A jobless resident of Virac who was convicted of selling shabu to an undercover police officer a year ago has been freed by the Court of Appeals after it overturned the Regional Trial Court’s ruling over procedural lapses committed by the police.
In its decision issued last July 3, 2026, the CA’s Special Fifteenth Division granted the appeal filed by Prince Joshua Sorrera Gianan, reversing the May 21, 2025 of RTC Branch 43 in Criminal Case No. 10874 that sentenced the latter to life imprisonment and to pay a fine of P500,000.00.
The appeals court found that his acquittal is in order for failure of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) operatives and police officers to preserve the integrity and evidentiary value of the seized dangerous drugs.
Prosecution witnesses told the RTC during the hearing of the case that on April 23, 2023, with the help of a confidential informant who contacted Gianan, two police officers posing as buyers brought with them buy-bust money consisting of a real P500 bill and 209 pieces of fake P500 bills.
At the meeting place in San Roque, the target arrived using a tricycle and briefly talked with the informant before leaving.
When he returned, the suspected pusher, then 24, told one of the agents to board the tricycle and asked him to show the money.
After Gianan handed him a folded piece of paper containing the illegal drugs, the police officer gave him the money, got out of the tricycle and gave the signal to the waiting members of the team.
Realizing it was a trap, the suspect threw the money to the ground and tried to escape but was arrested,
Seized from him were seven sachets containing shabu, the buy-bust money, the tricycle he used and other items.
In his defense, Gianan testified that there was no buy-bust operation and that he was in the area to visit someone, insisting that the items seized were not his and that one of the officers tried to put something into his pocket.
After his conviction, he filed an appeal alleging that there was no valid buy-bust operation, that the police officers did not comply with the law and w and that the prosecution failed to prove an unbroken chain of custody.
The CA’s Special 15th Division stated in its ruling that Gianan’s argument on the series of alleged irregularities in the operation lacks basis.
It noted that he never filed the appropriate motion before the RTC to question the validity of his arrest, stressing that his voluntary submission to the court’s jurisdiction cured any irregularity in his arrest.
However, the appeals court agreed with his contention that the prosecution failed to establish an unbroken chain of custody.
Among the procedural lapses observed by the CA were: the weight of the seized drugs were not indicated in the initial documents; the prosecution failed to prove the identities of mandatory witnesses; failure to indicate Gianan’s name in the receipt of inventory of seized evidence; and no turnover of the drugs from the apprehending officer to the investigator.
“No reason was offered to explain the procedural lapses committed by the police officers which could otherwise persuade us to be lenient in applying strictly the rule on the chain of custody,” Associate Justice Perpetua Susana T. Atal-Paño, the division chairperson.
The ponente’s decision was concurred by chairperson Associate Justice Ma. Consejo Mapa Gengos-Ignalaga and Associate Justice Marietta S. Brawner-Cualing.