"x x x.
In both cases of illegal sale and illegal possession of dangerous drugs, the chain of custody over the dangerous drug must be shown to establish the corpus delicti. In People v. Alcuizar,[20] the Court held:
The dangerous drug itself, the shabu in this case, constitutes the very corpus delicti of the offense and in sustaining a conviction under Republic Act No. 9165, the identity and integrity of the corpus delicti must definitely be shown to have been preserved. This requirement necessarily arises from the illegal drug’s unique characteristic that renders it indistinct, not readily identifiable, and easily open to tampering, alteration or substitution either by accident or otherwise. Thus, to remove any doubt or uncertainty on the identity and integrity of the seized drug, evidence must definitely show that the illegal drug presented in court is the same illegal drug actually recovered from the accused-appellant; otherwise, the prosecution for possession under Republic Act No. 9165 fails.
Section 1(b) of Dangerous Drugs Board Regulation No. 1, Series of 2002,[21] which implements the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002, defines “chain of custody” as follows:
“Chain of Custody” means the duly recorded authorized movements and 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 of the seized item, the date and time when such transfer of custody were made in the course of safekeeping and use in court as evidence, and the final disposition.
In Malillin v. People,[22] the Court explained the importance of the chain of custody:
Prosecutions for illegal possession of prohibited drugs necessitates that the elemental act of possession of a prohibited substance be established with moral certainty, together with the fact that the same is not authorized by law. The dangerous drug itself constitutes the very corpus delicti of the offense and the fact of its existence is vital to a judgment of conviction. Essential therefore in these cases is that the identity of the prohibited drug be established beyond doubt. Be that as it may, the mere fact of unauthorized possession will not suffice to create in a reasonable mind the moral certainty required to sustain a finding of guilt. More than just the fact of possession, the fact that the substance illegally possessed in the first place is the same substance offered in court as exhibit must also be established with the same unwavering exactitude as that requisite to make a finding of guilt. The chain of custody requirement performs this function in that it ensures that unnecessary doubts concerning the identity of the evidence are removed.
As a method of authenticating evidence, the chain of custody rule requires that the admission of an exhibit be preceded by evidence sufficient to support a finding that the matter in question is what the proponent claims it to be. It would include testimony about every link in the chain, from the moment the item was picked up to the time it is offered in evidence, in such a way that every person who touched the exhibit would describe how and from whom it was received, where it was and what happened to it while in the witness’ possession, the condition in which it was received and the condition in which it was delivered to the next link in the chain. These witnesses would then describe the precautions taken to ensure that there had been no change in the condition of the item and no opportunity for someone not in the chain to have possession of the same.
While testimony about a perfect chain is not always the standard because it is almost always impossible to obtain, an unbroken chain of custody becomes indispensable and essential when the item of real evidence is not distinctive and is not readily identifiable, or when its condition at the time of testing or trial is critical, or when a witness has failed to observe its uniqueness. The same standard likewise obtains in case the evidence is susceptible to alteration, tampering, contamination and even substitution and exchange. In other words, the exhibit’s level of susceptibility to fungibility, alteration or tampering – without regard to whether the same is advertent or otherwise not – dictates the level of strictness in the application of the chain of custody rule.
Indeed, the likelihood of tampering, loss or mistake with respect to an exhibit is greatest when the exhibit is small and is one that has physical characteristics fungible in nature and similar in form to substances familiar to people in their daily lives. Graham v. State positively acknowledged this danger. In that case where a substance was later analyzed as heroin – was handled by two police officers prior to examination who however did not testify in court on the condition and whereabouts of the exhibit at the time it was in their possession – was excluded from the prosecution evidence, the court pointing out that the white powder seized could have been indeed heroin or it could have been sugar or baking powder. It ruled that unless the state can show by records or testimony, the continuous whereabouts of the exhibit at least between the time it came into the posession of the police officers until it was tested in the laboratory to determine its composition, testimony of the state as to the laboratory’s findings is inadmissible.
A unique characteristic of narcotic substances is that they are not readily identifiable as in fact they are subject to scientific analysis to determine their composition and nature. The Court cannot reluctantly close its eyes to the likelihood or at least the possibility, that at any of the links in the chain of custody over the same there could have been tampering, alteration or substitution of substances from other cases – by accident or otherwise – in which similar evidence was seized or in which similar evidence was submitted for laboratory testing. Hence, in authenticating the same, a standard more stringent than that applied to cases involving objects which are readily identifiable must be applied, a more exacting standard that entails a chain of custody of the item with sufficient completeness if only to render it improbable that the original item has either been exchanged with another or been contaminated or tampered with.
In this case, PO1 Ignacio, in his testimony, claimed that the substances seized from Climaco during the buy-bust operation were marked as “TR-R” and “TR-B”:
Q: When SPO4 Almeida handed over the items to SPO4 Teofilo Royena, what if any did SPO4 Royena do with the items?
A: He placed markings on it, maam.
Q: Where were you when he placed the markings?
A: I was present, maam.
Q: Do you know what markings was made?
A: He placed his initials TR which means Teofilo Royena and the letter B which means bust, maam.
Q: I’m showing to you a plastic sachet with the markings TR-B, please go over this and tell if this is the same item which you confiscated from the accused?
A: Yes, maam. This is the same.
PROS. CASANO: Your Honor, the brown envelope which contains the plastic sachet has already been marked as Exhibit “C”, the plastic sachet as Exhibit “C-1” and the markings TR-B as Exhibit “C-2” (Continuing).
x x x x
Q: Tell us the markings that was placed?
A: It’s TR-R, the R means recovered, maam.
Q: How sure are you that the items marked by SPO4 Teofilo Royena TR-R was the same item taken by SPO3 Samson from the accused?
A: Because there was a difference between the two plastic sachets, the items recovered by SPO3 Samson was a little bit bigger, maam.
Q: I’m showing to you a bigger plastic sachet with the markings TR- R, are you referring to this?
A: Yes, maam.[23]
Based on the testimony of PO1 Ignacio, the substances retrieved from Climaco and submitted to the court were contained in two (2) plastic sachets with the markings “TR-R” and “TR-B.” However, according to the Chemistry Report executed by Forensic Chemist Donna Villa P. Huelgas on 8 September 2004, the plastic sachets submitted for examination carried the markings “GSC-1” and “GSC-2,” different from the plastic sachets marked “TR-R” and “TR-B” containing the drugs retrieved from Climaco:
CHEMISTRY REPORT NUMBER: D-1102-04
x x x x
SPECIMEN SUBMITTED:
A – One (1) heat-sealed transparent plastic sachet, with markings “GSC1”, containing 0.35 gram of white crystalline substance and placed in a staple-sealed transparent plastic bag. (Allegedly bought by the Police Poseur-Buyer)
B – One (1) heat-sealed transparent plastic sachet, with markings “GSC2”, containing 0.14 gram of white crystalline substance and placed in a staple-sealed transparent plastic bag. (Allegedly found from the posession of Glomer Climaco)[24]
In addition, in the Index of Exhibits submitted by the Officer-in-Charge of the RTC, Exhibit “C-1” was described as a “plastic sachet with white crystalline substance with markings ‘GSC-1’” while Exhibit “C-2” was described as a “plastic sachet with white crystalline substance with markings ‘GSC-2,’”[25]contrary to the testimony of PO1 Ignacio and the declaration of Prosecutor Casano that the specimens submitted to the court carried the markings “TR-B” and “TR-R.”
Likewise, in the handwritten Minutes dated 5 January 2005, Exhibit “C-1” was identified as a plastic sachet with white crystalline substance with marking “GSC-1,” and Exhibit “C-2” was identified as a plastic sachet with white crystalline substance with marking “GSC-2.”[26]
Clearly, what was submitted to the trial court were plastic sachets bearing the markings “GSC-1” and “GSC-2,” instead of the plastic sachets bearing the markings “TR-R” and “TR-B” that contained the substances recovered from Climaco. This fact is evident from the RTC Decision, recognizing Exhibits “C-1” and “C-2” to bear the markings “GSC-1” and “GSC-2,” while acknowledging the testimony of PO1 Ignacio that the plastic sachets containing the substances recovered from Climaco bore the markings “TR-R” and “TR-B”:
The prosecution presented two (2) witnesses in the persons of x x x Forensic Chemist Donna Villa Huelgas, whose testimony was dispensed with on 5 January 2005 upon defense’s admission of the existence of the following: 1) Written Request for Laboratory Examination as Exhibit “A”; 2) The Chemistry Report No. D-1102-04 as Exhibit “B”; 3) 1 ½ white envelope as Exhibit “C”; 4) the existence of two (2) plastic sachets with markings “GSC-1” as Exhibit “C-1”; and 5) another one with markings “GSC-2” as Exhibit “C-2”.
x x x x
The plastic sachet product of the buy-bust was marked TR-B, which means Teofilo Royena and the letter “B” means “Bust.” While the plastic sachet recovered from Gomer was marked TR-R, which means Teofilo Royena and the letter “R” means “Recovered”.[27] (Emphasis supplied)
The prosecution did not explain why the markings of the plastic sachets containing the alleged drugs, which were submitted to be “TR-B” and “TR-R,” became “GSC-1” and “GSC-2” in the Chemistry Report, Index of Exhibits and Minutes of the Hearing. In their decisions, the RTC and CA were silent on the change of the markings. In fact, since the markings are different, the presumption is that the substance in the plastic sachets marked as “TR-B” and “TR-R” is different from the substance in the plastic sachets marked as “GSC-1” and “GSC-2.” There is no moral certainty that the substance taken from appellant is the same dangerous drug submitted to the laboratory and the trial court.
As held in Malillin v. People,[28] to establish guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt in cases involving dangerous drugs, it is important that the substance illegally possessed in the first place be the same substance offered in court as exhibit. This chain of custody requirement ensures that unnecessary doubts are removed concerning the identity of the evidence. When the identity of the dangerous drug recovered from the accused is not the same dangerous drug presented to the forensic chemist for review and examination, nor the same dangerous drug presented to the court, the identity of the dangerous drug is not preserved due to the broken chain of custody. With this, an element in the criminal cases for illegal sale and illegal possession of dangerous drugs, the corpus delicti, is not proven, and the accused must then be acquitted based on reasonable doubt. For this reason, Climaco must be acquitted on the ground of reasonable doubt due to the broken chain of custody over the dangerous drug allegedly recovered from him.
x x x."
