New SC rules worries Security Sector

THE Philippine security sector is expected to ask the Supreme Court to “revisit” the high court’s recent ruling limiting the authority of the Manila and Quezon City regional trial courts to issue search warrants outside their jurisdictions due to its perceived “negative effect” on the country’s anti-terrorism campaign, especially against the top leaders of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).

Under ‘Resolution A.M. No. 21-06-08-SC’ dated June 29, 2021 (Rules on the use of body-worn cameras in the execution of warrants), the high court also mandated that henceforth, law enforcers serving search or arrest warrants must now wear body cameras “or alternative recording devices” capable of recording the entire operation.

The resolution was principally authored by Associate Justice Marvin Leonen and was approved during an en banc session of the Supreme Court presided by Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo.

Failure by law enforcers to wear body cameras during the execution of a warrant “without reasonable grounds” or where those serving the warrant “intentionally interferes” with the body-worn cameras’ ability to “accurately capture audio and video recordings of the arrest” would be considered as “contempt of court” by the court which issued the warrant.

But for the country’s security cluster, highly-placed sources, who declined to be named for the moment, said their immediate concern is the limitation placed by the SC on the executive judges in Manila and Quezon City to issue warrants outside their jurisdiction.

Instead, law enforcers seeking to arrest top terrorist leaders who are mostly based in the provinces, would now have to apply for a warrant in the court having jurisdiction in their target area of operation.

It can be recalled that several petitions, mostly coming from CPP front organizations, have been filed at the Supreme Court assailing the alleged human rights violations and unnecessary deaths being committed by state forces arising from the war on drugs and the campaign to arrest and neutralize CPP regional and national leaders.

But according to the sources, the SC’s circular, while laudable in its intent to make any search and arrest as transparent as possible, would not also serve the purpose of ensuring the effective implementation of arrest and seizure of suspected law violators.

“While it is noted that the Court is mindful of the increasing reports of civilian deaths resulting from the execution of warrants issued by trial courts, the causes and conditions surrounding such deaths being widely disputed, the promulgated rule should not hinder or limit the State’s right to punish people who violated its penal laws, which, among others, takes its flight from the effective procurement of search warrants,” one of the sources explained further.

The sources also noted that based on past experience, the information that a law enforcement unit had applied for a warrant at a local court has more often than not, “leaked out” as some court employees are either closet supporters or relatives of the target of the warrant.

They added that law enforcement agencies are also constrained to apply search warrants in the localities where the people will not be at liberty to reveal what they know.

This, experience, they added, would make a mockery of the judicial process as it also betrays the very purpose for which a search warrant was issued.

The national security cluster also noted that the latest SC ruling is a complete reversal of a circular it issued in 2004 (AM No. 03-8-02-SC) that grants authority to the executive judges of Manila and Quezon City, and – in their absence – their vice executive judges, to issue search warrants outside their judicial jurisdictions.

They noted that this earlier court circular was approved under the general idea that in issuing remote warrants, the farther the court, the lesser the likelihood that the subjects are notified that they are about to be searched or arrested.