People vs. Bartolome

A buy-bust operation is a legitimate form of entrapment, not prohibited instigation, when the criminal design originates from the accused — who is already predisposed to sell dangerous drugs — and the police merely facilitate its consummation through a decoy solicitation; non-compliance with the post-seizure inventory and photograph requirements under Section 21 of R.A. No. 9165 is not a ground to reverse a conviction if the integrity and evidentiary value of the seized drugs are properly preserved and the accused fails to challenge such non-compliance during trial.

On August 10, 2003, at about 1:00 a.m., a confidential informant reported to the Anti-Illegal Drugs Special Operations Unit (ADSOU) in Caloocan City that a certain Noel Bartolome was openly selling shabu on Reparo Street, Bagong Barrio. Police Inspector Cesar Cruz immediately organized a buy-bust operation, designating PO1 Borban Paras as the poseur-buyer. Paras was handed a ₱100.00 bill marked with his initials “BP.” The informant would identify the target by dropping a cigarette butt in front of him; Paras would scratch his head to signal consummation of the sale. Coordination was made with the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency. At around 2:00 a.m., the team took their positions near a store on Reparo Street.

• The Buy-Bust Transaction: After the team was in position, the informant approached a person standing in front of the store, dropped a cigarette butt, and thereby identified the target. PO1 Paras, who was only two meters away, approached the suspect and said, “Pre, pa-iskor nga.” The suspect responded, “Pre, piso na lang tong hawak magkano ba kukunin mo?” Paras replied, “Ayos na yan, piso lang naman talaga ang kukunin ko,” and handed the marked ₱100.00 bill. The suspect pulled a plastic sachet containing a white substance from his left front pocket and gave it to Paras. Paras scratched his head, signaling consummation, then grabbed the suspect as the rest of the team moved in. PO3 Rodrigo Antonio confiscated the marked bill from the suspect, who was identified as Noel Bartolome y Bajo. Paras immediately marked the plastic sachet at the crime scene with the initials “NBB.”

• Custody and Laboratory Examination: The marked sachet was brought to the ADSOU, where Police Inspector Cesar Cruz prepared a written request for laboratory examination. PO2 Rolando De Ocampo personally delivered the request and the sachet to the PNP Crime Laboratory. SPO1 Bugabuga recorded the receipt, and Forensic Chemical Officer Jesse Abadilla Dela Rosa examined the contents. Physical Science Report No. D-1038-03 certified that the sachet contained 0.06 gram of methamphetamine hydrochloride (shabu), a dangerous drug.

• The Defense of Frame‑Up and Extortion: The accused testified that on August 9, 2003, at about noon, he was resting at his brother’s house after work. Two policemen suddenly entered, frisked him, and took him to the police station. There, PO3 Antonio allegedly demanded ₱20,000.00 for his release, which he could not pay. He maintained that the buy-bust and the drug sale never happened; he was merely framed up for extortion.

• Instigation, Not Entrapment: The accused insisted that the operation was instigation, not entrapment. He argued that the evidence did not show he was looking for buyers; that Paras proposed the purchase and thereby induced him to sell shabu; and that without such inducement, no transaction would have occurred. He claimed entitlement to acquittal based on the absolutory cause of instigation.

• Non-Compliance with Chain-of-Custody Requirements: The accused contended that the buy-bust team failed to comply with Section 21 of R.A. No. 9165 and its Implementing Rules and Regulations, particularly the requirements of immediately photographing and inventorying the seized drug in the presence of the accused, a representative from the media, the Department of Justice, and an elected public official. He argued that this failure cast serious doubt on the identity of the corpus delicti.

• Absence of Prior Surveillance and the Informant as Witness: The accused maintained that the lack of prior surveillance undermined the veracity of the buy-bust operation, and that the failure to present the informant as a witness was fatal to the prosecution’s case.

• Validity of Entrapment: The prosecution maintained that the operation was a valid entrapment. The accused was ready and willing to sell shabu — he already had the drug in his possession and readily delivered it upon a casual request — showing that criminal intent originated from him, not from the police.

• Preservation of the Seized Drug’s Integrity: The State argued that the chain of custody was unbroken from the moment of seizure until presentation in court. Any minor deviation from the strict requirements of Section 21 did not impair the integrity or evidentiary value of the seized shabu and therefore did not render the evidence inadmissible.

• The Frame‑Up Defense Was Unsubstantiated: The prosecution contended that the claim of frame-up and extortion was self-serving, devoid of clear and convincing evidence, and negated by the fact that the accused never filed charges against the arresting officers for the serious offense of planting of evidence.

• Entrapment or Instigation: Whether the buy-bust operation constituted unlawful instigation that would absolve the accused, rather than a legitimate entrapment.

• Chain of Custody: Whether the apprehending officers’ non-compliance with the inventory, photograph, and witness requirements of Section 21 of R.A. No. 9165 rendered the seized shabu inadmissible and the conviction invalid.

• Prior Surveillance and Informant: Whether the absence of prior surveillance and the non-presentation of the informant as a witness were fatal to the prosecution’s case.

• Entrapment or Instigation: The operation was a valid entrapment, not instigation. The criminal intent to sell shabu originated from the accused, who already possessed the drug and transacted immediately when solicited. Paras’s question “Pre, pa-iskor nga” was a decoy solicitation, which does not constitute inducement; it merely furnishes evidence of the accused’s criminal course of conduct. The distinction in People v. Bayani — instigation is a trap for the unwary innocent, while entrapment is a trap for the unwary criminal — was squarely applied. No persistent, direct, or effective inducement by law enforcers was shown.

• Chain of Custody: The non-compliance with Section 21 was not fatal. The accused raised the issue for the first time on appeal, not during trial. Following People v. Sta. Maria, an objection to the custody of seized evidence cannot be made for the first time on appeal. Moreover, the integrity and evidentiary value of the shabu were properly preserved: the sachet was marked at the scene, a laboratory request was immediately prepared, the evidence was hand-carried to the crime laboratory, its receipt was recorded, and chemical analysis confirmed the substance as shabu. The chain of custody remained firm and unbroken.

• Prior Surveillance and Informant: Neither prior surveillance nor the presentation of the informant is indispensable to a valid prosecution. Prior surveillance is unnecessary when the buy-bust team is accompanied to the target area by the informant. The informant’s testimony is not required where the poseur-buyer’s account sufficiently establishes the sale, and the informant’s identity is protected for security reasons. In this case, Paras’s testimony was adequate to prove the crime, making the informant’s testimony merely corroborative.

• Distinction between Entrapment and Instigation — Entrapment employs ruses to trap a lawbreaker whose criminal design originates in his own mind; it is a legitimate method of apprehension. Instigation occurs when law enforcers incite, induce, or lure a person not otherwise predisposed to commit the offense into doing so, and the accused must be acquitted. A buy-bust operation is a recognized form of entrapment.

• Decoy Solicitation during Buy-Bust — A police officer’s act of soliciting drugs from an accused during a buy-bust operation (decoy solicitation) is not prohibited and does not invalidate the operation. It merely supplies evidence of the accused’s course of conduct, especially in habitually committed offenses like drug trafficking, and is not tantamount to instigation.

• Chain-of-Custody and Section 21 Non-Compliance — While Section 21 of R.A. No. 9165 requires immediate inventory and photographing of seized drugs in the presence of the accused, media, DOJ, and an elected official, non-compliance may be excused upon justifiable grounds if the integrity and evidentiary value of the seized items are properly preserved. An accused who fails to raise such non-compliance during trial is precluded from raising it for the first time on appeal. The decisive factor is the preservation of the identity and integrity of the corpus delicti through an unbroken chain of custody.

• “Instigation is the means by which the accused is lured into the commission of the offense charged in order to prosecute him. On the other hand, entrapment is the employment of such ways and means for the purpose of trapping or capturing a lawbreaker. Thus, in instigation, officers of the law or their agents incite, induce, instigate or lure an accused into committing an offense which he or she would otherwise not commit and has no intention of committing. But in entrapment, the criminal intent or design to commit the offense charged originates in the mind of the accused, and law enforcement officials merely facilitate the apprehension of the criminal by employing ruses and schemes; thus, the accused cannot justify his or her conduct.”

• “It is no defense to the perpetrator of a crime that facilities for its commission were purposely placed in his way, or that the criminal act was done at the ‘decoy solicitation’ of persons seeking to expose the criminal, or that detectives feigning complicity in the act were present and apparently assisting its commission. Especially is this true in that class of cases where the office is one habitually committed, and the solicitation merely furnishes evidence of a course of conduct.”

• “The law excuses non-compliance under justifiable grounds. However, whatever justifiable grounds may excuse the police officers involved in the buy-bust operation in this case from complying with Section 21 will remain unknown, because appellant did not question during trial the safekeeping of the items seized from him. … Objection to evidence cannot be raised for the first time on appeal; when a party desires the court to reject the evidence offered, he must so state in the form of objection. Without such objection, he cannot raise the question for the first time on appeal.”

• People v. Bayani, G.R. No. 179150, June 17, 2008 — Enunciated the controlling distinction between instigation and entrapment; followed.
• People v. Sta. Maria, G.R. No. 171019, February 23, 2007 — Clarified that decoy solicitation is not inducement and that alleged violations of Section 21 cannot be raised for the first time on appeal; followed.
• People v. Doria — Enumerated instances where instigation was recognized as a valid defense, and where it was not; distinguished.
• People v. Unisa, G.R. No. 185721, September 28, 2011 — Stated the elements of illegal sale of dangerous drugs and that the crime is consummated upon delivery of the drug to the buyer; cited.
• People v. Abedin, G.R. No. 179936, April 11, 2012 — Reiterated the presumption of regularity in the performance of official duty and that prior surveillance is not necessary; cited.

• Section 5, Article II, Republic Act No. 9165 — Penalizes the illegal sale of dangerous drugs with life imprisonment to death and a fine ranging from ₱500,000.00 to ₱10,000,000.00 regardless of quantity and purity. The penalty of life imprisonment and ₱500,000.00 fine was correctly imposed.
• Section 21, Article II, Republic Act No. 9165 and its Implementing Rules and Regulations — Prescribes the procedure for custody and disposition of seized dangerous drugs, including immediate physical inventory and photographing in the presence of the accused, media, DOJ representative, and an elected public official. The implementing rules allow non-compliance under justifiable grounds if the integrity and evidentiary value of the seized items are preserved. The Court held that the failure to raise non-compliance at trial constituted a waiver, and the chain of custody was demonstrably intact.
• Section 29, Republic Act No. 9165 — Criminalizes the planting of evidence. The accused’s failure to invoke this provision against the arresting officers undermined his defense of frame-up.

Chief Justice Maria Lourdes P. A. Sereno, Associate Justice Teresita J. Leonardo-De Castro, Associate Justice Martin S. Villarama, Jr., and Associate Justice Bienvenido L. Reyes.