By Benjamin Pulta
MANILA – The Supreme Court (SC) has acquitted a man convicted by the lower court for illegally possessing a gun while he was being rescued during a motorcycle accident.
In its 19-page decision published online on June 18 and written by Associate Justice Henri Inting, the high court reversed and set aside the ruling against Tony Baclig, citing “failure of the prosecution to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Police came to the rescue of Baclig, who figured in an accident near midnight on Oct. 2, 2016, while riding a motorcycle on a provincial road in Tayug, Pangasinan.
In the course of his conversation with the law enforcers, police saw the firearm, a .45-caliber Taurus pistol inside his bag.
Baclig, a retired member of the defunct Citizen Armed Force Geographical Unit, could not produce the necessary license and documentation for the gun, prompting the police to arrest him.
The court said while the policemen validly seized the firearm, “reasonable doubt exists as to the integrity of the seized item.”
The SC noted that “the arresting officers’ failure to immediately mark the firearm at the place of seizure — an omission left wholly unexplained by the prosecution—constitutes an unresolved break in the evidentiary chain.”
“With respect to the integrity of the evidence, petitioner asserts that the joint affidavit of arrest failed to specify the measures undertaken by the police officers to secure the seized firearm and ammunition from the time of their confiscation until they were brought to the police station,” the SC said.
“Likewise, the prosecution failed to account on the manner in which the seized items were transported to the crime laboratory, the identity of the receiving personnel, and the procedures observed in their safekeeping following examination,” it added. (PNA)
