"x x x.
Section 5 and Section 11 of Republic Act No. 9165 pertinently provide as follows:
Section 5. Sale, Trading, Administration, Dispensation, Delivery, Distribution and Transportation of Dangerous Drugs and/or Controlled Precursors and Essential Chemicals. – The penalty of life imprisonment to death and a fine ranging from Five hundred thousand pesos (P500,000.00) to Ten million pesos (P10,000,000.00) shall be imposed upon any person, who, unless, authorized by law, shall sell, trade, administer, dispense, deliver, give away to another, distribute, dispatch, in transit or transport any dangerous drug, including any and all species of opium poppy regardless of the quantity and purity involved, or shall act as a broker in any such transactions.
x x x
Section 11. Possession of Dangerous Drugs. – The penalty of life imprisonment to death and a fine ranging from Five hundred thousand pesos (P500,000.00) to Ten million pesos (P10,000,000.00) shall be imposed upon any person, who, unless authorized by law, shall possess any dangerous drug in the following quantities, regardless of the degree of purity thereof:
x x x
Otherwise, if the quantity involved is less than the foregoing quantities, the penalties shall be graduated as follows:
x x x
(3) Imprisonment of twelve (12) years and one (1) day to twenty (20) years and a fine ranging from Three hundred thousand pesos (P300,000.00) to Four hundred thousand pesos (P400,000.00), if the quantities of dangerous drugs are less than five (5) grams of opium, morphine, heroin, cocaine, or cocaine hydrochloride marijuana resin or marijuana resin oil, methamphetamine hydrochloride or “shabu,” or other dangerous drugs such as, but not limited to, MDMA or “ecstacy,” PMA, TMA, LSD, GHB, and those similarly designed or newly introduced drugs and their derivatives, without having any therapeutic value or if the quantity possessed is far beyond therapeutic requirements; or less than three hundred (300) grams of marijuana.
To secure a conviction for illegal sale of shabu, the following essential elements must be established: (a) the identities of the buyer and the seller, the object of the sale, and the consideration; and (b) the delivery of the thing sold and the payment for the thing. What is material in prosecutions for illegal sale of shabu is the proof that the transaction or sale actually took place, coupled with the presentation in court of the corpus delicti as evidence.[14]
The requisites for illegal sale of shabu were competently and convincingly proven by the Prosecution. PO2 Tayag, as the poseur-buyer, attested that Bautista sold shabu to him during a legitimate buy-bust operation.[15] According to Forensic Chemist Arturo, the substance subject of the transaction, which weighed 0.05 gram, was examined and found to be methamphetamine hydrochloride or shabu, a dangerous drug.[16] PO2 Caragdag declared that he recovered the buy-bust money from Bautista’s hand right after the sale.[17] Further, the Prosecution later presented as evidence both the sachet of shabu subject of the sale and the buy-bust money used in the buy-bust operation.[18] Thereby, the Prosecution directly incriminated Bautista.
For illegal possession of a dangerous drug, like shabu, the elements are: (a) the accused is in possession of an item or object that is identified to be a prohibited or dangerous drug; (b) such possession is not authorized by law; and (c) the accused freely and consciously possessed the drug.[19]
The elements of illegal possession of a dangerous drug were similarly competently and convincingly established by the Prosecution. SPO1 Ybañez stated that upon seeing the pre-arranged signal given by PO2 Tayag, he and the other members of the team proceeded to arrest Bautista; and that he frisked Bautista and then recovered six other plastic sachets from Bautista’s pocket.[20] Undoubtedly, the frisking was legally authorized as a search incidental to the lawful arrest of Bautista for evidence in the commission of illegal drug pushing.[21] Forensic Chemist Arturo certified that each of the sachets contained different shabu of different weights.[22]
The lower courts justifiably accorded credence to the eyewitness testimonies of PO2 Tayag, PO2 Caragdag, and SPO1 Ybañez. Their testimonial accounts were consistent with the documentary and object evidence of the Prosecution. It was significant that no ill motive was imputed to them to falsely testify against Bautista, with Bautista himself admitting not being aware of any reason why they would wrongly incriminate him.[23]
In drug-related prosecutions, the State bears the burden not only of proving the elements of the offenses of sale and possession of shabu under Republic Act No. 9165, but also of proving the corpus delicti, the body of the crime. “Corpus delicti has been defined as the body or substance of the crime and, in its primary sense, refers to the fact that a crime has been actually committed. As applied to a particular offense, it means the actual commission by someone of the particular crime charged. The corpus delictiis a compound fact made up of two (2) things, viz: the existence of a certain act or result forming the basis of the criminal charge, and the existence of a criminal agency as the cause of this act or result.”[24] The dangerous drug is itself the very corpus delicti of the violation of the law prohibiting the possession of the dangerous drug.[25] Consequently, the State does not comply with the indispensable requirement of proving corpus delicti when the drug is missing, and when substantial gaps occur in the chain of custody of the seized drugs as to raise doubts on the authenticity of the evidence presented in court.[26]
To ensure that the chain of custody is established, Section 21 of Republic Act No. 9165 relevantly provides:
Section 21. Custody and Disposition of Confiscated, Seized, and/or Surrendered Dangerous Drugs, Plant Sources of Dangerous Drugs, Controlled Precursors and Essential Chemicals, Instruments/Paraphernalia and/or Laboratory Equipment.
xxx
(1) The apprehending team having initial custody and control of drugs shall, immediately after seizure and confiscation, physical inventory and photograph the same in the presence of the accused or the person/s from whom such items were confiscated and/or seized, or his/her representative or counsel, a representative from the media and the Department of Justice (DOJ), and any elected public official who shall be required to sign the copies of the inventory and be given a copy thereof;
xxx
The complementary Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) of Republic Act No. 9165 instructs the apprehending officer or team on the custody and control of the confiscated drugs in the following manner:
xxx
(a) The apprehending officer/team having initial custody and control of the drugs shall, immediately after seizure and confiscation, physically inventory and photograph the same in the presence of the accused or the person/s from whom such items were confiscated and/or seized, or his/her representative or counsel, a representative from the media and the Department of Justice (DOJ), and any elected public official who shall be required to sign the copies of the inventory and be given a copy thereof: Provided, that the physical inventory and photograph shall be conducted at the place where the search warrant is served; or at the nearest police station or at the nearest office of the apprehending officer/team, whichever is practicable, in case of warrantless seizures; Provided, further, that non-compliance with these requirements under justifiable grounds, as long as the integrity and the evidentiary value of the seized items are properly preserved by the apprehending officer/team, shall not render void and invalid such seizures of and custody over said items;
xxx
The rule on chain of custody under the foregoing enactments expressly demands the identification of the persons who handle the confiscated items for the purpose of duly monitoring the authorized movements of the illegal drugs and/or drug paraphernalia from the time they are seized from the accused until the time they are presented in court. In this regard, Section 1(b) of Dangerous Drugs Board Regulation No. 1, Series of 2002 defines the chain of custody rule as follows:
b. “Chain of Custody” means the duly recorded authorized movementsand custody of seized drugs or controlled chemicals or plant sources of dangerous drugs or laboratory equipment of each stage, from the time of seizure/confiscation to receipt in the forensic laboratory to safekeeping to presentation in court for destruction. Such record of movements and custody of seized item shall include the identity and signature of the person who held temporary custody [was] of the seized item, the date and time when such transfer of custody made in the course of safekeeping and use in court as evidence, and the final disposition[.]
Here, the buy-bust team did not mark the sachets until after reaching the police station. Even so, the omission did not destroy the integrity and the evidentiary value of the confiscated items. We are satisfied that PO2 Tayag and SPO1 Ybañez brought the confiscated sachets of shabu to the police station immediately after the buy-bust operation, and turned them over to the duty investigator, PO2 Castillo, for marking;[27] that in their presence, PO2 Castillo marked the sachet of shabu sold by Bautista to PO2 Tayag as “CBS (Bautista’s initials) Buy-bust,” and the six sachets of shabu recovered by SPO1 Ybañez from Bautista’s possession as “CBS-1,” “CBS-2,” “CBS-3,” “CBS-4,” “CBS-5,” and “CBS-6”;[28] that PO2 Castillo then delivered the marked sachets to Insp. Cruz who in turn caused their transmittal to the Crime Laboratory Office, Northern Police District (NPD), in Caloocan City, for appropriate laboratory examination;[29] that upon the instruction of Insp. Cruz, SPO1 Ybañez handcarried the written request and the marked sachets to the NPD Crime Laboratory Office for laboratory examination, where one PO2 Bonifacio received them;[30] and that thereafter, Forensic Chemist Arturo certified in the Physical Science Report prepared following his qualitative examination that the contents of the marked sachets were positive for methamphetamine hydrochloride or shabu, and enumerated the marked sachets examined and rendered the weights of the shabu they contained, as follows: “CBS (Bautista’s initials) Buy-bust” – 0.05 gram; “CBS-1” - 0.05 gram; “CBS-2” - 0.09 gram; “CBS-3” – 0.05 gram; “CBS-4” – 0.09 gram; “CBS-5” – 0.07 gram; and “CBS-6” – 0.06 gram.[31]
We have held that a non-compliance with the regulations is not necessarily fatal as to render an accused’s arrest illegal or the items confiscated from him inadmissible as evidence of his guilt, for what is of the utmost importance is the preservation of the integrity and the evidentiary value of the confiscated items that will be utilized in the determination of his guilt or innocence.[32]
