Court clears 2 men, convicts 1 for shabu

Two persons yesterday received an early Christmas gift when the court cleared them from drug charges, but a trisikad driver was meted with 15 years imprisonment for possessing shabu.

Regional Trial Court judge Gabriel Ingles ruled that the prosecution failed to prove the guilt of Ricjun Macani, 18, and Rovelino Repdos, who were charged in court for violating Section 11 of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act or the Anti-Drug Law.

Ingles, however, sentenced Pio Caburnay to a 15-year imprisonment after he found him guilty "beyond reasonable doubt' of possessing a pack of shabu.

Macani, of barangay Labangon, was arrested by members of the Punta Princesa Police Station while allegedly possessing a pack of shabu that he wanted to throw when he recognized the presence of the lawmen along Camomot Franza Street shortly before midnight last March 3.

SP04 Joselito Palang said he arrested Macani after they saw him examining a pack of shabu on his palm.

But Macani testified in court he was just arrested after he passed by the policemen standing near a parked police patrol car.

"This fact is significant because it has created doubt in the mind of this court about the probability of the prosecution witnesses' declaration that they arrested the accused while the latter was examining the plastic of shabu," Ingles said.

He said with the presence of the police car, at least Macani suspected that the persons standing near the police vehicle were policemen, and it was impossible for him to examine the pack of shabu on his palm.

The court also acquitted Repdos, a jeepney conductor in Talisay City, because of his illegal arrest on February 4, 2004, saying that the Talisay City policemen just approached him and ordered to invert his pocket where the pack of shabu was reportedly recovered.

The rule is that any evidence confiscated through illegal means could not be used as evidence against the arrested person.

But the court convicted Caburnay despite his claim that the shabu used as evidence against him was just planted by policemen.

Caburnay said he was on his way home in sitio Capaculan, Labangon when policemen approached him and asked about a certain Ongkoy. When he failed to say Ongkoy's whereabouts, he claimed he was immediately arrested.

But Ingles said: "Without clear and convincing evidence proving that the incriminating evidence was planted, the testimony of the accused cannot be easily relied upon ass it is easy to invent it." - Rene U. Borromeo