FACTS:
Acting on an information that a huge stockpile of narra flitches, shorts, and slabs were seen inside petitioner’s lumberyard, a team of foresters and policeman was organized and sent to conduct surveillance. In the course thereof, the team members saw coming out from the lumberyard the petitioner’s truck loaded with lumber. The driver could not produce the required invoices and transport documents, the team seized the truck together with its cargo and impounded them.
ISSUE(S):
Whether or not the seizure of the truck and its cargo without warrant was unlawful.
HELD:
NO. Search of a moving vehicle is one of the five doctrinally accepted exceptions to the constitutional mandate that no search or seizure shall be made except by virtue of a warrant issued by a judge after personally determining the existence of probable cause.
Petition is DENIED.
