PEOPLE v.

SAPLA

FACTS:

In the morning of 10 January 2014, an unnamed officer at the Regional Public Safety
Battalion (RPSB) in Tabuk, Kalinga received a text message from an informant
(concerned citizen) that an individual will be transporting marijuana from Kalinga to
Isabela. PO2 Jim Mabiasan (not the officer who received the text message) then
relayed the information to the deputy commander who coordinated with the PDEA.

About 1:00 o’clock in the afternoon of the same day, a follow up information via text
message was received by the RPSB this time detailing the description of the drug
courier, to wit: male, wearing collared white shirt with green stripes, red ball cap, and
carrying a blue sack; he will be boarding a passenger jeepney bearing plate number
AYA 270 bound for Roxas, Isabela.

Based on this information, a checkpoint was organized by the PNP.

At around 1:20 o’clock, the jeepney arrived. The police officers stopped the jeepney
and inside they saw the person described in the text message they received. They
approached said person and asked him if the blue sack in front of him was his. The
person answered yes. The police officers then requested the person to open the blue
sack. The person hesitated but he eventually complied. The content of the blue sack
was four bricks of marijuana. The person was later identified as Jerry Sapla.

In court, Sapla denied the allegations as he claimed that when he boarded the jeep,
he did not have any sack with him; that the blue sack was only attributed as belonging
to him by the police. Sapla was convicted by the trial court. The Court of Appeals
affirmed the conviction and ruled that the informant’s tip was sufficient to engender
probable cause upon the minds of the police officers; that it was sufficient to conduct
a warrantless search and seizure.

ISSUE: Whether or not an informant’s tip is sufficient to engender probable cause?

HELD: No. In a long line of cases (Pp. vs Aminnudin, Pp. vs Cuizon, Pp. vs Encinada, Pp. vs
Aruta, Pp. vs Cogaed, Veridiano vs Pp., Pp. vs Comprado, Pp. vs Yanson, and Pp. vs
Gardon-Mentoy), the Supreme Court has always said that a mere informant’s tip is not
sufficient to engender probable cause. The police officer receiving the informant’s tip
must rely on his senses. The police officer must not adopt the suspicion initiated by
another person. The police officer, with his/her personal knowledge, must observe
the facts leading to the suspicion of an illicit act and not merely rely on the
information passed on to him/her.

Law enforcers cannot act solely on the basis of a tip. A tip is still hearsay no matter
how reliable it may be. It is not sufficient to constitute probable cause in the absence
of any other circumstance that will arouse suspicion.

The Supreme Court noted that there were two previous decisions (Pp. vs
Maspil and Pp. vs Bagista) which ruled that a confidential tip was sufficient to engender
probable cause, however, the Supreme Court in this case declared that these two
cases are now being abandoned to settle the issue once and for all.