First: What is custodial investigation?

Second: What are the rights guaranteed to

a person under custodial investigation?

Third: What are the effects of, and

penalties for, violation of these rights?

Fourth: When do these rights cease to be

available?
FIRST: What is Police Custodial
Investigation?
Our Supreme Court consistently defines custodial
investigation as the stage where an investigation is
no longer a general inquiry into an unsolved crime
but has begun to focus on a particular suspect
taken into custody by the police or other law
enforcement agents who carry out a process of
interrogation that lends itself to elicit incriminating
statements. It involves questioning initiated by law
enforcement officers after a person has been taken
into custody or deprived of freedom of action in any
significant way.
However, Republic Act No.
7438, or the Act Defining
Certain Rights of Person
Arrested, Detained or
Under Custodial
Investigation, has expanded
the definition of custodial
investigation. Specifically,
the law provides that said
investigation shall include
the practice of issuing an
invitation to a person who is
investigated in connection
with an offense he is
suspected to have
committed.
Given this, it is incorrect to conclude
that custodial investigation is always
the consequence of an arrest.
Someone can be considered to be
under custodial investigation when
invited for questioning by law
enforcement officers, even though
the person has not been formally
arrested.
SECOND: What are the Rights
Guaranteed to a Person under
Custodial Investigation?

After knowing what’s custodial

investigation, the next crucial
matter to discuss is the rights of
persons subjected thereto.
Article III, Section 12 (1) of the Constitution provides
that any person under investigation for the commission
of an offense is guaranteed the following rights

A. Miranda Rights

B. Right against Torture, Force,

Violence, Threat, Intimidation

C. Right to Visits and Conferences

MIRANDA DOCTRINE
a. The right to remain silent – A person under custodial investigation has the
right to refuse answering any question. If he indeed refuses, this may not be
used against him.

b. The right to competent and independent counsel, preferably of his own

choice. If the person cannot afford services of counsel, he must be provided
with one – In People v. Rapeza (G.R. No. 169431), the Supreme Court held
that the purpose of providing counsel to a person under custodial
investigation is to curb the police-state practice of extracting a confession
that leads suspects to make self-incriminating statements. In order to
comply with the constitutional mandate, there should be meaningful
communication to, and understanding of rights by the suspect, as opposed to
a routine, peremptory and meaningless recital thereof.

c. The right to be informed of such rights – In affording this right to a person

under custodial investigation, it is not sufficient that the investigating officer
reads out the rights, or merely repeats what is stated in the constitutional
provision. The officer is duty-bound to also explain the effects of these rights
and ensure the person’s understanding thereof, in a language known to and
understood by him.
These rights may not be waived unless made in writing
and in the presence and assistance of counsel.
Right against Torture, Force,
Violence, Threat, Intimidation
Article III, Section 12 of the
Constitution further provides
that no torture, violence threat,
intimidation, or any other
means which vitiate the
freewill shall be used against a
person under investigation for
the commission of an offense.
It further states that the use of
secret detention places,
solitary, incommunicado or
other similar forms of
detention are prohibited.
 Republic Act No. 9745 –
Anti-Torture Act of 2009
• R.A. 9745 punishes
torture inflicted by a
person in authority or
agent of a person in
authority upon another in
his/her custody.

• Torture, as punished
under the law, may either
be physical or
mental/psychological.
Physical torture is a form of treatment or punishment that
causes severe pain, exhaustion, disability or dysfunction of
one or more parts of the body, such as:
• (1) Systematic beating, head-banging, punching, kicking, striking with
truncheon or rifle butt or other similar objects, and jumping on the
stomach;

• (2) Food deprivation or forcible feeding with spoiled food, animal or

human excreta and other stuff or substances not normally eaten;

• (3) Electric shock;

• (4) Cigarette burning; burning by electrically heated rods, hot oil or acid,
or by the rubbing of pepper or other chemical substances on mucous
membranes, or acids or spices directly on the wound(s);

• (5) The submersion of the head in water or water polluted with

excrement, urine, vomitand/or blood until the brink of suffocation;

• (6) Being tied or forced to assume fixed and stressful bodily position;
Physical torture is a form of treatment or punishment that causes
severe pain, exhaustion, disability or dysfunction of one or more parts
of the body, such as:
• (7) Rape and sexual abuse, including the insertion of foreign objects into the sex
organ or rectum, or electrical torture of the genitals;

• (8) Mutilation or amputation of the essential parts of the body such as the genitalia,
ear,tongue, etc.;

• (9) Dental torture or the forced extraction of the teeth;

• (10) Pulling out of fingernails;

• (11) Harmful exposure to the elements such as sunlight and extreme cold;

• (12) The use of plastic bag and other materials placed over the head to the point of
asphyxiation;

• (13) The use of psychoactive drugs to change the perception, memory. alertness or
will of a person, such as:(i) The administration or drugs to induce confession and/or
reduce mental competency; or(ii) The use of drugs to induce extreme pain or certain
symptoms of a disease;

• (14) Other analogous acts of physical torture.

Mental/psychological torture refers to acts
calculated to affect or confuse the mind and/or
undermine a person’s dignity and morale, such as:
• (1) Blindfolding;

• (2) Threatening a person(s) or his/her relative(s) with bodily harm,

execution or other wrongful acts;

• (3) Confinement in solitary cells or secret detention places;

• (4) Prolonged interrogation;

• (5) Preparing a prisoner for a “show trial,” public display or public

humiliation of a detainee or prisoner;

• (6) Causing unscheduled transfer of a person deprived of liberty

from one place to another, creating the belief that he/she will be
summarily executed;
Mental/psychological torture refers to acts
calculated to affect or confuse the mind and/or
undermine a person’s dignity and morale, such as:
• (7) Maltreating a member/s of a person's family;

• (8) Causing the torture sessions to be witnessed by the person’s

family, relatives or any third party;

• (9) Denial of sleep/rest;

• (10) Shame infliction such as stripping the person naked, parading

him/her in public places, shaving the victim’s head or putting marks
on his/her body against his/her will;

• (11) Deliberately prohibiting the victim to communicate with any

member of his/her family; and

• (12) Other analogous acts of mental/psychological torture.

Right to Visits and Conferences
In addition to the constitutional
rights, Republic Act No. 7438
provides that a person under
custodial investigation shall be
allowed visits by or conferences with
any member of his immediate family
(spouse, fiancé or fiancée, parent or
child, sibling, grandparent or
grandchild, aunt or uncle, niece or
nephew, guardian or ward), or by
counsel, or by any national non-
governmental organization duly
accredited by the Commission on
Human Rights, or by any
international non-governmental
organization duly accredited by the
Office of the President.
THIRD: What are the Effects of, and
Sanctions for, Violation of these
Rights?
Article III, Section 12(3) of the Constitution states
that any confession or admission in violation of the
above rights shall be inadmissible in evidence.
This is called the exclusionary rule. A confession
or admission should be given voluntarily, free from
any suspicious circumstances tending to cast doubt
upon the integrity thereof. Otherwise, the same
cannot be used as evidence in any proceeding
against the source of confession or admission.
If the constitutional rights of a person under custodial investigation
are violated, there are corresponding penal and civil sanctions, as well
as compensation to and rehabilitation of victims of torture or similar
practices, and their families. These sanctions are provided for in
different statutes, i.e., civil sanctions, in the form of damages, covered
by Article 32 of the New Civil Code, and penal sanctions covered by
the penal clause of Republic Act No. 7438, where a fine, penalty, or
both, may be imposed upon an erring officer.
FOURTH: When do these
Rights Cease to be Available?
Custodial investigation does not include quasi-
judicial or judicial investigations conducted by
the fiscal or the judge. Thus, in People v.
Ayson (G.R. No. 85215), Justice Andres
Narvasa discussed that the rights of a person
under custodial interrogation do not apply or
extend to persons under preliminary
investigation, or those already charged in court
for a crime.
 The 1987 Constitution guarantees that no Filipino shall be
deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.

As long as a citizen abides by the law, he or she should not be in trouble.

THANK YOU