Pique kidnap-slay CIDG asks court to dismiss bid to quash search warrant

CEBU, Philippines - The Criminal Investigation and Detention Group (CIDG-7) has asked the Regional Trial Court to dismiss the motion to quash the search warrant issued against Bella Ruby Santos and her Briton boyfriend Ian Charles Griffith, owners of the Mitsubishi Pajero held by the police on suspicion that the vehicle was used in the abduction and murder of six-year-old Ellah Joy Pique. 

In its formal opposition filed before the RTC, the CIDG through counsel Inocencio dela Cerna insisted that the search warrant was issued after the court has determined probable cause to warrant its issuance.

“Probable cause means such facts and circumstances which would lead a reasonable discreet and prudent man to believe that an offense has been committed and that the objects sought in connection with the offense are in the place sought to be searched,” the opposition reads.

Dela Cerna said that executive Judge Meinrado Paredes found probable cause justifying the issuance of the search warrant.

Dela Cerna said the application for search warrant was valid since the CIDG had investigated and had knowledge with the incident and not hearsay as claimed by Santos and Griffith.

Dela Cerna added that the records would show that Paredes had personally examined and posed searching questions to the applicant and his witnesses.

He said the affidavits of the private witnesses and other evidences were attached to the application of search warrant.

In the opposition of the CIDG they said that the issue on the alleged irregularity in the implementation of the search warrant is not within the ambit of a motion to quash.

Dela Cerna cited a Supreme Court ruling which states that, “the question of whether there was abuse in the enforcement of the challenged search warrant is not within the scope of a motion to quash.”

In the motion to quash filed by Santos through lawyer Ana Luz Cristal, she has narrated the circumstances supposedly showing that the implementation of the search warrant was contrary to law, anomalous and illegal.

Santos questioned the search of her house when the subject of the warrant was only the Pajero. She has also questioned the alleged tampering of the vehicle’s plate number. — (FREEMAN)