DOJ seeks reconsideration of John-John case junking

CEBU - THE Department of Justice has asked for a reconsideration on the dismissal of the criminal case for coddling drug traffickers against former Cebu Vice Governor John Gregory Osmeña citing alleged failure of the court to give weight to the chronology of events that linked the former official to the illegal importation of the P6 billion worth of drug precursor in 2004.

The panel of prosecutors led by Taguig City Prosecutor Archimedes Manabat likewise reiterated its prayer for the court to issue a warrant of arrest against Osmeña who remains to be in the United States.

In a four-page motion for reconsideration, the panel of prosecutors assailed the November 24 ruling of Regional Trial Court judge Eric Menchavez dismissing the case for alleged failure of the prosecution to establish evidentiary link between Osmeña and the alleged drug traffickers, Mike Cummings and Dirk Hultz.

The prosecutors said that while they did not proffer any direct link between the accused and the alleged drug traffickers, the circumstances allegedly pointed to Osmeña as the protector and coddler of Cummings and Hultz.

According to the prosecutors, the court failed to appreciate the significance of the fact that the consignee, Cummings and the Coastside Ventures, Inc., used Osmeña’s address. The prosecutors likewise pointed out that the officers of the Coastside Ventures are also employees of the Vice Governor’s Office, the post that Osmeña then held.

“The Honorable Court failed to address the question of accused Osmeña’s employee’s participation in the submitted Securities and Exchange Commission documents and who could have placed their names thereat,” the prosecutors argued.

They added that this factual circumstance was ignored by the court in its search for “exculpatory facts.”

According to them, the uncontroverted facts of Osmeña’s meeting with a certain Kessel and Soria, two members of an Australian drug syndicate, his call to Police Senior Supt. Gaudencio Pagaling, Supt. Primo Golingay and Chief Inspector Leslie Maala and the use of Cummings and the Coastside Ventures Incorporated of his address in the consignment documents are proof of the former vice governor’s involvement in the illegal importation of the more than 1,000 kilograms of pseudoephedrine.

“These factual links that compose an unbroken circumstantial chain is the prosecutorial probable cause that the Honorable Court has chosen to ignore,” the panel said.

“To any unbiased and open mind, it is clear as that bright summer day of March 5, 2004, that accused Osmeña was aware that the pseudoephedrine contraband had arrived at the port of Cebu, and that he was facilitating its release with PDEA and Bureau of Customs agents for the obvious benefit of accused Cummings and Hultz,” they added.

The prosecutors also pointed out the court’s alleged failure to appreciate the fact that the Coastside Ventures Incorporated was only granted by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency a permit to import of 100 kilograms.

However, Cummings and the Coastside Ventures imported 1,500 kilograms which is beyond the permit granted by PDEA. The prosecutors said that the court did not discuss in its decision how the excess of 1,400 kilograms could be a legal importation.

The court’s dismissal of the case was earlier criticized by Dangerous Drugs Board Undersecretary Clarence Paul Oaminal who described it as an embarrassment of the Philippines before the international community.

Oaminal said it is very embarrassing for the country having not able to convict the Philippine contact of the Australia drug syndicate responsible for the smuggling of the 1,500 kilograms of pseudoephedrine, a precursor of shabu, into the country.

Reports had it that the shipment came from China and was intended for Australia and Cebu was just used as a transshipment point because of its several airstrips.

Oaminal said the Federal court in Australia convicted the masterminds even without having caught drugs in their possession. He said the conviction was merely based on the testimonies of the federal agents who have placed them under surveillance until the shipment was seized in CIP in March 2004.

Oaminal said that the Australian Federal Government is interested in the progress of the case because it was them who gave the information about the drug smuggling. In fact, they have offered to help in the prosecution by giving the Philippine Government the evidence that were used against the masterminds in Australia.

The Philippine government is supposed to file an official request to the Australian government to turn over the court documents pertaining to the case against the alleged conspirators previously convicted in Australia.

Oaminal said the testimonies of the Australian Federal Police agents implicated Osmeña as the one who allegedly facilitated the entry of the shipment from China to Cebu.

He said the agents who conducted a spying operation in Cebu when the shipment was brought here are willing to testify in the court hearing in Cebu City.

The agents allegedly saw the former vice governor facilitating the entry of the pseudoephedrine. —Fred P. Languido/WAB   (THE FREEMAN)