RICARDO C.
VALMONTE AND UNION OF LAWYERS AND ADVOCATES FOR The general allegation to the effect that he had been stopped and searched without
PEOPLE'S RIGHTS (ULAP), petitioners, vs. GEN. RENATO DE VILLA AND
NATIONAL CAPITAL REGION DISTRICT COMMAND, respondents.
G.R. No. 83988 | September 29, 1989 | PADILLA, J.
FACTS
20 January 1987 - the NCR District Command (NCRDC) was activated pursuant
to Letter of Instruction 02/87 of the Philippine General Headquarters, AFP, with the
mission of conducting security operations within its area of responsibility and
peripheral areas, for the purpose of establishing an effective territorial defense,
maintaining peace and order, and providing an atmosphere conducive to the social,
economic and political development of the National Capital Region. As part of its
duty to maintain peace and order, the NCRDC installed checkpoints in various
parts of Valenzuela, Metro Manila.
Petitioners Arguments
Because of the installation of said checkpoints, the residents of Valenzuela are
worried of being harassed and of their safety being placed at the arbitrary,
capricious and whimsical disposition of the military manning the checkpoints,
considering that their cars and vehicles are being subjected to regular searches and
check-ups, especially at night or at dawn, without the benefit of a search warrant
and/or court order.
At dawn of 9 July 1988, Benjamin Parpon, a supply officer of the Municipality of
Valenzuela, Bulacan, was gunned down allegedly in cold blood by the members of
the NCRDC manning the checkpoint along McArthur Highway at Malinta,
Valenzuela, for ignoring and/or refusing to submit himself to the checkpoint and for
continuing to speed off inspire of warning shots fired in the air.
On several occasions, he had gone thru these checkpoints where he was stopped
and his car subjected to search/check-up without a court order or search warrant.
The checkpoints give the respondents a blanket authority to make searches and/or
seizures without search warrant or court order in violation of the Constitution; and,
instances have occurred where a citizen, while not killed, had been harassed.
ISSUE
W/N the checkpoints are illegal - NO
RATIO
Petitioners' concern for their safety and apprehension at being harassed by the
military manning the checkpoints are not sufficient grounds to declare the
checkpoints as per se illegal.
No proof has been presented before the Court to show that, in the course of their
routine checks, the military indeed committed specific violations of petitioners' right
against unlawful search and seizure or other rights.
The constitutional right against unreasonable searches and seizures is a
personal right which may be invoked only by those whose rights have been
infringed, or threatened to be infringed.
What constitutes a reasonable or unreasonable search and seizure in any particular
case is purely a judicial question, determinable from a consideration of the
circumstances involved.
a search warrant by the military manning the checkpoints, without more, i.e., without
stating the details of the incidents which amount to a violation of his right against
unlawful search and seizure, is not sufficient to enable the Court to determine
whether there was a violation of Valmonte's right against unlawful search and
seizure.
Not all searches and seizures are prohibited. Those which are reasonable are not
forbidden. A reasonable search is not to be determined by any fixed formula but is
to be resolved according to the facts of each case.
The setting up of the questioned checkpoints may be considered as a security
measure to enable the NCRDC to pursue its mission of establishing effective
territorial defense and maintaining peace and order for the benefit of the public.
Checkpoints may also be regarded as measures to thwart plots to destabilize the
government, in the interest of public security.
Between the inherent right of the state to protect its existence and promote public
welfare and an individual's right against a warrantless search which is
however reasonably conducted, the former should prevail.
RULING
Petition is DISMISSED.
Separate Opinions
CRUZ, J., dissenting:
The sweeping statements in the majority opinion are as dangerous as the
checkpoints it would sustain and fraught with serious threats to individual liberty.
The bland declaration that individual rights must yield to the demands of national
security ignores the fact that the Bill of Rights was intended precisely to limit the
authority of the State even if asserted on the ground of national security. What is
worse is that the searches and seizures are peremptorily pronounced to be
reasonable even without proof of probable cause and much less the required
warrant. The improbable excuse is that they are aimed at 'establishing an effective
territorial defense, maintaining peace and order, and providing an atmosphere
conducive to the social, economic and political development of the National Capital
Region." For these purposes, every individual may be stopped and searched at
random and at any time simply because he excites the suspicion, caprice, hostility
or malice of the officers manning the checkpoints, on pain of arrest or worse, even
being shot to death, if he resists.
SARMIENTO, J., dissenting:
The Charter says that the people enjoy the right of security of person, home, and
effects. (CONST., art. III, sec. 2.) It is also the bedrock the right of the people to
be left alone on which the regime of law and constitutionalism rest. It is not, as
the majority would put it, a matter of "occasional inconveniences, discomfort and
even irritation." (Resolution, 4.) To say that it is, is so I submit to trivialize the
plain command of the Constitution.
Checkpoints are things of martial rule, and things of the past. They first saw the light
of day by virtue of General Order No. 66, a martial law issuance.
 While the right against unreasonable searches and seizures, as my brethren
advance, is a right personal to the aggrieved party, the petitioners, precisely, have
come to Court because they had been, or had felt, aggrieved.
The burden is the State's, to demonstrate the reasonableness of the search. The
petitioners, Ricardo Valmonte in particular, need not, therefore, have illustrated the
"details of the incident" (Resolution, supra, 4) in all their gore and gruesomeness.
The absence alone of a search warrant, as I have averred, makes checkpoint
searches unreasonable, and by itself, subject to constitutional challenges. (Supra.)
As it is, "checkpoints", have become "search warrants".
What we have here, however, is not simply a policeman on the beat but armed men,
CAFGU or Alsa Masa, who hold the power of life or death over the citizenry, who
fire with no provocation and without batting an eyelash. They likewise shoot you
simply because they do not like your face. I have witnessed actual incidents.