No less than President Arroyo filed the smuggling charges before the DOJ in August last year even as she vowed an unrelenting campaign against smugglers and their alleged cohorts in the executive or judicial departments.
State Prosecutor Josefino Zubia indicted before the Tabaco City regional trial court businessman Antonio Chua Jr., National Food Authority (NFA) dealer Carlos Carillo, ship operator Peter Nicholas Toundjis II and ship captain Yushawu Awudu of the El Greco Shipping Corp., owner of M/V Criston which allegedly transported the contraband.
At the same time, State Prosecutor Albert Fonacier is conducting a separate probe against Tabaco City RTC Judge Arnulfo Cabredo, who supposedly issued a temporary restraining order that President Arroyo said derailed the government efforts to go after the smuggled goods.
Zubia recommended that the accused be granted temporary liberty but only after posting bail of P120,000 each.
Zubia also recommended an additional bail of P40,000 for Toundjis and Awudu who were also charged for allegedly making it appear that M/V Criston’s papers were legitimate.
The Bureau of Customs discovered that the documents Toundjis and Awudu presented were actually spurious but it had already left the Tabaco City port in November 2001.
The Coast Guard later spotted the Criston in Mariveles, Bataan but it already sported another name, M/V Neptune Breeze.
Zubia said that Awudu admitted during an investigation that the Criston and the Neptune Breeze were the same vessel.
"The acts of Chua, Carillo, Toundjis and Awudu are clearly for the purpose of concealing the fact that Neptune is the same vessel as Criston which unloaded 35,000 sacks of smuggled rice and that there exists conspiracy among them," Zubia said in his eight-page resolution.