Virac shabu lab case to proceed to trial —court

A Makati court has ordered that the criminal cases involving the "mega shabu laboratory" discovered in Virac, Catanduanes, in 2016 proceed to trial.

This, after Judge Selma Palacio Alaras of the Makati Regional Trial Court Branch 63 rejected the motion of one of the accused to dismiss the charges and recall the warrant of arrest against him.

Xian Xian Wang, accused of conspiring with others to manufacture dangerous drugs, claimed that the government prosecutors' formal charges failed to allege any overt act of his that would link him to the crime.

But in a December 7 order obtained by the media on Tuesday, the judge ruled that the charge, called an Information, "clearly and accurately alleges the elements of the crime charged."

"There is no defect in the Information that would warrant any amendments thereto by the prosecution," Alaras wrote.

The judge added that the arrest warrant against Wang was issued after a Virac judge "personally determined" through supporting documents that there was probable cause to order the arrest.

Virac Judge Lelu Contreras handled the cases before they were transferred to Makati upon the request of then-Justice secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II.

Wang's eight co-accused includes Augusto Eric Isidoro, the former acting regional director of the National Bureau of Investigation's Central Mindanao office.

Isidoro, who surrendered to authorities in March last year, was ordered transferred from the Virac District Jail to the Makati City Jail last August. He allegedly owns the lot where the shabu laboratory discovered in Barangay Palta Small, Virac was built.

The accused face charges for violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002. —KBK, GMA News