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| Judge orders more inquiry into the case |
By Vir B. Lumicao
A 52-year-old Filipina pleaded guilty at the High Court on
Friday, Nov 18, to a charge of trafficking in dangerous drugs, but contradicted
her plea when she initially questioned the facts of the case as they were read
out, before admitting it reluctantly.
The last-minute shift of Susan B. Cumpio caught everyone by
surprise and prompted Judge Kevin Paul Zervos to delay sentencing until Feb 3,
as he ordered the prosecution to make further inquiry into the case.
“Guilty,” Cumpio, a widow who had a son in the Philippines,
said after a Tagalog court interpreter read out the particulars of the charge,
then asked for her plea.
But after the agreed facts were read to her, she initially
said she disagreed because there was something wrong with them, then said in
resignation: “Sige, oo na lang. (OK,
I agree).” Then she wept.
Zervos instructed the prosecution to take Cumpio’s statement
about the circumstances of her case. Then he asked why no one asked the
Immigration Department about the long travel record of the defendant.
“I noticed that (Cumpio’s) has had a long history of travel to
Hong Kong ,” Zervos said, citing that it
started on July 13, 2010 and ended with her arrest on Jun 15, 2015.
“Did anybody check with the Immigration about her travel
record?” the judge asked, to which the prosecutor replied no one had done that.
Zervos also hit Customs officers who he said were just
apprehending people and sitting on the cases focusing on the big picture
without looking at the details.
The judge cited new information supplied by prison chaplain
and anti-drug trafficking campaigner Fr John Wotherspoon, who requested barrister
Richard Donald, for the defense, to hand Zervos a letter appealing for
mitigation.
“It’s unfortunate that it came rather too late,” the judge
said.
But he acknowledged Fr John had long mounted a campaign
against drug trafficking syndicates using unsuspecting women and admitted he
drew insights from the chaplain’s views before making decisions.
Cumpio was arrested on Jul 15 last year when she arrived
from Sao Paulo , Brazil ,
via Dubai , and
attracted the attention of Customs officers with her unnatural gait.
When they searched her, they found nearly two kilograms of
suspected cocaine wrapped around her thighs and concealed in her tailor-made
underwear.
At the High Court on Friday, the prosecutor said the amount
the dangerous drug found on her was 1,994 grams with purity of 1,210 grams with
an estimated market value of $2.3 million at the time.
The prosecution said she had a clear record and was not
addicted to drugs.
The defense counsel, in mitigation, said Cumpio was widowed
in 2005. She had worked as a shopkeeper and as waitress before she went to work
as a domestic helper in Singapore ,
then in Malaysia and Hong Kong .
In her hand-written statement which Fr Wotherspoon provided to
the court, the defendant said she was a widow who had been supporting her son,
now 17, and her parents in the Philippines
since her husband died.
She said she went to work as a domestic helper in Sao Paulo looking after
the three male children of a Brazilian family. After two years she met a
Tanzanian man who she fell in love with and “spent good times together” until
the man lost his job and “started acting stranger and becoming abusive towards
me.”
Days later Cumpio discovered the man was using drugs and
reported him to the police. He was arrested but after his release, things only
got worse, Cumpio said.
“He started becoming more abusive and (beat) me more often,”
she said. At one time the man beat her badly with a wooden plank that caused
her to lose her memory. She recovered
after being treated at a hospital.
She sought shelter in a church after that beating while her
lover was rearrested. However, after police freed the man, he sought her out
and they reconciled. But Cumpio said he only got worse and threatened to kill
her on a few occasions.
Eventually the man told her about his being in the drugs
business and offered her passage back to
the Philippines if she
agreed to make a trip to Hong Kong to deliver
drugs.
Cumpio said she accepted the offer because she no longer
wanted to live in Brazil ,
nad also because she wanted to see her family.
