Cuenco is optimistic the court will make Hung a state witness

Cebu City South District Rep. Antonio Cuenco is optimistic that the government's bid to use the detained Hung Chin Chang as state witness against the alleged financier of the mega shabu laboratory operation in Mandaue City will be granted.

Cuenco, also vice chairman of the House panel on dangerous drugs, said only Hung among the other people indicted in the shabu laboratory case is competent to become a state witness to pin down Calvin Tan as the alleged financier.

Hung Chin Chang (carrying the aliases Andy Ang, Anthony Ang and Simon Lao) was allegedly the point man of Tan in the shabu laboratory operations, and his testimony as state witness is vital to the indictment of Tan, who is currently detained with the other accused.

Cuenco said it was Hung who accompanied Tan in Macao and Hongkong where they planned the operation of the shabu laboratory in barangay Umapad, Mandaue City.

But the main consideration in making an accused man a state witness is that the man should be the least guilty among his co-accused, and that his testimonies are needed for a successful prosecution of the case.

However last Friday, Tan's lawyer Gloria Dalawampu put on the witness stand an official of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency who testified that Hung could not be the least guilty of all the accused.

PDEA's Supt. Adzhar Albani, who was among those who were instrumental in busting the laboratory, told the court that Hung was an official of the syndicate that was behind the laboratory thus he could not be the least guilty among the accused.

Albani, during Dalawampu's direct examination, said Hung could either be the highest ranked or the second official of the syndicate.

Dalawampu later said that Albani's testimony might destroy the prosecution's bid to make Hung a state witness against Tan and the other accused.

Cuenco countered, however, that while Hung might not seem to be the least guilty than the other accused, Hung is the only competent witness who could testify on Tan's major role in the illegal laboratory. - Fred P. Languido