FACTS:
While conducting an intelligence patrol, the arresting officers met appellant who was drunk and wearing a camouflage uniform or a jungle suit. After introducing himself as PC, the police officer seized the dried coconut leaves which appellant was carrying and found wrapped in it a 49-inch long homemade firearm locally known as “latong.” The latter had no permission to possess the same. The firearm was confiscated and he was turned over to the custody of the Caibiran police who subsequently investigated him and charged him with illegal possession of firearm.
ISSUE(S):
Whether or not the trial court erred in admitting in evidence the homemade firearm which is a product of an unlawful warrantless search.
HELD:
NO. Solayao and his companion’s drunken actuations as well as the fact that Solayao was attired in camouflage uniform or a jungle suit and the flight of his companions aroused the suspicion of the police officer’s group.
