ASIDE from his two convictions for violation of the Anti-Bouncing Checks Law or Batas Pambansa 22, Korean businessman Kang Tae Sik, whom Justice Secretary Vitaliano N. Aguirre II wanted to deport immediately, had faced a total of seven separate criminal charges for the same offense.
This was disclosed by lawyer Alex A. Tan, the private complainant who filed a deportation case against Kang Tae Sik in March 2014.
Another affidavit complaint against the Korean was executed by a certain Bonifacio Carreon in April 2014, who named Kang as among “foreign nationals in cahoots with Filipino dummies” who were violating the antidummy law. Lawyer Jorico F. Bayaua referred Carreon’s complaint to then-NBI Director Virgilio L. Mendez who brought the case to the attention of the Bureau of Immigration.
Tan said two of the seven charges were filed in a Regional Trial Court (RTC) in Manila, one in the Municipal Trial Court (MTC) in Pasig City, three in different MTCs in Makati and the seventh in the RTC in Makati.
While Kang Tae Sik managed to wiggle out of five of these cases, the RTC in Manila convicted him in January 1996 of two counts of issuing bouncing checks.
The conviction earned him a total of one year and eight months in jail, apart from shouldering the cost of litigation and attorney’s fees. He was also ordered to pay the P500,000 representing the value of the bouncing checks, plus 12-percent annual interest from the date of conviction until fully paid. Since the offenses involved moral turpitude, the conviction made him liable for deportation.
Kang subsequently sought the reversal of the RTC in Manila’s decision before the Court of Appeals, first in 1997 and then in 2001. He lost in both instances. He later brought his case to the Supreme Court, which also denied his appeal and upheld his conviction in 2003. Tan said the seven criminal charges of violations of Batas Pambansa 22 constitute solid proof of Kang’s antisocial behavior and makes him a recidivist whose continued stay in the country is highly inimical to public interest.
During a Senate hearing last February on the murder of Korean businessman Jee Ick Joo last year, Aguirre raised the possibility that a Korean mafia operating in the country could be responsible for the killing and mentioned Kang Tae Sik’s purported ties with the crime group.
Aguirre insisted on Saturday that they had been able to establish the Korean mafia’s existence. “As a matter of fact, one of their top members, we were able to arrest him and he is now being processed for deportation proceedings,” Aguirre said as he reiterated his statement about Kang’s Korean mafia connection.