Former senator Leila de Lima said the Department of Justice (DOJ) should allow the transfer of 11 persons deprived of liberty (PDLs), who previously testified against her in drug cases, from the Sablayan Prison and Penal Farm in Occidental Mindoro to the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) in Muntinlupa.
Presiding Judge Gener Gito of the Muntinlupa Regional Trial Court Branch 206 granted the motions of De Lima and government prosecutors to transfer the PDL witnesses to NBP in Muntinlupa.
Former senator Leila de Lima at the Muntinlupa Hall of Justice for a hearing in September (Contributed photo)
The 11 PDLs are government witnesses in the last remaining drug case of De Lima pending before the Muntinlupa court.
The 11 PDLs who were ordered transferred by the court to NBP are German Agojo, Tomas. Donina, Jaime Patcho, Wu Tuan Yuan (alias Peter Co), Engelberto Durano, Jerry Pepino, Hans Anton Tan, Herbert Colangco, Noel Martinez, Nonilo Arile. and Joel D. Capones.
“Are they afraid of the Truth? Why are they blocking it? The DOJ’s refusal to transfer 11 inmate-witnesses in my last remaining drug case from Sablayan to NBP only shows the agency’s continuing attempt to stand by its former secretaries’ (Aguirre and Guevarra) bogus charges against me,” said De Lima in a statement.
She added, “Until the very last moment, this agency which I also led for five years opposed my application for bail, despite its willful and deliberate use of manufactured evidence and perjured witnesses just to sustain Duterte’s persecution cases against me.”
Of the 11 PDLs, Agojo, Doniña, Patcho, Wu, Durano, Pepino and Tan wrote a letter to Gito, telling him that they “would like to recant our previous testimonies against the latter, in the interest of truth and justice.”
“We are aware that by doing this, we are risking our lives and the safety and security of our families. However, we firmly believe in the saying ‘the truth shall set you free,. At this point we would like to state that our participation as witnesses in the drug cases against former DOJ secretary De Lima was vitiated by undue compulsion and influence, and thus, any judicial statement made by us, is void of lack of consent,” they said.
The seven added, “We would like to be given that chance should you allow us to recant our testimonies/statements in the aforementioned cases against former Senator De Lima. If given the chance, it will be our way of expressing our sincerest apologies to Senator De Lima and her family.”
“Finally, we request for our transfer from the Sablayan Prison & Penal Farm for our safety and security, and that of our families who also face the same riks when they pay us a visit at the said penal colony,” they said.
Meanwhile, DOJ prosecutors requested the transfer of PDLs Colangco, Martinez, Arile and Capones from the Sablayan prison to NBP for “smooth and easy access to them,” according to Gito’s order.
Last October, PDLs and state witnesses Rodolfo Magleo and Arile wrote a letter to De Lima and former Bureau of Corrections chief Franklin Bucayu, saying they will recant their testimonies “for several reasons with the primordial objective–to help you both to be set free together with your fellow co-accused in the last case at the sala of Hon. Judge Gito of Muntinlupa City RTC Br. 206.”
According to De Lima, “Now, DOJ wants the truth-telling by these witnesses to be made more difficult, by keeping them isolated and almost inaccessible from the hills of Sablayan Penal Colony in Mindoro, if only to prevent them from divulging who among DOJ officials, past and present, connived and conspired to fabricate testimonies and manufacture evidence in the three drug cases Duterte filed against me.”
“DOJ’s excuse of using the much-abused jurisprudence on the non-credibility of recanting witnesses is not even blurted out scholarly by the DOJ spox. Recantations are frowned upon ONLY IF the recanting witness is not presented again for cross-examination on his recanted testimony. It is frowned upon ONLY IF it is only made in an affidavit and not tested through the crucible of open court cross-examination,” she said.
She said, “The DOJ also says these are not ordinary witnesses, but convicted felons. That is what we have been telling the DOJ since Day One. As convicted felons, they are not ordinary witnesses, but they are also disqualified from testifying as state witnesses under the Witness Protection Law. “
“And yet the DOJ stood by them when it suited their purpose of singing the tune that they wanted. Now that they are recanting, DOJ is saying that they are convicted felons, and that their recantations are not credible. These are the same convict-witnesses DOJ said were credible when they followed what their handlers and the prosecutors wanted them to say,” said De Lima.
De Lima said “BuCor’s jurisdiction on prisoners and their transfer is not absolute. This jurisdiction gives way to the authority of the courts to preserve the administration of justice, whenever it thinks that the protection of prisoner-witnesses in criminal cases pending before it is best served by the judgment of the court rather than the administrative concerns of the BuCor.”
“The RTC of Muntinlupa clearly has jurisdiction over these inmates for the simple reason that they are witnesses in a case pending before it, and that it is in the interest of the administration of justice that the court is assured that they are safe and free in their testimony,” she said.
De Lima was released from detention on Nov. 13 after six years and eight months when Gito granted her bail in the amount of P300,000.
The DOJ under the Duterte administration filed three drug cases against her in February 2017. Two of the three drug cases were dismissed by Muntinlupa courts.
The only remaining case is 17-167 under Gito. All the three cases accused De Lima and others of conspiracy to commit illegal drug trading.