Facts: Patrolmen Silverio and Romeo Punzalan were conducting surveillance at the San Fernando Victory Liner Terminal. At around 9:30pm they noticed a person, Medel Tangliben, carrying a traveling bag who acted suspiciously. They confronted him, inspected his bag, and there they found marijuana leaves. The accused was then taken to the Police Headquarters for further investigations. The TC found Tangliben guilty of violating sec.4 art. 2 of the RA 6425 or the Dangerous Drugs Act of 1972.
Issue: Whether or Not there was an unlawful search due to lack of search warrant.
Held: No. Rule 113 sec. 5 provides the a peace officer or a private person may w/o a warrant arrest a person when in his presence the person to be arrested has committed, is committing, or is attempting to commit an offense.
In the present case, the accused was found to have been committing possession of marijuana and can be therefore searched lawfully even without a search warrant. Another reason is that this case poses urgency on the part of the arresting police officers. It was found out that an informer pointed to the accused telling the policemen that the accused was carrying marijuana. The police officers had to act quickly and there was not enough time to secure a search warrant.
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