NBI challenges move to quash warrant vs. falsification suspect

CEBU, Philippines – The National Bureau of Investigation is moving for the dismissal of the petition for certiorari before the Court of Appeals filed by former City Hall employee Sandre Po assailing the validity of the search warrant issued by the Regional Trial Court against him for possession of assorted counterfeit public documents.

NBI supervising agent Rennan Oliva, in his comment to the petition, said that the petition for certiorari filed by Po questioning the lower court decision dismissing his motion to quash the search warrant is without legal basis.

Oliva said all the documents recovered from Po’s house on May 31, 2007 as a result of the implementation of the search warrant issued by then RTC executive judge Fortunato de Gracia have already been certified as fake by the concerned government agencies such as Bureau of Internal Revenue and Cebu City Assessor’s Office.

In fact, Oliva said that Po is facing at least 103 cases for falsification of public documents before the different courts in Cebu City.

Po earlier moved to quash the search warrant against him claiming that the NBI operatives who applied for the said warrant did not have personal knowledge which is required under the Constitution. He claimed that the NBI deceived the court into issuing the warrant against him.

The NBI however said that the constitutional requirement was complied with substantially. In fact, the operation yielded positive results.

The NBI was able to convince the court which subsequently dismissed Po’s motion to quash. Po, however, did not give up and elevated the matter before the appellate court on certiorari.

The special former 19th Division of the Court of Appeals recently reinstated Po’s petition for certiorari after it was previously dismissed because of formal defects.

Associate Justices Franchito Diamante, Francisco Acosta and Edgardo delos Santos, in a recent ruling, vacated their previous dismissal of the petition for certiorari by granting Po’s motion for reconsideration after his lawyer Rene Allan Jervoso corrected the formal defects in their petition.

In the re-instituted petition for certiorari Po claimed that the search of his house in barangay Sambag I in 2007 was illegal citing the lack of the constitutional requirements.

Po reiterated his argument in his motion to quash before the RTC that the NBI did not have personal knowledge that he had committed or was committing the crime of falsification of public documents.

According to him, the warrant was applied for and granted by De Gracia, who is now retired, without probable cause.

Po added that he was also not around during the search because he was already in the custody of the NBI who arrested him during an entrapment operation before the warrant was served. — Fred P. Languido/BRP (THE FREEMAN)