Abandoned van at SLEX  yields 250 kilos of shabu

An L-300 van which was abandoned by its driver and another occupant after figuring in an accident in Laguna yielded yesterday 250 kilos of high-grade shabu with an estimated street value of P1.23 billion.

Traffic Management Group (TMG) director Chief Superintendent Perfecto Palad said they will invite for questioning a certain Dante Letada, the owner of the L-300 van to shed light on the seized shabu shipment. “The van owner has a lot of explaining to do,” said Palad.

Palad theorized that the shabu could be on its way to Metro Manila when the vehicle carrying the shipment figured in an accident along the South Luzon Expressway extension in Calamba City at 11 a.m.

Senior Superintendent Felipe Rojas Jr., Laguna PNP provincial director said the L-300 van was sideswiped by a speeding Toyota Revo, causing the van to turn on its side. Rojas said witnesses saw the driver and another occupant coming out of the van and ran towards an unknown direction.

“The witnesses said that the driver and his companion deliberately abandoned the vehicle after it turned to its side,” said Rojas in an interview.

The Laguna provincial director said the Toyota Revo did not stop after figuring in the traffic accident.

Rojas said witnesses reported the traffic accident to the Philippine National Construction Corp. (PNCC) which in turn passed the information to the Laguna traffic office.

Palad said when his men arrived at the scene to conduct an investigation, they found 25 plastic bags inside the L-300 van. The TMG director said that a pack contained two kilos of shabu while a plastic bag contained five packs.

Among the recovered evidence were two bagful of car fresheners, which the car occupants used to mislead policemen. “Once they are stopped in a police checkpoint, the car occupants would present the car fresheners to policemen telling them that the said products are their cargo,” said Palad.

The Scene of the Crime Operatives (SOCO) in Southern Luzon PNP confirmed that the seized shabu are of high-grade quality.

The SOCO operatives are still making an inventory of the seized shabu as of press time, said Palad, claiming the police in PRO4-A will take custody of the shipment.

Acquitted

In other developments, the Regional Trial Court in Baler, Aurora, Quezon acquitted on Wednesday four Chinese nationals who were arrested and charged following last year’s raid of a clandestine shabu laboratory in Dingalan town.

Acquitted of two counts of violation of the Comprehensive Drugs Act of 2002 in a 33-page decision penned by RTC Branch 66 Judge Armando Yanga were Sy Tho, Wang Tha Ti, China Na Chua and Chen Chien. The court ordered their immediate release from detention at the provincial jail in Barangay Suklayin here where they have been languishing for over a year. It also ordered the seized items forfeited in favor of the government and turned over to the Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB).

The four were arrested when the NBI raiding team swooped down on the shabu laboratory in Barangay Butas na Bata on Aug. 30, 2006. Some 5.44 kilograms of metam­phetamine hydrochloride (shabu) were seized in the raid, worth an estimated P120 million.

In acquitting the four accused, the court cited that their constitutional rights had been violated by the raiding team of the National Bureau of Investigation and that the search was conducted not in the presence of the four who were herded to another area while the search was made.

“The procedure undertaken by the raiding team where the witnesses were prevented from actually observing and monitoring the search of the premises, violates both the spirit of letter of the law,” thus rendering the seized articles inadmissible as evidence.

In all prosecutors for violations of the Dangerous Drugs Law, “the existence of the dangerous drug is a condition sine qua non for conviction since it is the very corpus delicti of the crime,” the court cited.” With the exclusion of the seized articles (as evidence), the accused must necessarily be acquitted in both cases.”

The court also noted that the raiding team violated the constitutional right of the accused against self-incrimination when they were made to sign the inventory of seized property, which takes the nature of an admission.

Citing records, the court noted that after an inventory of the seized items, these were presented to the accused who signed without having understood the consequences that the same may be used as evidence against them.   – With Manny Galvez