Working Title: “Assessment of Factors Affecting the Dismissed Drug Cases on Illegal Drugs in Zamboanga del Sur” CHAPTER I 1.1 Rationale of the Study Dangerous drugs, as stated in RA 9165, include those which are listed in the Schedules annexed to the 1961 and 1971 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances respectively, in which Shabu (Methamphetamine HCl) is the most used illegal drug in the country, followed by Cannabis or Marijuana. Cocaine, Ephedrine, and Ecstasy also constituted the rest of PDEA confiscations (Ranada, 2016). The possession, manufacture, unnecessary and unlawful prescription, unlawful importation, sale or trading, dispensation, and administration of the aforementioned dangerous drugs face a monetary fine ranging from Four hundred thousand pesos (P400,000.00) to Ten million pesos (P10,000,000.00) depending on the possessed quantity and regardless of the degree of purity; and a penalty of twelve-year to life imprisonment to death (RA 9165). As of 2016, Filipinos with an average age of 10 up to 69 use dangerous drugs according to the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime. Inhalants, which are commonly in the form of toluene-based glue, are used by minors specifically among street children since these substances are relatively low in cost and are easy to obtain (Njord L, Merill, Njord R, Lindsay, Pachano, 2010). With this record of prevalent illegal use, the Philippines aggressively started the War on Drugs campaign upon President Duterte’s assumption to office on June 30, 2016 with a bulk record of 1,298 drug cases in just three months (July to September 2016) totaling a figure of 1,411 cases from January to October in the same year (Elemia, 2016). From July 2016 to September 2017, a total of 96,943 complaints are handled by the Department of Justice of which 95,242 cases are resolved while the remaining 1,701 are still pending as of 2018 at 98.25% disposal rate. Conversely, 21,908 illegal drug cases are referred to prosecution and 42, 182 are filed in court (Department of Justice, 2018). In homicide cases as of January 17, 2018 with a total number of 2,235 drug-related incidents, only 413 cases are solved while 1, 822 are still under investigation (Directorate for Investigation and Detective Management, 2018; CRAS Philippine National Police, 2018). According to the National Prosecution Service (2016, 2017), of the 68,895 cases filed by the prosecution in court, 2,617 are dismissed in 2016 by the courts. Of these, one hundred-thirteen (113) are filed in court in 2016 in the province of Zamboanga del Sur; twenty-two (22) are convicted while twenty-six (26) of these are closed or dismissed/dismissed upon filing. (Zamboanga del Sur Police Station, 2019). In 2017, the courts dismissed 5,270 cases out of 70,706 cases filed, equivalent to about 7.5%. Despite the low percentage, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra is still worried about the government for losing cases because of flawed handling. He said that oftentimes, the main reason for dismissal is technical which includes failure to observe procedural requirements particularly on the chain of custody of the drugs seized (Buan, 2018). Rappler journalist Lian Buan suggested that it is the courts that cannot keep up with the bulk cases filed by the prosecutors. Regional trial courts of 204,795 were assigned with 289,295 drug cases alone on top of everything else, in which each case has to be finished no later than 60 days from its filing as provided by the Dangerous Drugs Act (Buan, 2018). Meanwhile, then Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno said that lack of government lawyers to handle the cases and the non-appearance of witnesses also influence such delays and dismissals. As she learned from Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II that there were vacancies for 500 prosecutors in DOJ, she suggested that there should be two prosecutors and two public attorneys for every judge to fast-track the proceedings (Torres-Tupas, 2016). On the other hand, Police Regional Director Noli Taliño said on their behalf, there might be an involvement of a syndicate because of the recorded delays of filing of charges. According to him, tactics like talking to the complainant beforehand to settle the case can also lead to case dismissal once fixed. Although statistics show the low percentage of cases dismissed, Taliño stated that the objective here is to have successful cases so that they won’t get dismissed (Sunstar Cebu, 2017). Valenzuela RTC Br. 284 also dismissed the P6.4B shabu case of the nine accused on the ground of “forum shopping” in which a case involving the same facts is filed in two separate courts, hoping that one of them will rule favorably (Torres-Tupas, 2018). Due to the numerous grounds aforementioned herein, the researchers narrowed down the possible factors affecting the end result of illegal drug-related cases into four (4) levels, namely: Intelligence stage, Investigatory stage, Operations, and the Court Trial stage. This study is considered as an action research aiming to further the betterment of the disposition of drug-related cases specifically in Zamboanga del Sur, to identify the constraints of the dismissed cases by assessing the effect of the abovementioned factors, evaluating the deemed deficiencies in handling these cases, and by addressing the cited dismissal factors through formulated recommendations. 1.2 Research Problem This study addresses the following research problems: 1. Under what conditions does the intelligence stage work? How do these influence the result on this stage? 2. What is the flow of the investigatory stage and what are plausible factors which could greatly affect this stage? 3. Who and what is involved in the operations during the case proceedings? What are the technical procedures observed? 4. How do the courtroom actors affect the litigations? What are the steps necessary to adhere to prosper case proceedings? 1.3 Objectives of the Study The researchers aim to assess the different factors affecting the dismissed cases in Pagadian City. Specifically, it aims to: 1. Gather data of the nature of dismissed drug-related cases in the year 2016 to 2018 from Zamboanga del Sur Municipal and Regional Trial Courts; 2. Identify the factors of each dismissed case as specified by the written case reports; 3. Assess or evaluate each factor in accordance to the standard PDEA Operations Procedure, PNP Anti-Illegal Drugs Operations Procedure Manual, Dangerous Drugs Board Procedure, and RA 10640 on chain of custody procedure; 4. Tally the gathered data for analysis; and 5. Formulate recommendations based on the result of analyzed data for further study or improvement on procedure implementation, or both. 1.4 Significance of the Study This study provides an understanding of plausible reasons as to the disturbing low level of percentage on the disposition of cases filed in court by assessing the factors affecting each case proceeding in the aforementioned stages, specifically addressing the dismissed cases related to drugs in Zamboanga del Sur. This study also provides corrective measures from the assessment of factors affecting the dismissed cases to further the betterment of the disposition of cases in the province of Zamboanga del Sur through formulated recommendations. 1.5 Scope and Limitation of the Study This research focuses only on the abovementioned major stages (i.e. intelligence stage, investigatory stage, operations, court trial stage) wherein each filed cases undergo which could have numerous effects on the disposition of said cases. Analysis of data provided in this study is confined only within the illegal drugs cases filed in the province of Zamboanga del Sur, Region IX, from 2016 to 2018. CHAPTER II 2.1 Review of Related Literature Production, sale, and trade of dangerous drugs is a threat to the well-being of the global community which undermines legitimate institutions, and erodes social values; this problem has long been considered primarily as an issue of law enforcement and criminality and for years the fight against illegal drugs and their abuse has been the subject of numerous discussions at the national and international level (Olario, 1999). To mitigate this long-been outstanding concern, the government has already enacted countermeasures including the Special Dangerous Drug Court in 1996 which shall try heinous drug cases and speed up disposition of drug cases filed. Now, the government has aggressively mobilized the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the local government units nationwide through anti-drug campaigns. However, despite the spurt of drug-related cases filed and has resulted in mass arrests (Narag, 2018), there are still a hundred couple of cases which are mishandled, pending, and/or dismissed due to a number of factors related to technical areas where these case proceedings undergo. The exercise of hierarchical organization, for one. The Philippine government allows administrative agencies to exercise adjudicatory powers in definite issues solely in aid of their administrative functions and objectives but a policy of strict observance of such hierarchical structure is enforced by the Supreme Court. Meaning, it will not entertain direct resort to it unless the desired reparation could not be obtained in the appropriate level of courts or unless it can be justified to call for its primary jurisdiction (Article VIII, Section 1, 1987 constitution). This problem of recurring clogged court dockets has become a primary focus of judicial reforms by the Supreme Court (Disini, Aguiling-Pangalangan, Daroy-Morales, Gatmaytan, Lim-Jardeleza, 2002). The court also identified laziness, inept, and sometimes corrupt judges, as causes of this dilemma. Also cited is the tendency of lawyers themselves to misuse and abuse the Rules of Court by resorting to all kinds of delaying tactics against their opponents (Disini, et. al, 2002). According to Michalski (2018), procedural values (i.e. speed, cost, accuracy) form the flow of procedural rules. However, these prescriptions rely on frameworks that conflate process and outcome thus fail to address underlying issues which impedes access to justice. Therefore when these values conflict with one another, courts have to prioritize one over the other. For example, the growing number of filed illegal drug cases in court may increase in speed and reduce its cost but might come inaccurate. Thus, some might weep over the cost of litigation while others lament over the quality of the case proceedings. This suggests that such success is due to the inequities in resources that are exacerbated by the innate biases of the judicial system (Haynie, 1994; Michalski, 2018; Franco, 2008). Michalski (2018) contended that whenever one procedural value is favored over another, some litigants are also given favor over others. This implies that conflict among procedural values is a conflict over which litigants to support or which ones to hinder. Research have also exposed that litigation was focused on finding liable parties liable, and blameless parties blameless. Yet this focus has shifted over time. Some courts have pointed out that accurate judgements are expensive, time-consuming, and often rely on discovery which mostly invades litigants’ privacy. They argue that the ideal of such judgement should be forgone in favor of saving litigants’ money and time. This shows that shifting a procedural value over another radically alters the nature and process of legal action. On one hand, Hagan (1989) introduced the notion of loose coupling versus tight coupling to expound the variations in decision-making in criminal justice systems as discussed in Narag’s (2017) study. It is described as loosely coupled when the different subcomponents (i.e. police, prosecution, courts, pretrial services, corrections) works independently and are autonomous from each other. Consequently, Hagan (1989) described it as tightly coupled when the components are linked and coordinated; if prosecutors’ goals and intentions are evident with the police department as to what crimes they should prioritize, police officers will be guided in their arrest decisions. This will reduce arrest incongruences and it will be reasonable to expect for the tightly coupled systems to have speedier disposition of cases (Narag, 2017 as cited in Hall, 1987). Einstein, Flemming, and Nardulli (1988) also investigated the courtroom dynamics and alluded that judges, prosecutors, lawyers, and other court actors develop informal or clandestine agreements to facilitate the disposition of cases. This is supported by Church (1982) and his fellow researchers (Church, Carlson, Lee, & Tan, 1978) who disclosed the influence of local legal culture on the shared expectations on the pace of case litigation. In addition, Speedy Trial Law (RA 8943) of 1998 was introduced specifying time constraints for different stages of resolution in the hope of disposing cases at a speedy pace. But such law also provides several exclusions in the computation of the length of time to authorize which such courtroom actors can liberally draw from, hence easily substantiating delay in adjudicating cases (Olario, 1999). On the other hand, Narag’s (2017) findings showed that detained individuals spend more time inside the jail before a decision is made on their cases which eventually end up either getting acquitted or dismissed. One inmate charged with drug law violation grieves, If you are charged with drugs, then you have no bail. That is almost automatic. Then they will make you rot longer. But then, you are acquitted. Most cases are eventually acquitted or dismissed. They will let you suffer first, then, let you out. (Juan, male, 4 years in jail) Narag (2017) accounts that based on this perspective, the essence of prolonged trial detention is the thought that such process has become the punishment. This kind of narrative can also indicate the lack of coordination among court actors since most judges, prosecutors and defense lawyers in the “challenged” courts are not aware of their clients’ length of stay in jail. This is compounded by the justifications touted by the court actors in the delay of filed cases. American Bar Association (2006) describes mediation and negotiation as presenting parties a greater participation over the outcome and in reaching a resolution. According to Shestowsky (2015) as cited in Smith & Martinez (2009), scholars often conceive legal procedures on a scale. On one end, negotiation will offer participants control over both the process and the end result and does not involve a biased third party. While on the other end, intercession and trial will empower third parties to define the outcome of a dispute and will propose formality on the processes involved. Mediation, existing in the middle of the spectrum, utilizes an unbiased third party but allows parties themselves to shape the process and control the outcome. 2.1 Theoretical Framework 2.1.1 Procedural Justice Paradigm. This doctrine dated back to the early 1970s which is an empirical study of Thibaut and Walker together with their colleagues which revealed that the public care about their direct and indirect control over the legal decisions which directly affects them. Their research suggests that when laypeople evaluate procedures, they generally assess how such processes distribute control between the parties themselves and third parties (e.g. mediators, judges, prosecutors) (Shestowsky, 2015). This also proposes that disputants prefer procedures that allow them to control the process. Their early work highlights the role of that opportunity to share and listen to another’s dispute story plays in how disputants take options, which also underscores the effect of subjective perception in the functioning of the legal system. 2.1.2 Instrumental or Social Exchange Theory. This theory suggests that people would normally desire process control because of the belief that it can provide them an indirect way to control their disputes’ outcome. A prominent factor would that be of informal engagements among third parties mentioned above which may or may not be informative to the other party in suit. 2.1.3. Group Value Model. This theory supports a defendant’s care about the process. The quality of the process they experience helps them assess the status of the dispute to which they are involved with. When the fairness of an outcome is abstruse, people would often associate their evaluations based on what they have experienced as a mental shortcut for weighing the outcome (Shestowsky, 2015). 2.1.4 Social Dominance Theory. This theory assumes that complex social systems are inherently group-based, caste-like hierarchies consisting of at least two social groups: a dominant group and one or several subordinate groups. This theory also highlights the existence of two kinds of social institutions, hierarchy-enhancing institution and hierarchy-attenuating institution. Hierarchy-enhancing institutions tend to favor the socially strong against the socially weak. Examples include the police departments, internal security forces, and large, private economic concerns (Sidanius, Shaw, & Pratto, 1994). Consequently, people within hierarchy-attenuating institutions would have low levels of social dominance orientation. Within the social dominance paradigm, hierarchy-enhancing institutions will tend to allocate unreasonably greater positive social values to those of high-status groups and unduly greater negative values to those in low-status groups. 2.1.5. Resource Inequality Theory. Resource inequality theory assumes that large and high-status institutions as well as the government have greater resources, both in money and litigation experience, than individuals, and thus are more likely to win. However, this theory has ignored the relationship between adjudication and social structure. This results to a growing dissatisfaction among the citizens together with the growing number of controversies submitted for judicial resolution (Disini, et. al, 2002).