Government loses drug delivery rap over P6.4 billion shabu shipment

MANILA, Philippines — The government has lost its drug transportation case over the P6.4 billion shabu shipment from China that ended up at a warehouse in Valenzuela City, due to double jeopardy.

Valenzuela Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 284 Presiding Judge Arthur Melicor denied the Department of Justice prosecutors’ motion for reconsideration appealing his earlier decision dismissing the case due to the splitting of information.

The judge maintained his position that the drug delivery and transportation case is deemed absorbed in the separate drug importation case pending before the Manila RTC against customs fixer Mark Taguba, Teejay Marcellana, consignee Eirene Mae Tatad, and several Chinese businessmen involved in the 604 kilos of shabu that slipped past customs and ended up at a warehouse in Valenzuela.

“The crime of importation of dangerous drugs is a continuing crime, which necessarily includes the act of transportation and delivery of the container van concealing the drug contraband from the port of entry to the importer’s warehouse in Valenzuela City,” the judge said in his Aug. 16 order.

As for the typographical error that caused the dismissal of the case, the court said the prosecution’s move to amend the date of importation does not change the court’s position, and instead “bolsters our holding that the delivery of the dangerous drugs to the custody of the importer in Valenzuela City consummated the act of importation.”

The judge earlier ruled that because the information filed at the Manila court alleged that the drug importation of 602 kilos of shabu took place on May 26, 2017, while the delivery and transportation took place from May 23 to 24, the drug delivery was deemed absorbed as a component of the importation case. The prosecution said it has amended this typographical error by pointing out that the importation happened at an earlier date of May 16, not May 26.

“The time-honored criminal principle of double jeopardy is embodied in our Bill of Rights... It is settled that a defendant should not be harassed with various prosecutions upon the same act by splitting the same into various charges, all emanating from the same law violated,” the judge ruled.

In dismissing the case, the Valenzuela court found as wanting the criminal information for drug delivery, as it was “glaringly devoid of mention of specific participatory acts of transportation and delivery performed by each of the accused.”

Except for Taguba, who allegedly owned the truck that transported the shipping container with the cylinders of shabu, the court said “in truth... none of the accused were even physically or constructively involved in ‘transporting and delivering’ the subject contraband.”

While the drug transportation case was dismissed against the big players, elderly warehouse caretaker Fidel Anoche Dee is undergoing trial for illegal drug possession. The elderly Dee was implicated because it was to him  one crate containing 100 kilos of shabu was addressed.

While Taguba and Tatad are detained at the Camp Bagong Diwa jail, Richard Tan, whose Hongfei Logistics company leased the warehouse where the shabu was found, and his other Chinese or Taiwanese co-accused remain at large since the Manila RTC ordered their arrest for the drug importation case.