I'm Giancarlo Enrico S. Pozon, a Wushu instructor, investor and Barrister... That's right, Barrister; I graduated from law school and took the Bar Exams, now I'm waiting for the results. I created this blog to make Philippine Law easy to understand for the average person. It's all about free legal advice. There are many law blogs. But the problem is that many of them are written for lawyers and law students. They use words that can't be understood by ordinary people.
Many lawyers, judges and law students consider themselves as superior to most human beings because of their knowledge of the law. It bothers me since the law is supposed to serve society. Since the law is meant to serve society as a whole, it is important that is must be understood by everybody.
This does not mean that we should all become lawyers. It means that although law is a highly specialized profession, the first duty of everybody in this profession is to make the law understandable to all; that's why all these articles are free legal advice.
Like I said, this blog is about law -but it's for the ordinary people, not the lawyers. It's for the ordinary folk so they will know what is good and bad for them, and that making them aware of the law will help us all improve society as a whole. This is free legal advice for everybody!
Under sections 5 and 9 of Rule 113 of the Rules of Court, there are instances when an arrest without a warrant is valid.
Section 5 gives the following instances:
1.) In Flagrante Delicto
When the criminal is caught in the act of committing the crime.
2.) Personal knowledge
When an arresting officer knows some facts to make him believe that a crime was committed, such as in hot pursuit.
3.) Escapees
When the person to be arrested has escaped from prison, his police escort, or from a detention center (if he's still on trial.) This is the favorite rule of bounty hunters (yes, there are bounty hunters in the Philippines; ever wonder why we have reward notices?)
Section 9 I particularly like. Many people don't know this, and I think they should. A person who isn't a member of the police or any government agency can actually perform an arrest if any of the three (3) instances in Section 5 are present. All one needs to do is tell the criminal that he's being arrested and detain him (or the other way around -detain him then tell him he's arrested.) This can even be used against government people who commit crimes if any of Section 5's guidelines are present. Remember, even these people can be put behind bars. So if the tax man comes to you and threatens to haul you in even though you didn't commit any violations but you didn't pay him what he wanted, you can use this against him. Threats are crimes.
1 comments:
Sec. 9 is called a "Citizen's Arrest" if done by a private person and is still valid.
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