A.M. No. MTJ-04-1537 (formerly A.M. OCA IPI No. 01-998-MTJ) - ARTEMIO SABATIN, COMPLAINANT, VS. JUDGE EFREN B. MALLARE, MUNICIPAL CIRCUIT TRIAL COURT, NATIVIDAD-LLANERA, NUEVA ECIJA. D E C I S I O N - Supreme Court E-Library

Ruling

WHEREFORE, premises considered, the motion to quash search warrant is hereby returned to the accused and his counsel, with the advise that it be referred to the Hon. Executive Judge, RTC, Cabanatuan City or Judge Efren B. Mallare for appropriate action. [3] The respondent judge thereafter issued an Order dated December 4, 2000, to wit: After a careful perusal of the grounds relied upon by the accused in seeking for the quashal/dismissal of this case, the Court noticed that the same appeared to be well taken as the records would readily show that the Chief of Police, PNP, Gen. Natividad, Nueva Ecija has applied for a search warrant against one Pedrito Sabatin alias Boyet and this has been admitted by the then Chief of Police Franklin Versoza Simon as per his comment dated 13 September 2000 (p. 27, rec.), although he misspelled the name Pedrito to Pablito by advancing reason that an error was committed when said first name was typewrote (sic) and in order to obviate any leakage thereof, a correction has been made from Pedrito/Pablito to Artemio Sabatin alias Boyet which led to the filing of the instant case. In short, the search warrant issued by this court against one Pedrito Sabatin alias Boyet, after it has complied with the requisite for issuing search warrant (Sec. 3, Rule 126 Revised Rules on Criminal Procedure), has not been fully implemented. Furthermore, the case filed before this Court against one Artemio Sabatin y Miguel alias Boyet cannot be entertained by this court for this court has never issued any search warrant against said accused ; and, therefore, any evidence taken from him maybe considered inadmissible for the search undertaken by the PNP of Gen. Natividad, Nueva Ecija, is considered unlawful. WHEREFORE, finding the Motion To Quash/Dismiss Criminal Complaint meritorious, the same is hereby granted and this case is hereby dismissed. [4] According to the complainant, the respondent judge issued the questioned search warrant despite his lack of authority to do so in order to protect P/Sr. Insp. Franklin V. Simon. He also alleged that the respondent later on denied that he issued the questioned warrant in order to escape possible administrative sanctions. In his Comment, the respondent averred that the normal procedure in criminal cases was to set them for preliminary examination in order to determine probable cause. However, in this case, the complainant (accused therein) through counsel practically waived the early resolution of the preliminary examination by filing several motions. Thus, the complainant cannot now question the delay in the early termination of the criminal case, for had it not been for the filing of said motions, the preliminary examination could have been terminated since September 2000 as provided for in the Rules of Criminal Procedure. The respondent further stated, thus: To recapitulate; therefore, the undersigned believes that being an Acting Presiding Judge of the 2 nd Municipal Circuit Trial Court of Gen