The Supreme Court Second Division has acquitted two individuals earlier convicted of drug charges due to the broken evidentiary chain.

In a 22-page decision, the SC reversed the ruling of the Court of Appeals that found Francis Valencia and Ryan Antipuesto guilty of selling illegal drugs.

They were ordered released from confinement unless they were being held for some other legal grounds.

“Receipts showing the chain of custody cannot be altered or modified while the specimen is in transit to the next custodian,” the SC said in the decision.

“Even a minimal change in the marking stated in these documents is fatal to the identity and integrity of corpus delicti,” it added.

Records showed that in 2016, the two were accused of selling or delivering heat-sealed transparent plastic sachet that contained shabu.

The testimonies of the police officers said they caught Valencia during a buy-bust operation while Antipuesto was nabbed in a follow-up operation.

A police officer marked the plastic sachet containing the evidence with “FLV/RA-BB-01-16-16” and then placed it inside a brown evidence envelope, which he kept with him.

The cop also prepared the inventory at the Dumaguete Police Station before returning the sachet to the envelope, which he sealed and signed.

He kept sole custody of the envelope until he brought it to the Negros Oriental Provincial Crime Laboratory.

In acquitting Valencia and Antipuesto, the SC said that the taking of inventory at the police station and not the place of arrest was a blatant disregard to the immediacy requirement under Section 21 of Republic Act 9165 or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act.

The court also said that there were “glaring irregularities” in the chain of custody.

“The fatal error involved a struck-out portion of the stated marking in a document showing the chain of custody. This alteration broke the chain, tainting the identity and integrity of the corpus delicti,” it said.

It noted that the letter request for a laboratory examination used “FLV/RA-BB-01-16-2016,” but that this was altered to remove the “20,” making it similar to the “FLV/RA-BB-01-16-16” marking on the sachet.

The Court said, no separate investigating officer was assigned to the case. It added that the cop who acted as the poseur-buyer during the buy-bust operation, was also the seizing officer, and the evidence custodian.

“While (the cop) was responsible as seizing officer and evidence custodian, he had no authority to modify the Letter Request reflecting the chain of custody. Otherwise, it would be very easy to manipulate the paper trial recording the movement of the corpus delicti.”

The high bench also stressed that documents must accurately reflect the marking on the drug and the series of transfers.