THIRD DIVISION 

[G.R. No. 179150, June 17, 2008] 

PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES, PLAINTIFF-APPELLEE, VS. DELIA BAYANI Y BOTANES,

D E C I S I O N 

CHICO-NAZARIO, J.:

Appellant Delia Bayani y Botanes assails the Decision [1] of the Court of Appeals dated 20 December 2005 in
CA-G.R. CR-H.C. No. 00310, affirming the Decision[2] dated 16 July 2004 of Branch 103 of the Regional Trial
Court (RTC) of Quezon City, in Criminal Case No. Q-03-115598. The RTC found appellant guilty beyond
reasonable doubt of drug pushing, in violation of Section 5, Article II of Republic Act No. 9165, [3] also known
as the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002, and sentenced her to suffer life imprisonment and a
fine of five hundred thousand pesos.

On 7 March 2003, an Information[4] was filed before the RTC charging appellant with Violation of Section 5 of
Republic Act No. 9165, which reads:
That on or about the 3rd day of March 2003, in the Quezon City, Philippines, the above-named accused, not
being authorized by law to sell, dispense, deliver, transport or distribute any dangerous drug, did then and
there, willfully and unlawfully sell, dispense, deliver, transport, distribute or act as broker in the said
transaction, six point forty one (6.41) grams of Methylamphetamine Hydrochloride, a dangerous
drug.
On 9 September 2003, appellant, with the assistance of counsel de oficio, was arraigned and  she pleaded
"Not guilty." Thereafter, a pre-trial conference was held, and trial ensued accordingly. [5]

Evidence for the prosecution consisted of the testimony of PO3 Virgilio Bernardo, who testified that on 3
March 2003, a confidential informant arrived at Police Station 3, Quirino Highway, Barangay Talipapa,
Quezon City, where he was on duty, and reported to the Drug Enforcement Unit that appellant was illegally
trading drugs along Trinidad Street, Barangay Gulod, Novaliches, Quezon City. Chief Superintendent
Gerardo Ratuita formed a team composed of PO3 Bernardo, SPO4 Brigido An, SPO2 Levi Sevilla, PO2 Manny
Panlilio, and PO2 Cecil Collado to conduct a buy-bust operation. The team took with them "boodle" money
with two (2) pieces of genuine one-hundred-peso bills on top as buy-bust money. [6]

At around 10:30 in the morning of the same day, PO3 Bernardo and the informant went in front of the
appellant's house located at No. 22 Barangay Gulod, Trinidad Street, Novaliches, Quezon City, while the
other police officers positioned themselves within viewing distance. The appellant was standing in front of
her house. As they approached her, the informant introduced Bernardo to her as a shabu  buyer. Witness
testified that he told appellant that he wanted to buy ten thousand pesos (P10,000.00) worth of shabu,  and
the appellant nodded her head. Thereafter, she handed him two sachets containing a crystalline substance
which was suspected to be shabu. Witness, in turn, gave the boodle money, after which he grabbed the
appellant's right hand, apprehended her, and identified himself as a police officer. [7]

After the apprehension of the appellant, the team brought her before the Police Station investigator, while
the drugs and the buy-bust money were turned over to the crime laboratory. Appellant was apprised of her
constitutional rights.[8]

During his testimony, PO3 Bernardo identified the accused, the boodle money with his initials "VB," as well
as two (2) sachets of crystalline substance (also with the same initials) which was positive of
methylamphetamine hydrochloride after laboratory examination. [9]
Denying the charge filed against her, appellant testified that at around 7:00 in the morning of 3 March 2003,
she was inside her house with her children and her sister-in-law. While changing her clothes inside her room
at the third floor, seven men barged inside her house. When she asked them what they were doing inside
her house, they refused to answer. Although they continued to search her house, they did not find drugs
therein. Thereafter, they introduced themselves as police officers and commanded her to show them
the shabu. When she denied possession of any shabu, the police officers got angry and forced her to go with
them to the Police Station. She also testified that she could not cry to her neighbors for help because she
was locked inside her room while her sister-in-law and her five children were all afraid of the police. [10]

When they arrived at the Police Station, she was asked if she knew a certain "Allan." She answered in the
negative. After a day of detention, she was brought to the office of the inquest fiscal where she was
informed that she was being charged with drug pushing. [11]

Appellant's seventeen-year-old son, Dan Jefferson, corroborated his mother's testimony. He recounted that
he was about to leave their house when five men barged into their house and went straight to his mother's
room at the third floor. He testified that he did not know what happened on the third floor since, at that
time, he stayed in their sala at the second floor of the house. Thereafter, the rest of the police officers and
his mother left the house, while he stayed put. [12]

In a Decision dated 16 July 2004, the RTC decreed that the accused was guilty without reasonable doubt
since the fact of the illegal sale of a dangerous drug, methylamphetamine hydrochloride, was sufficiently
and indisputably established by the prosecution. PO3 Bernardo, as the poseur-buyer, positively identified the
appellant as the person who handed him two sachets containing 6.41 grams of shabu  in exchange for
P10,000.00. The boodle money was marked as Exhibit "B" for the prosecution. [13] The two sachets
of shabu were likewise presented and marked in court as Exhibits "G" and "H." [14] The RTC gave full
credence to PO3 Bernardo's testimony, given the presumption of regularity in the performance of his
functions as a police officer, especially since no ill motive was attributed to him for the appellant's
apprehension. On the other hand, the RTC found the testimony of appellant's son, Dan, on what transpired
on the third floor to be unreliable, since at that time he was supposedly staying in the sala, which was
located at another floor.[15]

According to the dispositive part of the Decision dated 16 July 2004:

The drug involved in this case is hereby ordered transmitted to the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency
(PDEA) through the Dangerous Drugs Board for proper disposition. [16]
The appellant filed an appeal before the Court of Appeals docketed as CA-G.R. CR-H.C. No. 00310. Raising
only one assignment of error, appellant faulted the RTC's finding of guilt for being based on a buy-bust
transaction instigated by the arresting officers. In affirming the RTC Decision, the appellate court declared
that the police officers did not induce the appellant to sell the prohibited drugs. By pointing out the fact that
appellant had the shabu in her possession, ready for selling, before the police officer approached her, it
adjudged that the appellant's criminal resolve was evident; no inducement to sell the prohibited drugs had
led to the commission of the offense. It maintained that the fact that the police officers did not conduct a
prior surveillance does not affect the validity of an entrapment operation. It further held that presentation
by the prosecution of the informant and other police officers who had witnessed the buy-bust operations was
not required to prove the appellant's guilt, where their testimonies would merely repeat the testimony of the
poseur-buyer.[17]In the Decision dated 20 December 2005, the fallo reads:
WHEREFORE, the foregoing considered, the appeal is herebyDISMISSED and the assailed
Decision AFFIRMED in toto. Without pronouncement as to costs. [18]
Hence, the present petition in which the appellant reiterates the sole assignment of error, to wit:
THE TRIAL COURT GRAVELY ERRED IN CONVICTING THE ACCUSED-APPELLANT OF THE CRIME CHARGED
DESPITE THE FACT THAT THE POLICE INSTIGATED THE ALLEGED BUY-BUST TRANSACTION.
This petition must fail, since the argument raised by appellant is specious. Appellant argues that PO3
Bernardo's act of approaching the appellant to buy shabu during a buy-bust operation amounted to
instigation. Such contention lacks basis and is contrary to jurisprudence.

Instigation is the means by which the accused is lured into the commission of the offense charged in order
to prosecute him. On the other hand, entrapment is the employment of such ways and means for the
purpose of trapping or capturing a lawbreaker. [19] Thus, in instigation, officers of the law or their agents
incite, induce, instigate or lure an accused into committing an offense which he or she would otherwise not
commit and has no intention of committing. But in entrapment, the criminal intent or design to commit the
offense charged originates in the mind of the accused, and law enforcement officials merely facilitate the
apprehension of the criminal by employing ruses and schemes; thus, the accused cannot justify his or her
conduct. In instigation, where law enforcers act as co-principals, the accused will have to be acquitted. But
entrapment cannot bar prosecution and conviction. As has been said, instigation is a "trap for the unwary
innocent," while entrapment is a "trap for the unwary criminal." [20]

As a general rule, a buy-bust operation, considered as a form of entrapment, is a valid means of arresting
violators of Republic Act No. 9165. It is an effective way of apprehending law offenders in the act of
committing a crime. In a buy-bust operation, the idea to commit a crime originates from the offender,
without anybody inducing or prodding him to commit the offense.

A police officer's act of soliciting drugs from the accused during a buy-bust operation, or what is known as a
"decoy solicitation," is not prohibited by law and does not render invalid the buy-bust operations. The sale of
contraband is a kind of offense habitually committed, and the solicitation simply furnishes evidence of the
criminal's course of conduct.[21] In People v. Sta. Maria, the Court clarified that a "decoy solicitation" is not
tantamount to inducement or instigation:
It is no defense to the perpetrator of a crime that facilities for its commission were purposely placed in his
way, or that the criminal act was done at the "decoy solicitation" of persons seeking to expose the criminal,
or that detectives feigning complicity in the act were present and apparently assisting its commission.
Especially is this true in that class of cases where the office is one habitually committed, and the solicitation
merely furnishes evidence of a course of conduct.

As here, the solicitation of drugs from appellant by the informant utilized by the police merely furnishes
evidence of a course of conduct. The police received an intelligence report that appellant has been habitually
dealing in illegal drugs. They duly acted on it by utilizing an informant to effect a drug transaction with
appellant. There was no showing that the informant induced the appellant to sell illegal drugs to him. [22]
Conversely, the law deplores instigation or inducement, which occurs when the police or its agent devises
the idea of committing the crime and lures the accused into executing the offense. Instigation absolves the
accused of any guilt, given the spontaneous moral revulsion from using the powers of government to beguile
innocent but ductile persons into lapses that they might otherwise resist. [23]

People v. Doria enumerated the instances when this Court recognized instigation as a valid defense, and an
instance when it was not applicable:
In United Sates v. Phelps, we acquitted the accused from the offense of smoking opium after finding that
the government employee, a BIR personnel, actually induced him to commit the crime in order to persecute
him. Smith, the BIR agent, testified that Phelps' apprehension came after he overheard Phelps in a saloon
say that he like smoking opium on some occasions. Smith's testimony was disregarded. We accorded
significance to the fact that it was Smith who went to the accused three times to convince him to look for an
opium den where both of them could smoke this drug. The conduct of the BIR agent was condemned as
"most reprehensible." In People v. Abella, we acquitted the accused of the crime of selling explosives after
examining the testimony of the apprehending police officer who pretended to be a merchant. The police
officer offered "a tempting price, x x x a very high one" causing the accused to sell the explosives. We found
there was inducement, "direct, persistent and effective" by the police officer and that outside of his
testimony, there was no evidence sufficient to convict the accused. In People v. Lua Chu and Uy Se Tieng,
[W]e convicted the accused after finding that there was no inducement on the part of the law enforcement
officer. We stated that the Customs secret serviceman smoothed the way for the introduction of opium from
Hong Kong to Cebu after the accused had already planned its importation and ordered said drug. We ruled
that the apprehending officer did not induce the accused to import opium but merely entrapped him by
pretending to have an understanding with the Collector of Customs of Cebu to better assure the seizure of
the prohibited drug and the arrest of the surreptitious importers. [24]
In recent years, it has become common practice for law enforcement officers and agents to engage in buy-
bust operations and other entrapment procedures in apprehending drug offenders, which is made difficult by
the secrecy with which drug-related offenses are conducted and the many devices and subterfuges
employed by offenders to avoid detection. On the other hand, the Court has taken judicial notice of the ugly
reality that in cases involving illegal drugs, corrupt law enforcers have been known to prey upon weak,
hapless and innocent persons.[25] The distinction between entrapment and instigation has proven to be
crucial. The balance needs to be struck between the individual rights and the presumption of innocence on
one hand, and ensuring the arrest of those engaged in the illegal traffic of narcotics on the other.

In the present case, PO3 Bernardo testified that appellant stood in front of her house and was in possession
of drugs readily available for anyone who would buy them. PO3 Bernardo did not even have to employ any
act of instigation or inducement, such as repeated requests for the sale of prohibited drugs or offers of
exorbitant prices.

In addition, PO3 Bernardo was able to identify the accused, the boodle money, and the two packets of
crystalline substance, which tested positive for methylamphetamine hydrochloride. [26] The essential elements
for the prosecution for illegal sale of shabuwere established: (1) the identity of the buyer and the seller, the
object of the sale and the consideration; and (2) the delivery of the thing sold and payment therefor. In
short, the delivery of the illicit drug to the poseur-buyer and the receipt by the seller of the marked money,
as relayed by PO3 Bernardo, successfully consummated the buy-bust transaction. [27]

In the case before us, we find the testimony of the poseur-buyer, together with the dangerous drug taken
from the appellant, more than sufficient to prove the crime charged. Considering that this Court has access
only to the cold and impersonal records of the proceedings, it generally relies upon the assessment of the
trial court, which had the distinct advantage of observing the conduct and demeanor of the witnesses during
the trial. It is a fundamental rule that findings of the trial courts which are factual in nature and which
involve credibility are accorded respect when no glaring errors; gross misapprehension of facts; or
speculative, arbitrary, and unsupported conclusions can be gathered from such findings. The reason for this
is that the trial court is in a better position to decide the credibility of witnesses, having heard their
testimonies and observed their deportment and manner of testifying during the trial. [28]

The rule finds an even more stringent application where said findings are sustained by the Court of Appeals.
[29]
 Finding no compelling reason to depart from the findings of both the trial court and the Court of Appeals,
this Court affirms the same.

The self-serving denial of the appellant deserves scant credence, since it is unsupported by any evidence
other than the testimony of her son, Dan Jefferson. This Court finds her son's testimony even more suspect,
considering that his statement that five men barged into their house was belied by appellant's allegation
that seven men forcibly entered their home. An allegation of frame-up and extortion by police officers is a
common and standard defense in most dangerous drug cases. To substantiate such defense, which can be
easily concocted, the evidence must be clear and convincing. [30]

In this case, there was no allegation of any attempt at extortion on the part of police officers or any reason
for the police officers to falsify a serious criminal charge against appellant. Appellant admitted that she had
never even seen any of the police officers until she was arrested. This negates any vengeful motive for her
arrest. In the absence of proof of any ill motive or intent on the part of the police authorities to falsely
impute a serious crime to the appellants, the presumption of regularity in the performance of official duties
must prevail over the latter's self-serving and uncorroborated claim. This presumption is placed on an even
more firm foothold when supported by the findings of the trial court on the credibility of the witness, PO3
Bernardo.[31]

Contrary to the appellant's claim, the prevailing doctrine is that additional corroborating testimony of the
confidential informant is not essential to a successful prosecution. Intelligence agents are not often called to
testify in court in order to hide their identities and preserve their invaluable service to the police. Once
known, they may even be the object of revenge by criminals they implicate. [32]

Lastly, the testimonies of other arresting officers are not required in obtaining a conviction. The testimony of
PO3 Bernardo, being candid and straightforward, is complete and sufficient for a finding of guilt. Section 6,
Rule 133 of the Rules of Court allows the court to stop introduction of further testimony upon a particular
point when more witnesses to the same point cannot be expected to be additionally persuasive.
Furthermore, appellant cannot allude to or suggest the possibility of any irregularity that could have been
revealed by the presentation of additional witnesses, when she herself failed to exert any effort to summon
these witnesses when she had the chance to do so.

WHEREFORE, the instant appeal is DENIED. The Decision of the Court of Appeals dated 20 December 2005
in CA-GR. CR-H.C. No. 00310 is AFFIRMED. Appellant Delia Bayani y Botanes is found GUILTY of violation
of Section 5, Article II of Republic Act No 9165. No costs.

SO ORDERED.