MANILA – A Valenzuela City court dismissed on Thursday the drug charges filed against nine people in connection with the P6.4-billion shabu shipment smuggled into the country last year.
Judge Arthur Melicor of the Regional Trial Court Branch 284 granted the respondents’ motion to dismiss the transportation and delivery of dangerous drugs charges due to the prosecution’s “forum shopping.”
Forum shopping is the practice of lodging multiple cases against the same respondents in hopes that one of the proceedings would result in a favorable decision.
Among the nine respondents in the drug case were Bureau of Customs brokers Mark Taguba and Teejay Marcellana, Hongfei Logistics, Inc. owner Chen Ju Long and businessman Richard Tan.
The case should be dismissed after RTC Branch 171 junked a drug importation case against the same people for lack of jurisdiction since the importation took place in Manila, not in Valenzuela, Taguba, Marcellana and Chen noted in their motion.
The Department of Justice then re-filed the importation case in a Manila court, before which Taguba and shipment consignee Eirene Tatad recently pleaded not guilty.
“The acts separately alleged in the two informations [sic] are a series of acts performed to achieve a common ultimate design, which culminated in the delivery and deposit of the five crates in the Hongfei warehouse,” Melicor said.
“Filing a case for importation in Manila after the court in Valenzuela City has dismissed an earlier case for importation for lack of jurisdiction, and then filing another case, this time for transportation, before this court involving the same accused and based on the same facts, issues and arguments, clearly bears the hallmarks of forum shopping, betraying the prosecutors’ intent to secure favorable judgment from different courts,” the order added.
The drug shipment arrived at the Manila port on May 17 and was released by the Bureau of Customs on May 23 to the Hongfei Logistics, Inc.’s warehouse in Valenzuela City./PN
