SC urged to review rule allowing executive judges of Manila, QC to issue search warrants valid nationwide

National Union of Peoples' Lawyers (NUPL) chairperson Neri Colmenares on Wednesday asked the Supreme Court (SC) to review its rule allowing the executive judges of Manila and Quezon City to issue search warrants that can be implemented nationwide.

Colmenares issued the statement following the deaths on Sunday of nine activists who allegedly fought back after police in Cavite, Laguna, Batangas and Rizal served search warrants issued by Manila judges.

According to Calabarzon police, authorities were able to recover explosives and several firearms from suspected communist rebels.

“This practice of asking courts in Metro Manila to serve search warrants in distant provinces, my God, that's really questionable. The Supreme Court should review this rule. Why? [Do] the Metro Manila judges and the PNP look down on judges in the provinces?” Colmenares said in an interview with CNN Philippines.

“Why would the police apply in Metro Manila? Is it easier here? [Are] the judges here unthinking?”

ACT Teachers party-list Representative France Castro also made a similar call on Monday.

Colmenares observed that the police only applied for search warrants before Quezon City and Manila courts if activists were involved.

“When they apply for ordinary search warrants in their provinces, they apply for it there. When it comes to activists they go to selected judges in Metro Manila,” he said.

An administrative circular issued by the SC authorizes the executive judges, or in their absence, the vice executive judges of Manila and Quezon City Regional Trial Courts, to act on applications filed by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and the Philippine National Police (PNP) for search warrants involving the following offenses:

• -heinous crimes
• -illegal gambling
• - illegal possession of firearms and ammunition
• - violations of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002, the Intellectual Property Code, the Anti-Money Laundering Act, and the Tariff and Customs Code and other relevant laws that may be passed later by Congress, and included by the SC

“The executive judges and vice executive judges concerned shall issue the warrants, if justified, which may be served in places outside the territorial jurisdiction of the said courts,” the circular states.

The executive judges and the authorized judges should keep a special docket book listing names of judges to whom the applications are assigned, the details of the applications and the results of the searches and seizures made pursuant to the warrants issued.

Some search warrants issued against certain individuals, including activists, were voided by other courts either due to lack of probable cause or failure to adhere to the constitutional requirement. —KBK, GMA News