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Tuesday, December 16, 2003
Dealer, pals convictedvv
By Grecar Nilles
Sun.Star Staff Reporter
A BIG-TIME drug financier and five of his accomplices were convicted yesterday of selling more than 200 grams of shabu in February 1999.
RTC Branch 14 Judge Raphael B. Yrastorza Sr. imposed a maximum prison term of 20 years to 40 years on Raymundo “Irene” Babatuan, who was included in the list of drug lords exposed by Rep. Antonio Cuenco in a privilege speech in 1997.
Also convicted and slapped with the same penalty were Sulpicio L. Ramos, Jovito A. Sevilla, Rustom M. Bragat, Alfredo Y. Mancera and Nancy Fernandez.
All six convicts were ordered to pay P500,000 each for the crime, as the drugs were ordered forfeited in favor of the government.
They kept their silence during and after the reading of Yrastorza’s decision in Regional Trial Court (RTC).
In a 16-page decision, Yrastorza said the prosecution has proven that the accused connived and conspired in the selling of 210.5059 grams of shabu last Feb. 22, 1999 inside a pension house in Lahug, Cebu City.
“The acts of Sevilla, Fernandez, Babatuan and Bragat, (Ramos) and Mancera, collectively and individually executed, demonstrated the existence of a common design towards the accomplishment of the same unlawful purpose and objective: to deliver the shabu and to receive payment therefore,” Yrastorza said in his decision.
Rossini Ruedas Pongos, who was earlier named as one of the accused, was discharged from the case to become a state witness.
Babatuan’s lawyer, Virgilio Toribio, said Pongos’ testimony was incredible and that the prosecution’s case was “well-scripted.”
“Her testimony was beyond the realm of human experience and behavior. She suddenly became a state witness and told the court that she is a government agent. Maybe she was the real owner of the drugs seized,” Toribio told reporters after the promulgation.
Toribio said they do not need to contest the decision anymore, since it will go through an automatic review before the Supreme Court.
Then Cebu City Police Office’s Vice Control Section chief Nicolas Salvador alleged that his team arrested Ramos, Sevilla, Mancera, Bragat and Pongos inside an uptown pension house selling the shabu.
Babatuan and Fernandez were arrested through a warrant.
Except for Pongos, all accused denied the charge.
Babatuan, who has been convicted of drug possession by another RTC, denied knowing the other accused during the raid. He said he knew about them only when he was already inside the Bagong Buhay Rehabilitation Center.
But Judge Yrastorza ruled that the prosecution has proven that all the accused have connived in selling shabu to the poseur-buyer.
“Ramos was instrumental in delivering the shabu, Sevilla, Fernandez, Babatuan and Bragat were instrumental or served as conduits, so to speak, in the delivery of the regulated drug, thus, perfecting the angle of conspiracy. Mancera, on the other hand, had a hand in the actual delivery of drugs. The act of one is the act of all,” Yrastorza said in his decision.
(December 16, 2003 issue)
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