G.R. No. 130644. March 13, 1998.

*THE MINOR FRANCISCO JUAN LARRANAGA, Represented in

this Suit by his mother, MARGARITA G.LARRANAGA, petitioner, vs. COURT OF APPEALS and
PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, respondents.

FACTS;On September 15, 1997, some members of the Philippine National Police Criminal Investigation
Group (PNP CIG)went to the Center for Culinary Arts in Quezon City to arrest petitioner, albeit without
warrant. Petitioner resisted the arrest andimmediately phoned his sister and brother-in-law. Petitioner’s
sister sought the aid of Atty. Raymundo A. Armovit. Atty.Armovit, over the phone, dissuaded the police
officers from carrying out the warrantless arrest and proposed to meet with themat the CIG headquarters in
Camp Crame, Quezon City. The police officers yielded and returned to the CIG headquarters.Petitioner,
together with his sister and brother-in-law also went to the CIG headquarters aboard their own vehicle.
Atty. Armovitquestioned the legality of the warrantless arrest before CIG Legal Officer Ruben Zacarias.
After consulting with his superiors,Legal Officer Zacarias ordered to stop the arrest and allowed petitioner
to go home. Atty. Armovit made an undertaking inwriting that he and petitioner would appear before the
Cebu City Prosecutor on September 17, 1997 for preliminaryinvestigation. Petitioner Larranaga was
charged with two counts of kidnapping and serious illegal detention before the RTC ofCebu City. He was
arrested and was detained without the filing of the necessary Information and warrant of arrest. The
petitioneralleged that he must be released and be subject to a preliminary investigation. However p e n d i
n g t h er e s o l u t i o n o f t h e C o u r t f o r t h e p e t i t i o n f o r c e r t i o r a r i , p r o h i b i t i o n and
mandamus with writs ofpreliminary prohibitory and mandatory injunction filed by the petitioner, RTC
judge issued a warrant of arrest directed to thepetitioner.

ISSUE:WON the arrest of Petitioner Larraga without a warrant was legal?

RULING:No. Petitioner in this case was, in the first place, not arrested either by a peace officer or a private
person. To be sure,even if petitioner were arrested by the PNP CIG personnel, such arrest would still be
illegal because of the absence of a warrant.It does not appear in the case at bar that petitioner has just
committed, is actually committing or is attempting to commit anoffense when the police officers tried to
arrest him on September 15, 1997. In fact, petitioner was attending classes at the Centerfor Culinary Arts
at that time.