Updated (4:06 p.m.)
Senator Richard Gordon has cited for contempt the owner of SMYD Trading, the alleged consignee of the magnetic lifters that supposedly contained P6.8 billion worth of shabu (chrystal meth) that slipped through the country in August.
Gordon said that SMYD Trading’s Marina Signapan has consistently lied during the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee’s hearing on the shipment.
READ: 1 ton of shabu worth P6.8B eludes PDEA, PNP
Gordon, chair of the committee, has repeatedly refrained from citing Signapan for contempt. He said he doesn’t want to press the charges since Signapan is a woman.
But the Senator suddenly reversed his position on Wednesday, saying that Signapan missed her “chances” to tell the truth.
“The chair, hereby, declares Ms. Signapan under contempt of the Senate and is hereby confined here at the Senate,” Gordon said during the hearing.
In an earlier hearing, Signapan and customs officer Jimmy Guban allegedly made a certain Joel Maritana sign an affidavit that facilitated the entry of the shipment.
Guban has also been cited for contempt on that hearing.
Signapan insisted that she was only tapped by Maritana to be the consignee of the shipment and that she was paid a “handling fee” of P180,000.
Gordon repeatedly questioned the truthfulness of this statement in Wednesday’s hearing.
Maritana, however, said it was Gapan who introduced him to Signapan. /ee
READ: P6.8-B ‘shabu’ smuggling: BOC men probed