People vs Gerente

Facts:
On April 1990, Gabriel Gerente, together with Fredo Echigoren and Totoy Echigoren, started drinking liquor and
smoking marijuana in the house of Gerente. According to the eye witness Edna Reyes, she heard the three talking about
their intention to kill Clarito Blance.
At about 2:00 PM of that day, the three carried out their plan to kill Blance. They hit Blance with a wood in the
head causing Blance to fall to the ground. When he fell, Echigoren dropped a hollow block on the victims head. At 4:00
PM, patrolman received information about a mauling incident. When he went to the hospital where the victim was
brought, he was informed that the victim was dead on arrival. The patrolman together with other police officers
proceeded to the place where the incident happened and found the wood and hollow block used to kill the victim. They
were then informed by the witness Edna about the identity of the ones who did it.
The policemen then went to the house of Gerente who was then sleeping. They told him to come out and
introduced themselves as policemen. The police then frisked Gerente and found a coin purse in his pocket which
contained dried leaves wrapped in cigarette foil which tested positive for marijuana.
Gerente was then charged for illegal possession of marijuana and murder.
Defendant contends that the evidence obtained against him was inadmissible for it violates his constitutional
right against unreasonable searches and seizures. On the other hand, prosecutor contends that such warrantless search
was valid because it was incidental to a lawful arrest.

Issue: Whether or not there was a lawful arrest making the warrantless search and evidence obtained valid

Ruling:
Yes, there was a lawful arrest, thus the warrantless search and the evidence obtained is valid. Under Section2,
Article III of the Constitution, a search and seizure must be made by virtue of a valid warrant. However, one of the
exceptions of this rule is when there is a warrantless search incidental to a lawful arrest. Here, there must be a prior
lawful arrest before the warrantless search. Under the same constitutional provision, an arrest, as a general rule is only
valid upon the issuance of a warrant of arrests. However, under Section 5, Rule 113 of the Rules of Court, a peace officer
or private individual may, without warrant, arrest a person when (a) the person to be arrested had committed, is
committing, or is attempting to commit a crime, or (b) when an offense has in fact just been committed, and he has
personal knowledge of facts indicating that the person to be arrested has committed it.
The policemen arrested Gerente only some three (3) hours after Gerente and his companions had killed Blace.
They saw Blace dead in the hospital and when they inspected the scene of the crime, they found the instruments of
death: a piece of wood and a concrete hollow block which the killers had used to bludgeon him to death. The eye-
witness, Edna Edwina Reyes, reported the happening to the policemen and pinpointed her neighbor, Gerente, as one of
the killers. Under those circumstances, since the policemen had personal knowledge of the violent death of Blace and of
facts indicating that Gerente and two others had killed him, they could lawfully arrest Gerente without a warrant. If they
had postponed his arrest until they could obtain a warrant, he would have fled the law as his two companions did.