched may properly be done by the Judge, and only in the warrant itself; it cannot be left to the discretion of the police officers conducting the search.

Please see below link to access Supreme Court's Full Text:

http://sc.judiciary.gov.ph/jurisprudence/1999/may99/122092.htm