471 Phil. 670
CALLEJO, SR., J.:
COMES NOW the undersigned HEAD AGENT of the National Bureau of Investigation, Cagayan Valley Regional Office Ilagan, Isabela hereby requests that a Search Warrant be issued on the Office of the Registry (sic) of Deeds, Provincial Capitol, Alibaga, Iligan for the purpose of seizing the following documents, to wit:On the same date, Presiding Judge Isaac R. de Alban issued Search Warrant No. 2000-03 against the petitioner, thusly worded:
01. Undetermined number of FAKE LAND TITLES, Official Receipts in the Cashier’s Office, Judicial Form No. 39 known as Our Primary Entry Book under no. 496 and other pertinent documents related therewith;
02. Blank Forms of Land Titles kept inside the drawers of every table of employees of the Registry (sic) of Deeds;
03. Undetermined number of Land Transfer transactions without the corresponding payment of Documentary Stamps and Capital Gains Tax.
all of which documents are being used or intended to be used in the commission of a felony that is FALSIFICATION OF LAND TITLES under Article 171, Revised Penal Code, Article 213, RPC and R.A. 3019 (Anti-Graft) and are hidden or being kept in the said office.
This application is founded on a confidential information received by the undersigned, a peace officer, on information which I have personally investigated and founded as follows: The Office of the Registry (sic) of Deeds of Isabela is keeping and hiding Fake Land Titles, and embezzling or stealing from the government thru non-payment of Capital Gains Tax and Documentary Stamps.
That upon the facts above-stated, I have caused to believe and verily believe that the said Office of the Registry (sic) of Deeds located at the Provincial Capital, Alibagu, Ilagan, Isabela and/or in the said Office of the Registry (sic) of Deeds the above-described documents are hidden and kept.[2]
TO ANY PEACE OFFICER:On February 17, 2000, the petitioner filed a motion to quash the search warrant, which the trial court denied in its Order dated February 29, 2000. The petitioner filed a motion for reconsideration of the said order on the ground that the questioned search warrant was in the form of a general warrant for failure to describe the persons or things to be seized and was violative of the Constitution; hence, null and void. The motion was, likewise, denied for lack of merit.
GREETINGS:
It appearing to the satisfaction of the undersigned after examining under oath NBI Head Agent Franklin M. Javier and his witness that there are reasonable grounds to believe that Falsification of Land Titles under Art. 171, Revised Penal Code, Article 213, RPC and R.A 3019 (Anti-Graft) has been committed or is about to be committed and that there are good and sufficient reasons to believe that the Registry (sic) of Deeds, Provincial Capitol, Alibagu, Ilagan, Isabela has in its possession and control the following:You are hereby commanded to make an immediate search anytime of the day or night of the premises above-mentioned and forthwith seize and take possession of the above mentioned documents/subject of the offense and bring to this court said documents and persons to be dealt with as the law may direct. You are further directed to submit return within 10 days from today.[3]
- Undetermined number of Fake Land Titles, Official Receipts in the Cashier’s Office, Judicial Form No. 39 known as Primary Entry Book under No. 496 and other pertinent documents related therewith;
- Blank Forms of Land Titles kept inside the drawers of every table of employees of the Registry (sic) of Deeds;
- Undetermined number of land Transfer transactions without the corresponding payment of Capital Gains Tax and payment of documentary Stamps.
The appealed order denying a motion to quash the search warrant is interlocutory and not appealable. Accordingly, the appeal is hereby DISMISSED. (Rule 41, Sec. 1 (c); Rule 50, Sec. 1 (i) and Sec. 2, 2nd paragraph, in relation to Rule 124, Sec. 18, Revised Rules of Court).The petitioner filed a motion to admit petition for certiorari on August 29, 2000 before the Court of Appeals.
SO ORDERED.[4]
4.1 On 08 December 1999, the undersigned received a “tip-off” (i.e. from the respondent himself, ATTY. ARIEL VALLEJO) about the presence of “fixers” who were allegedly submitting to him fake titles;Respondent Javier asserted that contrary to the position of the petitioner, the things to be seized were particularly described in the questioned warrant. Furthermore, considering the volume of the documents to be seized, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to provide the court with the technical descriptions of all the official receipts and the titles, including the reference number or mark of the documents. To require such task is to render the application of the search warrant nil, as no such search warrant could be granted. According to respondent Javier, there was no way that the court could determine with precision the exact details of the things to be seized. The law does not require that the things to be seized must be described in precise and minute details as to leave no room for doubt on the part of the searching authorities.[6] Respondent Javier also posited that the article “Judicial Form No. 39 known as the Primary Entry Book” could not or would not have been mistaken for any other documents; similarly the “Blank Forms of Land Titles kept inside the drawer of every table of employees of the Register of Deeds” clearly indicates the documents to be seized.[7]
4.2 The undersigned together with other operatives of the Cagayan Valley Regional Office (CAVRO) NBI, Isabela, Ilagan, conducted surveillance and entrapment operations to confirm the veracity of reported, (sic) As a result thereof, the “fixer” was later apprehended in “flagrante delicto” and was subjected to investigation together with other employees of the Register of Deeds of Ilagan, Isabela;
4.3 Thereafter a certain, MS. REMEDIOS BIRI, a clerk assigned at the Register of Deeds of Isabela, volunteered to provide CAVRO operatives vital information and later on turned witness considering her knowledge of the “scheme” being used by corrupt employees assigned at the said office;
4.4. On 16 February 2000, after confirming information relayed to us by witness MS. REMEDIOS BIRI, the undersigned applied for a search warrant against the Office of the Register of Deeds, Ilagan, Isabela for Falsification of Public Document under Art. 171 of the Revised Penal Code. The respondent presiding Judge HON. ISAAC DE ALBAN of the Regional Trial Court, Branch 16, Isabela, Ilagan finding the existence of “probable cause” issued Search Warrant No. 2000-03;
4.5 On 16 February 2000, operatives of CAVRO headed by the undersigned served aforecited search warrant. Found and seized inside the premises of the Register of Deeds if Ilagan, Isabela were several fake titles/documents; On 2 March 2000, a Return of the search warrant was made informing the respondent presiding judge of its positive findings; …[5]
First. We earlier dismissed movant’s appeal because it was a wrong choice of remedy to assail an order denying a motion to quash the search warrant. Movant himself has conceded that:Hence, the instant petition.“the relief that was resorted to by your appellant from the denial of his motion to quash search warrant subject of the case was under the imports of an ordinary appeal and that it was not the proper remedy under the premises.”Second. Movant’s petition for certiorari under rule 65 of the 1997 Rules of Civil Procedure purportedly to cure the procedural defect he incurred cannot be countenanced. He admitted that his petition was filed beyond the reglementary period. The correct dismissal of an appeal becomes a final judgment of the appellate court after the lapse of 15 days from service of a copy thereof upon the accused or his counsel.
Third. Movant cannot simultaneously or alternately resort to a petition for review under Rule 45 (ordinary appeal) and/or petition for certiorari under Rule 65 (special civil action). They are mutually exclusive remedies having different legal grounds for their availment. Thus, the dismissed appeal cannot be incorporated with movant’s petition for certiorari which should have been first resorted to upon denial of his motion to quash and docketed as a special civil action (SP).
ACCORDINGLY, the motion for reconsideration and the motion to admit petition for certiorari are DENIED for lack of merit.
SO ORDERED.[8]
According to the petitioner, by its failure to consider the petition on the merits, the Court of Appeals allowed technicality rather than substantial justice to prevail, considering that the issue involved is a constitutional right, no less than the right of one to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures.
- DENYING PETITIONER’S MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION ON THE RESOLUTION OF THE RESPONDENT HON. COURT OF APPEALS DISMISSING PETITIONER’S APPEAL ON THE RESPONDENT’S REGIONAL TRIAL COURT’S ORDER DENYING PETITIONER’S MOTION TO QUASH SEARCH WARRANT;
- DENYING PETITIONER’S MOTION TO ADMIT PETITION FOR CERTIORARI UNDER RULE 65 OF THE REVISED RULES OF COURT, SEEKING TO CORRECT THE ERROR OF JURISDICTION COMMITTED BY THE RESPONDENT REGIONAL TRIAL COURT, AS THERE WAS GRAVE ABUSE OF JUDICIAL DISCRETION AMOUNTING TO EXCESS OR LACK OF JURISDICTION IN DENYING PETITIONER’S MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION OF THE SAID REGIONAL TRIAL COURT’S ORDER DENYING THE MOTION TO QUASH SEARCH WARRANT;
- FAILING TO APPRECIATE AND CONSIDER SUBSTANTIAL JUSTICE ON PETITIONER’S APPEAL OR CASE, AND BY REASON OF THIS FAILURE SUBSTANTIAL JUSTICE IS SERIOUSLY INJURED AND MADE SUBSERVIENT TO THE TECHNICALITY OF THE RULES;
- FAILING TO ACT UPON PETITIONER’S PETITION FOR CERTIORARI AND MAKE A RULING ON THE MATTER OF THE PATENT NULLITY OF THE SEARCH WARRANT ISSUED BY THE RESPONDENT REGIONAL TRIAL COURT THAT IN ITS EXECUTION EXTREME PREJUDICE RESULTED AND THAT BY REASON FOR WHICH RELIEF IS EXTREMELY URGENT;[9]
Sec 2. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures of whatever nature and for any purpose shall be inviolable, and no such search warrant or warrant of arrest shall issue except upon probable cause to be determined personally by the judge after examination under oath or affirmation of the complainant and the witnesses he may produce, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.Furthermore, Rule 126 of the Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure provides the requisites for the issuance of a search warrant, viz.:
Sec. 4. Requisites for issuing search warrant. – A search warrant shall not issue except upon probable cause in connection with one specific offense to be determined personally by the judge after examination under oath or affirmation of the complainant and the witnesses he may produce, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the things to be seized which may be anywhere in the Philippines.Thus, in issuing a search warrant, the judge must strictly comply with the foregoing constitutional and statutory requirements; failure to comply therewith constitutes grave abuse of discretion.[17]
Sec. 5. Examination of complainant; record. – The judge must, before issuing the warrant, personally examine in the form of searching questions and answers, in writing and under oath, the complainant and the witnesses he may produce on facts personally known to them and attach to the record their sworn statements, together with the affidavits submitted.
4. Undetermined number of Fake Land Titles, Official Receipts in the Cashier’s Office, Judicial Form No. 39 known as Primary Entry Book under No. 496 and other pertinent documents related therewith;As correctly pointed out by the petitioner and the OSG, the terms expressly used in the warrant were too all-embracing, with the obvious intent of subjecting all the records pertaining to all the transactions of the petitioner’s office at the Register of Deeds to search and seizure. Such tenor of a seizure warrant contravenes the explicit command of the Constitution that there be a particular description of the things to be seized.[24] The executing officer’s sole function is to apply the description to its subject matter, which function may frequently involve the exercise of limited discretion in identifying the property described. A description of such generality, however, as to lodge in the executing officer virtually unlimited discretion as to what property shall be seized, is repugnant to the Constitution.[25] As we held in the early case of People v. Veloso:[26]
5. Blank Forms of Land Titles kept inside the drawers of every table of employees of the Registry of Deeds;
6. Undetermined number of land Transfer transactions without the corresponding payment of Capital Gains Tax and payment of Documentary Stamps.[23]
A search warrant must conform strictly to the requirements of the constitutional and statutory provisions under which it was issued. Otherwise, it is void. The proceedings upon search warrants, it has rightly been held, must be absolutely legal, for there is not a description of process known to law, the execution of which is more distressing to the citizen. Perhaps there is none which excites such intense feeling in consequence of its humiliating and degrading effect. The warrant will always be construed strictly without, however, going into the full length of requiring technical accuracy. No presumptions of regularity are to be invoked in aid of the process when an officer undertakes to justify under it.[27]The Search Warrant Must
To uphold the validity of the warrant in question would be to wipe out completely one of the most fundamental rights guaranteed in our Constitution, for it would place the sanctity of the domicile and the privacy of communication and correspondence at the mercy of the whims, caprice, or passion of peace officers. This is precisely the evil sought to be remedied by the constitutional provision above-quoted – to outlaw the so-called general warrants. It is not difficult to imagine what would happen, in times of keen political strife, when the party in power feels that the minority is likely to wrest it, even though by legal means. [31]WHEREFORE, the Resolutions of the Court of Appeals dated September 6, 2000 and November 28, 2002 are SET ASIDE AND REVERSED. The respondent National Bureau of Investigation is hereby ORDERED to return to the petitioner all items seized from the subject premises.