Drugs

However, SPO1 Mora’s testimony is unreliable. First, he testified that after interviewing the confidential informant who arrived at their office either at 5 p.m. or 5:30 p.m. of 6 November 2006, they prepared the Pre-Operation Report/Coordination Sheet and sent it to PDEA on the same day. However, the time stamped on the Pre-Operation Report/Coordination Sheet showed that it was sent to PDEA much earlier - either at 1:30 p.m., 1:40 p.m. or 2 p.m. of 6 November 2006. Second, while SPO1 Mora claimed to have custody of the shabu specimen right after recovering it from Martin during the latter’s arrest, he did not mark the same at the scene of the crime. This is contrary to the explicit procedure for seizure of evidence laid down in Section 21 of R.A. 9165. He justified his non-compliance by saying that at the time, the guidelines had not yet been “properly implemented.” Contrary to SPO1 Mora’s excuse, however, the implementing guidelines for R.A. No. 9165 took effect on November 27, 2002, or four years before this incident. Third, SPO1 Mora had custody of the buy-bust money at the time of Martin’s arrest but when asked to explain its loss less than a year after the incident, he could not remember whether or not he handed it over to the investigator.

In view of the cited irregularities in the buy bust operation and the processing of the evidence shown in the preceding discussion, SPO1 Mora’s word cannot be given more weight than that of the accused (People of the Philippines Vs. Roberto Martin y Castano, G.R. No. 193234. October 19, 2011).