Lawful warrantless arrest

G.R. No. 212340, August 17, 2016 - PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. GERRJAN MANAGO Y ACUT, Accused-Appellant.

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Section 2, Article III of the 1987 Constitution mandates that a search and seizure must be carried out through or on the strength of a judicial warrant predicated upon the existence of probable cause, absent which such search and seizure becomes "unreasonable" within the meaning of the said constitutional provision. To protect the people from unreasonable searches and seizures, Section 3 (2), Article III of the 1987 Constitution provides that evidence obtained and confiscated on the occasion of such unreasonable searches and seizures are deemed tainted and should be excluded for being the proverbial fruit of a poisonous tree. In other words, evidence obtained from unreasonable searches and seizures shall be inadmissible in evidence for any purpose in any proceeding.34

One of the recognized exceptions to the need of a warrant before a search may be effected is a search incidental to a lawful arrest. In this instance, the law requires that there first be a lawful arrest before a search can be made — the process cannot be reversed.35chanrobleslaw

A lawful arrest may be effected with or without a warrant. With respect to the latter, the parameters of Section 5, Rule 113 of the Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure should - as a general rule - be complied with:

SEC. 5. Arrest without warrant; when lawful. — A peace officer or a private person may, without a warrant, arrest a person:

chanRoblesvirtualLawlibrary(a) When, in his presence, the person to be arrested has committed, is actually committing, or is attempting to commit an offense;

(b) When an offense has just been committed and he has probable cause to believe based on personal knowledge of facts or circumstances that the person to be arrested has committed it; and 

(c) When the person to be arrested is a prisoner who has escaped from a penal establishment or place where he is serving final judgment or is temporarily confined while his case is pending, or has escaped while being transferred from one confinement to another.

In cases falling under paragraphs (a) and (b) above, the person arrested without a warrant shall be forthwith delivered to the nearest police station or jail and shall be proceeded against in accordance with Section 7 of Rule 112.


Under the foregoing provision, there are three (3) instances when warrantless arrests may be lawfully effected. These are: (a) an arrest of a suspect in flagrante delicto; (b) an arrest of a suspect where, based on personal knowledge of the arresting officer, there is probable cause that said suspect was the perpetrator of a crime which had just been committed; and (c) an arrest of a prisoner who has escaped from custody serving final judgment or temporarily confined during the pendency of his case or has escaped while being transferred from one confinement to another.36

In warrantless arrests made pursuant to Section 5 (b), it is essential that the element of personal knowledge must be coupled with the element of immediacy; otherwise, the arrest may be nullified, and resultantly, the items yielded through the search incidental thereto will be rendered inadmissible in consonance with the exclusionary rule of the 1987 Constitution. In Pestilos v. Generoso,37 the Court explained the requirement of immediacy as follows:

Based on these discussions, it appears that the Court's appreciation of the elements that "the offense has just been committed" and "personal knowledge of facts and circumstances that the person to be arrested; committed it" depended on the particular circumstances of the case.

However, we note that the element of "personal knowledge of facts or circumstance" under Section 5 (b), Rule 113 of the Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure requires clarification.

The phrase covers facts or, in the alternative, circumstances. According to the Black's Law Dictionary, "circumstances are attendant or accompanying facts, events or conditions." Circumstances may pertain to events or actions within the actual perception, personal evaluation or observation of the police officer at the scene of the crime. Thus, even though the police officer has not seen someone actually fleeing, he could still make a warrantless arrest if, based on his personal evaluation of the circumstances at the scene of the crime, he could determine the existence of probable cause that the person sought to be arrested has committed the crime. However, the determination of probable cause and the gathering of facts or circumstances should be made immediately after the commission of the crime in order to comply with the element of immediacy.

In other words, the clincher in the element of "personal knowledge of facts or circumstances" is the required element of immediacy within which these facts or circumstances should be gathered. This required time element acts as a safeguard to ensure that the police officers have gathered the facts or perceived the circumstances within a very limited time frame. This guarantees that the police officers would have no time to base their probable cause finding on facts or circumstances obtained after an exhaustive investigation.

The reason for the element of the immediacy is this - as the time gap from the commission of the crime to the arrest widens, the pieces of information gathered are prone to become contaminated and subjected to external factors, interpretations and hearsay. On the other hand, with the element of immediacy imposed under Section 5 (b), Rule 113 of the Revised Rules of Criminal Procedure, the police officer's determination of probable cause would necessarily be limited to raw or uncontaminated facts or circumstances, gathered as they were within a very limited period of time. The same provision adds another safeguard with the requirement of probable cause as the standard for evaluating these facts of circumstances before the police officer could effect a valid warrantless arrest.38 (Emphases and underscoring supplied)


In this case, records reveal that at around 9:30 in the evening of March 15, 2007, PO3 Din personally witnessed a robbery incident while he was waiting for his turn to have a haircut at Jonas Borces Beauty Parlor. After his brief shootout with the armed robbers, the latter fled using a motorcycle and a red Toyota Corolla. Through an investigation and verification made by the police officers headed by PO3 Din and S/Insp. Ylanan, they were able to: (a) find out that the armed robbers were staying in Barangay Del Rio Pit-os; and (b) trace the getaway vehicles to Manago. The next day, or on March 16, 2007, the police officers set up a checkpoint in Sitio Panagdait where, at around 9:30 in the evening, the red Toyota Corolla being driven by Manago passed by and was intercepted by the police officers. The police officers then ordered Manago to disembark the car, and from there, proceeded to search the vehicle and the body of Manago, which search yielded the plastic sachet containing shabu. Thereupon, they effected Manago's arrest.

The foregoing circumstances show that while the element of personal knowledge under Section 5 (b) above was present - given that PO3 Din actually saw the March 15, 2007 robbery incident and even engaged the armed robbers in a shootout - the required element of immediacy was not met. This is because, at the time the police officers effected the warrantless arrest upon Manago's person, investigation and verification proceedings were already conducted, which consequently yielded sufficient information on the suspects of the March 15, 2007 robbery incident. As the Court sees it, the information the police officers had gathered therefrom would have been enough for them to secure the necessary warrants against the robbery suspects. However, they opted to conduct a "hot pursuit" operation which - considering the lack of immediacy - unfortunately failed to meet the legal requirements therefor. Thus, there being no valid warrantless arrest under the "hot pursuit" doctrine, the CA erred in ruling that Manago was lawfully arrested.

In view of the finding that there was no lawful arrest in this case, the CA likewise erred in ruling that the incidental search on Manago's vehicle and body was valid. In fact, the said search was made even before he was arrested and thus, violated the cardinal rule on searches incidental to lawful arrests that there first be a lawful arrest before a search can be made.

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