Short answer. Sometimes. Section 21 says noncompliance under justifiable grounds does not void a seizure, but only if the integrity and evidentiary value of the drugs were preserved. Both conditions must be met — a real reason for the lapse, and proof the drugs were not compromised. It is a narrow saving clause, not a free pass.
What the law says
noncompliance of these requirements under justifiable grounds, as long as the integrity and the evidentiary value of the seized items are properly preserved by the apprehending officer/team, shall not render void and invalid such seizures and custody over said items
RA 9165, Section 21 — Chain Of Custody. Read the full provision →
The saving clause, and its two conditions
Section 21 does not treat every departure from its requirements as fatal. It provides that noncompliance of these requirements under justifiable grounds, as long as the integrity and the evidentiary value of the seized items are properly preserved by the apprehending officer/team, shall not render void and invalid such seizures and custody over said items. Two conditions are joined there. There must be a justifiable ground for the lapse, and the integrity and evidentiary value of the drugs must have been preserved despite it. Miss either, and the clause does not rescue the seizure.
The prosecution has to invoke and prove it
The saving clause is not something that operates on its own. The reason for a lapse is a fact peculiarly within the knowledge of the apprehending team, so the prosecution has to put that reason on the record and account for the seized items at each step. A bare assertion that the drugs were handled properly is not the same as showing it. Where the record simply skips over a missing witness or an inventory done in the wrong place with no explanation at all, there is nothing for the clause to work on.
Integrity is about more than the paperwork
The second condition looks at the substance, not the form. Even a well-documented inventory does not help if the drugs themselves cannot be traced from seizure to the courtroom in an unbroken line — each handoff accounted for, each container sealed and marked. Conversely, the point of the whole section is that these safeguards exist precisely because the item seized and the item tested must be shown to be one and the same. A gap that leaves that identity in genuine doubt is not the kind of technical lapse the saving clause was written to forgive.
What to look at in a specific case
Whether a particular case survives a Section 21 lapse is fact-specific and turns on the full record — how the drugs were marked, sealed, transferred and stored, and what the team says about any missing step. That is not something to gauge from the charge sheet alone. If you are worried about how a seizure was handled, the documents worth gathering are the inventory sheet, the photographs, the request for laboratory examination and the chain-of-custody entries, and the sooner they are reviewed with counsel the better, because memories and records both fade.