Gravest injustice

By: Artchil B. Fernandez

This week marks the 1,000 days of detention of Senator Leila de Lima. Her case is the gravest injustice inflicted by Du30 on an individual. De Lima’s continued detention according to retired Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonio Carpio is “one of the grossest injustices in recent memory.”

The case against Sen. de Lima is pure invention. It is the epitome of the weaponization by Du30 of the judiciary to hunt down and persecute his perceived enemies.

Sen. De Lima is accused of the crime of illegal drugs trade in the New Bilibid Prison. She was accused of violating RA 9165 or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drug Act of 2002. The charge is only based on the statements of Bilibid inmates Herbert Colanggo, Engelbert Durano, Vicente Sy, Jojo Baligad, and Peter Co. The drug complaints against these convicted criminals were dismissed in exchange for their testimonies on Sen. De Lima. On the basis of the charge, the Muntinlupa City Regional Trial Court (RTC) ordered her arrest and detention.

Questioning her arrest and detention, Sen. De Lima elevated her case before the Supreme Court. In her petition, the senator said that the Muntinlupa CityRTC had no jurisdiction over her case and it should be under the Sandiganbayan.

The Supreme Court, voting 8-6, however, rejected her petition. It upheld her detention giving a legal imprimatur to her continued imprisonment. The dissenting opinions of associate justices Antonio Carpio and Marvin Leonen, on the other hand, exposed her arrest and continued detention is sham and contrived. It has no legal standing and violated the time tested jurisprudence on the matter.

Associate Justice Leonen’s dissent said that the charges against Sen. De Lima “may be a case of persecution rather than prosecution.” This is anchored on the fact that Du30 on several occasions vowed to destroy her. “It is reasonable to suspect that her case is quintessentially the use of the strong arm of the law to silence dissent,” Leonen said.

When Du30 was Davao City mayor and Sen. De Lima was chair of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), she initiated an investigation on his alleged link to the Davao Death Squad.  Du30 was enraged and vowed to get back to her. “It is this that makes this case special: if we fail to call this case what it truly is, then it will not only be the petitioner who will be in chains. None of us will be able to claim to be genuinely free,” Leonen wrote.

It is the dissenting opinion of Senior Associate Antonio Carpio that incisively and clinically tore and demolished the justification for the detention of Sen. De Lima and bared its deceit. “To allow the continued detention of petitioner under this Information is one of the grossest injustices ever perpetrated in recent memory in full view of the Filipino nation and the entire world.” The information Carpio is referring to is the evidence against Sen. De Lima, the testimonies of the drug lords.

Sen. De Lima is charged under Sec. 5 of RA 9165 which is the “sale, trading, administration, dispensation, delivery, distribution and transportation of illegal drugs.” The evidence against Sen. De Lima failed to show this according to Carpio’s dissent. “Indisputably, the Information does not identify the buyer, the seller, the object, or the consideration of the illegal sale or trade. The Information also does not make any allegation of delivery of the drugs illegally sold or traded nor of their payment. The Information does not state the kind and quantity of the drugs subject of the illegal sale or trade,” he said.

Driving the stake at the heart of the majority decision, Carpio quoted the previous ponencias of Justice Velasco who wrote the majority decision on a similar case. “What is material is proof that the transaction or sale actually took place, coupled with the presentation in court of the prohibited or regulated drug or the corpus delicti as evidence.”

Furthermore, Carpio said the Information against Sen. De Lima is actually a crime of bribery and not the sale of illegal drugs.  He called the charges “would be laughable if not for the non-bailable detention of the accused.” But the senator remains in detention based on this laughable charges.

“This Court, the last bulwark of democracy and liberty in the land, should never countenance such a fake charge. To allow the continued detention of petitioner under this Information is one of the grossest injustices ever perpetrated in recent memory in full view of the Filipino nation and the entire world,” Carpio finally thundered.

The evidence Du30 has against Sen. De Lima is the words of convicted drug lords. There is no corroborative and material evidence. Just the words of these people who are polluted sources. Using these drug lords against Sen. De Lima exposed the fakeness of the war against illegal drugs.

If Du30 is truly against illegal drugs why would he take the words of these convicted drug lords and make a deal with them? These drug lords are now given privileges while in detention and are treated well because they agreed to say what the administration wanted against Du30’s arch enemy.

Perhaps the clearest evidence that the case against Sen. de Lima is pure fiction is the behavior of the judges assigned to the case. Four judges of Muntinlupa City RTC inhibited from the case for various reasons and the last two judges opted for early retirement than handle the case. If it is an air-tight case as Du30 claims why would these judges excuse themselves?

The detention of Sen. de Lima is a severe case of injustice with the judiciary complicit to this terrible inequity. Free Sen. Leila de Lima now!