Richard Chen, aka Richard Tan —GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE
The Senate blue ribbon committee on Wednesday cited for contempt two Chinese-Filipino businessmen for lying and giving evasive answers to the body even as a drug enforcement official said they could be the “culprits” in the attempted smuggling into the country of P6.4 billion worth of “shabu” (crystal meth) from China in May.
Richard Chen, or Richard Tan, and Manny Li were detained at the office of the Senate sergeant at arms indefinitely, with the senators urging them to say what they really knew about the 604 kilograms of shabu that ended up in Chen’s warehouse in Valenzuela City.
Senators led by Richard Gordon, the committee chair, were frustrated particularly over Chen’s evasiveness about who shipped the shabu and to whom, as well as the other items in the cargo.
State witness
Sen. Panfilo Lacson told Chen that he could be made a state witness if he would identify his “principal” as well as those who accepted three other shipments that arrived on the same day with the drug shipment and that senators suspected also contained illegal drugs.
Chen was the one who helped Bureau of Customs (BOC) officials in recovering the drug shipment that arrived in the country on May 17 in wooden crates after the BOC was tipped off by the Chinese customs office in Xiamen.
The shabu was hidden in five printing cyclinders that were shipped from China through Hongfei Philippines, which Chen owns.
Li, on the other hand, helped Chen facilitate the documentation of the shipment through another Chinese-Filipino businessman, Kenneth Dong.
The decision to hold in contempt Chen and Li came after the senators sought to find out whether they knew that the cargo included shabu.
Chen told them he did not know the packing list sent to him by Hongfei China included the five cylinders containing shabu.
NBI investigation
But National Bureau of Investigation agent Norman Balquedra told the committee that during investigation, it was found that there was an original packing list that included the five printing cylinders.
Balquedra said Hongfei China, which receives packages there, would e-mail the packing list to Hongfei Philippines.
He said Hongfei gave the packing list to Li and this contained 14 items. Li then forwarded the packing list to Dong.
“So based on their exchanges, from 14 items, the list contained five items only,” Balquedra said, noting that the items Dong received from Li were “abrasives.”
“From the list of Manny Li, the five crates were not declared when he gave it to Kenneth Dong,” he said.
Balquedra said investigators got a packing list from the warehouseman of Chen showing five cylinders of printing rollers. He gave a copy of the original packing list to Gordon.
‘Lying’
This prompted Gordon to warn Chen and Li that he would cite them for contempt and said Chen was “lying” by denying knowledge of the cylinders.
Chen, through an interpreter, insisted he learned about the cylinders only on May 25.
Upon hearing the NBI disclosure, Wilkins Villanueva, director of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency-National Capital Region, said investigators could only conclude that Chen and Li were the “culprits,” as “the original packing list came from Mr. Chen, [who] gave it to Manny Li, who gave it to Kenneth Dong without [mentioning] the five cylinders.”
“So these two men are the ones we should catch?” Gordon asked Villanueva, who replied in the affirmative.
Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III told Gordon that since the two men lied, they should be held in contempt “until we are able to thresh out the whole thing.”
Gordon then ordered the men’s detention, saying Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III would decide where they should be detained until the next hearing on Aug. 15.