SECOND DIVISION G.R. No. 177148 June 30, 2009 PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, Appellee, vs. RAUL NUÑEZ y REVILLEZA, Appellant.

Turning to the objects which may be confiscated during the search, Section 3, Rule 126 of the Rules of Court is pertinent:

SEC. 3. Personal property to be seized. – A search warrant may be issued for the search and seizure of personal property:

(a) Subject of the offense;
(b) Stolen or embezzled and other proceeds, or fruits of the offense; or
(c) Used or intended to be used as the means of committing an offense.

As a rule, only the personal properties described in the search warrant may be seized by the authorities.²³ In the case at bar, Search Warrant No. 42²⁴ specifically authorized the taking of methamphetamine hydrochloride (shabu) and paraphernalia(s) only. By the principle of ejusdem generis, where a statute describes things of a particular class or kind accompanied by words of a generic character, the generic word will usually be limited to things of a similar nature with those particularly enumerated, unless there be something in the context of the statement which would repel such inference.²⁵

Thus, we are here constrained to point out an irregularity in the search conducted. Certainly, the lady’s wallet, cash, grinder, camera, component, speakers, electric planer, jigsaw, electric tester, saws, hammer, drill, and bolo were not encompassed by the word paraphernalia as they bear no relation to the use or manufacture of drugs. In seizing the said items then, the police officers exercised their own discretion and determined for themselves which items in appellant’s residence they believed were "proceeds of the crime" or "means of committing the offense." This is, in our view, absolutely impermissible.²⁶

The purpose of the constitutional requirement that the articles to be seized be particularly described in the warrant is to limit the things to be taken to those, and only those particularly described in the search warrant -- to leave the officers of the law with no discretion regarding what articles they should seize. A search warrant is not a sweeping authority empowering a raiding party to undertake a fishing expedition to confiscate any and all kinds of evidence or articles relating to a crime.²⁷ Accordingly, the objects taken which were not specified in the search warrant should be restored to appellant.1avvphi1

Lastly, we find the penalty imposed by the trial court as affirmed by the appellate court proper. Under Section 20(3)²⁸ of Rep. Act No. 6425 as amended by Rep. Act No. 7659, possession of 200 grams or more of shabu (methamphetamine hydrochloride) renders the accused liable to suffer the maximum penalty under Section 16 of Rep. Act No. 6425, which is reclusion perpetua to death and a fine ranging from ₱500,000 to ₱10,000,000.

SECOND DIVISION G.R. No. L-35149 June 23, 1988 EDUARDO QUINTERO, petitioner, vs. THE NATIONAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION, HON. ELIAS ASUNCION, Judge of the Court of First Instance of Manila, and HON. JOSE FLAMINIANO, City Fiscal of Pasay City, respondents.

The two (2) occupants of the house who witnessed the search conducted, Generoso Quintero and Pfc. Alvaro Valentin, were closeted in a room where a search was being made by a member of the raiding party, while the other NBI agents were left to themselves in the other parts of the house, where no members of the household were in a position to watch them, and thus they conducted a search on their own.

Such a procedure, wherein members of a raiding party can roam around the raided premises unaccompanied by any witness, as the only witnesses available as prescribed by law are made to witness a search conducted by the other members of the raiding party in another part of the house, is held to be violative of both the spirit and the letter of the law, 18 which provides that "no search of a house, room, or any other premises shall be made except in the presence of at least one competent witness, resident of the neighborhood."

Another irregularity committed by the agents of respondent NBI was their failure to comply with the requirement of Sec. 10, Rule 126 of the Rules of Court which provides that "The officer seizing property under the warrant must give a detailed receipt for the same to the person on whom or in whose possession it was found, or in the absence of any person, must, in the presence of at least one-witness, leave a receipt in the place in which he found the seized property." The receipt issued by the seizing party in the case at bar, 19 showed that it was signed by a witness, Sgt. Ignacio Veracruz. This person was a policeman from the Manila Metropolitan Police (MMP), who accompanied the agents of respondent NBI during the conduct of the search, The requirement under the aforequoted Rule that a witness should attest to the making of the receipt, was not complied with. This requirement of the Rules was rendered nugatory, when the one who attested to the receipt from the raiding party was himself a member of the raiding party.

The circumstances prevailing before the issuance of the questioned search warrant, and the actual manner in which the search was conducted in the house of the petitioner, all but imperfectly, and yet, strongly suggest that the entire procedure, from beginning to end, was an orchestrated movement designed for just one purpose — to destroy petitioner Quintero's public image with "incriminating evidence," and, as a corollary to this, that the evidence allegedly seized from his residence was "planted" by the very raiding party that was commanded to "seize" such incriminating evidence.