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Friday, August 19, 2005
Shabu ‘financier’ Tan calls charge cock-and-bull story
Calvin Tan wants to post bail. Tan’s lawyer, in a nine-page pleading submitted to Regional Trial Court (RTC) Judge Marilyn Yap, described the drug charges against him as “nothing but a big cock-and-bull story, which is true only in the fertile but malicious minds of the (police) operatives.”
“The herein accused deserves not a minute longer in incarceration,” lawyer William delos Santos said. “As urgent as the campaign against drug manufacturing and trafficking must be, so must we be vigilant in protecting the rights of the accused as mandated by the Constitution.”
Judge Yap will hear the motion for bail next month, opting first to conduct the pre-trial on Tan and the pre-marking of both prosecution and defense evidence against him.
Delos Santos, meanwhile, has until Sept. 1 to review the official transcript of stenographic records made so far of the case and decide if he wants to conduct a cross examination of the four witnesses presented prior to Tan’s extradition from Hong Kong last July 20.
Under the rules, he can have the court summon witnesses Myrna Areola, Mutchit Salinas, Daniel Jude Mendoza and David Alexander Patriana so he can cross-examine them on points raised in their direct examination by lawyer Archimedes Manabat and his fellow government prosecutors.
He can also opt to adopt the cross-examination already done by the defense lawyers representing the 13 other accused in the crime.
Points
The pre-trial proceeded with the prosecution and defense only agreeing on these points: the time, date and place of the police’s raid on the alleged shabu laboratory in Barangay Umapad, Mandaue City. Both parties also partially agreed on another point - that Calvin Tan’s only name is Calvin Tan.
“We do not admit to any other name or alias that the prosecution is alleging to be Mr. Calvin de Jesus Tan,” lawyer delos Santos said.
The prosecution had attempted to proffer that Tan knew some of his co-accused, particularly Liu Bo, Bao Xia Fu and Liu Kam Song.
Yap had also wanted the prosecution and defense to initiate the pre-marking of evidences but both the prosecution and the defense expressed their inability to do so.
For the prosecution, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) is yet to submit to them the actual items seized in Tan’s possession when he was arrested in Hong Kong.
Trauma
The prosecution comprises State Prosecutors Archimedes Manabat, Juan Pedro Navera and Man-daue City Prosecutor Ferdinand Peque.
For the defense, delos Santos said he is yet to gather the pieces of evidence he deems necessary to prove that his client had nothing to do with the alleged shabu laboratory in Barangay Umapad.
Hearing on Tan’s petition for bail, meanwhile, will be done simultaneously with the hearing on the actual merits of the case.
“The accused humbly submits to this Honorable Court that if the instant petition for bail be approved, he undertakes to comply strictly with the afore-quoted conditions set forth by law,” delos Santos’ motion read.
“The Honorable Court can rest assured that he will not jump bail as he has no intention to do so. The accused would not do such a thing as he very well know in his heart and in his mind that he is innocent of the charge against him. Beside he does not want to be a criminal on the run as this will traumatize his family even more,” he said. (KNR)
(August 19, 2005 issue)
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