MANILA – A former Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency official, a former police officer and two others accused of involvement in an P11-billion shabu smuggling case have been cited in contempt for their absence in a Senate committee hearing Thursday.
“The contempt order is now formal,” said Blue Ribbon Committee chairman Sen. Richard Gordon. “We are now going to issue contempt orders so we can get these people back here.”
Gordon cited in contempt former PDEA deputy director general for administration Ismael Fajardo, dismissed policeman Eduardo Acierto, Marina Signapan, and a certain Emily Laquingan.
Signapan, owner of shipment consignee SMYD Trading, was said to be sick but her camp cannot produce a medical certificate, only a text message.
“This meeting was called almost two or three weeks ago,” Gordon said. “A text is not sufficient, you know that. She’s been trying to evade us. The chair declares her in contempt. We’re not going to let anybody run circles around us.”
Signapan attended a previous Blue Ribbon hearing on Sept. 19 when Gordon also cited her in contempt for lying in her testimonies.
Fajardo and Acierto, who were implicated by former Customs intelligence officer Jimmy Guban into the drug smuggling incident, refrained from attending the Senate hearing.
Shabu shipment worth P11 billion placed inside magnetic lifters has been moved into the country – and past the Bureau of Customs – in August during the time of Isidro Lapeña as Customs commissioner.
Amid the drug shipment mess President Rodrigo Duterte relieved Lapeña from the Customs bureau and made him head of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority.
Maritime Industry Authority administrator Rey Leonardo Guerrero replaced Lapeña at the Customs./PN
