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A
SHIPPING official accused of stealing funds from his
former private employer has requested the justice
department to determine whether his case has enough
evidence to stand trial before being heard by a Manila
court.
Vicente
T. Suazo Jr., administrator of the Maritime Industry
Authority (Marina), through his legal counsel Atty.
Florante A. Miano, has requested more time to secure a
government decision whether the case filed by Harbour
Centre Terminal Port Terminal has enough evidence to
merit court proceedings. The port operator, which
transformed a
Manila garbage
dump into a shipping facility, used to employ Suazo as
its president and chief executive officer.
The
Manila court has given Suazo, who is also a lawyer,
until July 24 to secure a Department of Justice
resolution with no extension. The hearings will proceed
as planned if Suazo fails to secure a resolution.
Although
a hearing was supposed to be held last May 24, Suazo’s
legal counsel requested the court to suspend
proceedings.
“A
preliminary investigation is a component part of due
process in criminal justice. It is a statutory and
substantive right accorded to the accused before trial.
To deny their claim to a preliminary investigation would
be to deprive them of full measure of their right to due
process,” Suazo’s lawyer said in his motion for
reconsideration.
The
document also said that the “right to a preliminary
investigation does not end after the rendition of the
resolution by the city prosecutor. It continues in
motion if one of the parties seasonably files a motion
for reconsideration or appeal to the Secretary of
Justice. It ends after the Secretary of Justice renders
a resolution on the appeal.”
Last
March, besides finding that the port company’s case has
enough evidence to prove Suazo’s guilt, the
Manila
prosecutor’s office has endorsing it to a Manila court.
Harbour
Centre, a closely-held company controlled by businessman
Reghis Romero II, accused Suazo of issuing the checks
worth P1.99 million to himself on six separate occasions
between December 1999 to January 2002. The company also
alleged that Suazo created a “second set of bank
accounts” of the company to divert its funds.
Harbour
Centre also wanted to indict Celso S. Perez, Suazo’s
executive assistant when he was at the company, but the
prosecutor dismissed the case for insufficiency of
evidence.
In his
defense, Suazo disputed the filing of the complaint,
which was made one-and-a-half years after he resigned
from the company in March 2003.
He also
said that the complaint was filed after he appeared at a
Senate hearing on the alleged controversy pertaining to
a Smokey Mountain development project in 2004.
In
August 2004, Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago claimed that
the National Housing Authority, which formed a joint
venture with RII, a company controlled by Romero, was
expected to convert the dumpsite into a low-cost housing
complex and an industrial commercial site where the
Manila Harbour Centre now operates.
Under
the contract, RII would spend for the entire project and
in turn became the owner of 79 hectares of reclaimed
land, according to a Senate document.
The same
document said that after RII built a few low-cost
housing units, the company declared that it ran out of
money, failing to fully finance the project.
Instead,
the government paid RII some P3.1 billion to continue
the project, gave the company some 10 hectares of land
valued at P1.75 billion, and the right to reclaim an
additional 150 hectares more. In exchange, the
government would have 60 percent of the voting shares of
the corporation, which Romero later on diluted, allowing
him to retake control of the company’s majority shares,
according to Santiago. |
