Mandaue warehouse owner released on P1.5-M bail

CEBU CITY — One of the owners of a Mandaue City warehouse where a shabu laboratory, considered among the biggest in Asia, was raided last year, walked out of detention the other day after posting P1.5-million bail.

A beaming Andy Ng came out of the Mandaue City Jail, where he was detained for the past three months, accompanied by his legal counsel, Manolito Seno, his mother and relatives.

Ng, however, refused to talk to reporters. But his other legal counsel, Romulo Senining, was glad over his release. "We are so happy about this development. Andy Ng is waiting for this," he said.

Ng and fellow warehouse owner Richard Ong, alleged drug financier Calvin Tan and 11 others are facing charges over the shabu laboratory which yielded more than P1 billion worth of shabu.

Ng’s temporary liberty came two weeks after Regional Trial Court Judge Marilyn Yap also granted Ong’s petition for bail.

Ong, through counsel Bernardito Florido, subsequently filed a motion to reduce his bail from P1.5 million to P500,000.

In Friday’s hearing, Mandaue City prosecutor Ferdinand Peque, however, opposed the motion, arguing that Ong has the financial capacity to post P1.5-million bail.

Florido instead offered the multimillion-peso property of Ong in Barangay Umapad, Mandaue City as guarantee, aside from the P500,000.

In her 11-page decision on Ng’s petition for bail, Yap said she found no strong evidence of conspiracy, actual knowledge and consent by Ng on the operations of the clandestine shabu laboratory inside the Cap R Us warehouse, which he and Ong reportedly own.

Yap said the lease contract that Ng and Ong signed as lessors with Joseph Yu, one of the so-called "Shabu 11," as lessee was not sufficient to prove Ng’s actual knowledge of the illegal activity inside the compound.

Yap said the only evidence to consider is the contract of lease between Ng and Ong and Yu, the contract of security services and the testimony of Superintendent Amado Marquez.

But she said these contracts do not describe Ng’s participation in the shabu laboratory and that Marquez’s testimony only identifies Ng and Ong as officers of the company which owns the Caps R Us warehouse.

"These (pieces of) evidence, even if taken together, lack the required quantum of proof like strong evidence of guilt so as to deny Ng the right to post bail. Bail is never required by way of punishment or denied for the purpose of punishing a person accused of (a) crime, nor (is it) the function of bail to prevent or license the commission of crimes," Yap said. — Freeman News Service