Accused financier Calvin Tan threatens to file criminal raps against Judge Yap

Accused shabu-manufacturing financier Calvin de Jesus Tan has threatened to file a criminal complaint at the Ombudsman either today or Wednesday against the judge handling the two cases he is currently facing in court.

Tan, through his lawyer, William delos Santos, said he will file the complaint against Regional Trial Court-branch 28 judge Marilyn Lagura-Yap for the latter's issuance of an unjust interlocutory order in relation to his motion for bail.

An interlocutory order, according to a law dictionary, is a court judgment that is temporary and not intended to be final until other relevant matters arise.

Delos Santos was also contemplating on filing at the Supreme Court an administrative case against Judge Yap.

The defense lawyer alleged that Judge Yap had pre-judged the case of his client who she already deemed guilty despite lack of any evidence to the charge that Tan had financed the shabu manufacturing in warehouses at Mandaue City that authorities raided in 2004.

Last March 31, Judge Yap denied Tan's petition for bail because the Court finds that the evidence of guilt of the accused was strong. This dismayed Tan's lawyers who in turn accused Judge Yap of pre-judging the case.

Judge Yap told the defense that she did not pre-judged the case because it was only a resolution over Tan's petition for bail.

Delos Santos, together with defense counsels Hector and Vicente Fernandez, Eric Crin and Lorenzo Paylado, subsequently petitioned Judge Yap to inhibit voluntarily from handling the cases against their clients. This petition is yet to be resolved however.

The prosecution panel, led by senior state prosecutor Achimedes Manabat, had already submitted its opposition to the petition for inhibition arguing that it was merely contingent upon the adverse resolution over Tan's petition for bail.

Two other defense counsels, Romulo Senining and Haidee Acuña, also joined the prosecutors in opposing the inhibition plea because such move will only delay the trial of the case, and thus prejudicial to the cause of their clients, Andy Ng and Richard Ong.

Tan is one of the 14 accused, mostly foreigners, of alleged shabu-manufacturing in private-owned warehouses in Mandaue's barangay Umapad, Looc, and Paknaan. Tan was tagged as the alleged financier of the illegal activity while warehouse owners, Ong and Ng, have been out on bail.

The raided shabu laboratory in Umapad was reportedly the biggest so far found in southeast Asia. Seized in the raid were 675 kilos of shabu, worth P1.5 billion, and stocks of chemicals that are enough to produce 15 tons of the banned substance.