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Thursday, January 27, 2005
Andy Ng yields as co-owner Ong stays at large
One of two businessmen wanted in connection with a shabu lab in Mandaue City surrendered to the police yesterday, while their lawyers fought to stop the warrants for their arrest.
Businessman Andy S. Ng, 37, surrendered to the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) 7, 48 hours after the warrant was issued Monday.
While the CIDG 7 waited for co-accused Richard Ong to surrender, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) 7 slugged it out at the Court of Appeals (CA).
PDEA asked the CA to deny an application for a temporary restraining order that will stop the arrest warrants against Ng and Ong.
“The warrant of arrest must stand as a bulwark of our tenacity in the fight against illegal drugs,” read the five-page motion prepared by PDEA lawyer Clarence Paul Oaminal.
More than having to prepare for their defense, lawyer Romulo Senining is concerned about how to speed up the trial so that his clients, Ng and Ong, can immediately be released from jail.
“I instructed both of them to surrender. I am hopeful that a rightful verdict will come out sooner or later,” Senining told Sun.Star yesterday.
Terrible
Senining said he last talked with Ong at 9 a.m. and reiterated his instruction for his client to surrender. As of 10 p.m., the CIDG said they had seen no sign of Ong.
But Senining also said law enforcers should have taken steps to investigate further and not merely rely on their assumption that the owners of the warehouse knew about and consented to the illegal activity.
“For an innocent man to be committed to jail, that is terrible. After, say, six years, the court will release them because they are innocent and all you could ever say is, `Ay, sorry’,” Senining said.
CIDG 7 operative PO3 Delfin Bontuyan picked up Ng at 10 a.m. from his residence on Sacris Road Ext., Barangay Banilad, Mandaue City.
CIDG 7 Intelligence and Investigation Section Chief Rex Derilo told reporters that Ng’s legal counsel, Manolito Seno, called up Bontuyan early yesterday morning about Ng’s decision to yield to the authorities.
Not special
Ng arrived at the CIDG 7 headquarters inside Camp Sotero Cabahug on Gorordo Ave., Cebu City at 11:30 a.m.
Ng is facing a non-bailable charge in relation to the discovery last September of a shabu laboratory in a warehouse he partly owned in Barangay Umapad, Mandaue City.
Ng, however, was not presented to the media yesterday, unlike other arrested suspects.
Derilo explained that Ng was kept in one of the rooms of the headquarters because the latter was helping the CIDG 7 persuade Ong to surrender.
“We treated him as an ordinary offender. There is no special treatment,” Derilo said.
While waiting for Ong to surrender, the manhunt launched by the CIDG 7 continues, Derilo added.
As soon as the CIDG 7 got hold of the arrest warrants for Ng and Ong, an eight-man special team was created primarily to search for them.
Surrender
But last Tuesday night, while the team was conducting the manhunt, Derilo said “surrender feelers” reached the CIDG 7.
A negotiation then proceeded last Tuesday night on how Ng’s surrender would go about.
At 4 p.m. yesterday, almost five hours after he surrendered, Ng went out from the CIDG 7 room for fingerprinting and medical examinations at the PNP Crime Laboratory 7, before he was escorted to the Regional Trial Court in Mandaue City for the issuance of a commitment order.
Ng wore a white T-shirt, black slacks and a pair of black leather sandals.
Ng, however, was not committed to the Mandaue City Jail after the CIDG 7 team that drove him to court arrived at 5:25 p.m, 25 minutes after office hours, a TV Patrol Cebu report said.
Ng was brought back to the CIDG 7 headquarters and will be presented today to a court in Mandaue City.
Ng and Ong stand accused of violating Article 2, Section 30 of Republic Act 9165, the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002. This proviso says any corporation that “consents to or tolerates” the use of any facility to make, sell, import or deliver dangerous drugs shall be held liable as a co-principal.
Face the music
The penalty for manufacturing dangerous drugs is life imprisonment or death, plus a fine of P500,000 to P10 million.
The PDEA insists that the two businessmen “were the ones who indirectly committed the acts of manufacturing” for allegedly tolerating the illegal activities of the 11 men arrested in the shabu lab.
Ng and Ong cannot post bail because they are being charged with manufacturing shabu, a non-bailable offense.
“I told them to face the music. Agwantaha lang usa,” said Senining.
The Regional Trial Court (RTC) issued the warrants of arrest against Ng and Ong after it found probable cause to believe they knew about the manufacturing of shabu inside their property in Mandaue City.
The court also admitted the prosecution’s second amended information, impleading Ong and his wife Adrienne, Ng and his mother Azucena Ng and sister Athena Ng Uy.
They are the incorporators of Caps R Us Inc., which owns the warehouse in Barangay Umapad, Mandaue City.
(January 27, 2005 issue)
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