When a person violates a Regulation that imposes a fine or community service, arrest is not proper.

 

When a person violates a Regulation that imposes a fine or community service, arrest is not proper. Therefore, there could be no search incidental to a lawful arrest [.]

Examples:

(i) Violation of city or municipal ordinance;

(ii) Under R.A. 4136, or the Land Transportation and Traffic Code, the general procedure for dealing with a trafficviolation is [not] the arrest of the offender, [but] the confiscation of the driver’s license of the latter or issue a corresponding ticket as the case may be[.]

To protect the people from unreasonable searches and seizures, Section 3(2), Article III of the 1987 Constitution providesthat evidence obtained from unreasonable searches and seizures shall be inadmissible in evidence for any purpose in any proceeding. In other words, evidence obtained and confiscated on the occasion of such unreasonable searches and seizures are deemed tainted and should be [excluded] for being the proverbial fruit of a poisonous tree[.]

[...] the law requires that there [first] be a lawful arrest [before] a search can be made — the process cannot be reversed.

RAMON PICARDAL y BALUYOT, petitioner, vs. PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, respondent.

G.R. No. 235749. June 19, 2019

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