Former senator Leila de Lima said she is disappointed with government prosecutors for filing a motion that resulted in a Muntinlupa judge inhibiting himself from hearing her last remaining drug case.
In an order, Presiding Judge Abraham Joseph Alcantara of the Muntinlupa Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 204 granted the motion filed by the Department of Justice’s panel of prosecutors for him to recuse from Case No. 17-167.
Former senator Leila de Lima (Juan Carlo De Vela)
Case No. 17-167, filed by the DOJ in February 2017, accused De Lima and others of conspiracy to commit illegal drug trading.
The DOJ charged that between March 2013 and May 2015, the accused used inmates at the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa to sell and trade dangerous drugs using mobile phones and other electronic devices, and allegedly got the proceeds amounting to P70 million.
“While I respect the decision of Judge Abraham Joseph B. Alcantara recusing himself from my third and last remaining drug case, I am truly disappointed at the Prosecution’s move in seeking for such inhibition,” De Lima wrote in a note from her detention facility in Camp Crame.
She said that “if they are truly agents of justice, the Panel of Prosecutors should have proceeded to entrust the appreciation of their evidence through the crucible of a judge whose independence, impartiality, and courage to do the right thing have already been proven in the past, i.e., in my second case.”
“Judge Alcantara’s rendition of judgment of my and my co-accused’s acquittal in that other case was definitely above board, consistent with law, evidence and reason. The Prosecution’s ground for inhibition in this last case is nothing even remotely close to the ground for inhibition raised in the case of Judge Romeo S. Buenaventura,” she said.
De Lima noted that “Judge Alcantara does not suffer from any similar cause for inhibition such as a close blood relationship to a lawyer who played a part in my persecution, a clear case of conflict of interest.”
“Inhibition is done to assure the accused, not the government, that the trial of the case will be fair and regular. The Constitution’s Bill of Rights upon which all of the most basic elements of our justice system are grounded has for its inception the fundamental law’s assurances against the abuse of the strong arm of the law by the State,” she said.
According to her, “The Constitution always presumes that it is the government who is capable of abuse and removing lady justice’s (i.e., a judge’s) blindfold to rig the justice system. This is not merely a legal presumption. It is a constitutional presumption.”
“It is the entire basis and rationale for Article III of the 1987 Constitution. Hence, the Bill of Rights of citizens. Otherwise, the Constitution might as well have added another Article III-B, this time to contain a Government’s Bill of Rights against its citizens, or against another branch of itself. But that would have been absurd. As absurd as the Prosecution’s motion for inhibition,” said De Lima.
Alcantara was the judge who acquitted De Lima and Ronnie Dayan in Case No. 17-165 in a decision dated May 12.
In his order dated July 6, Alcantara wrote, “Wherefore, the Motion for Voluntary Inhibition is granted.”
He is the second judge to inhibit from the case after Presiding Judge Romeo Buenaventura of the Muntinlupa Regional Trial Court Branch 256, who recused from the case in an order dated June 15.
Before this, Buenaventura denied the bail petitions by De Lima and her co-accused Franklin Jesus Bucayu, Ronnie Dayan, Joenel Sanchez and Jose Adrian Dera.
In his decision to inhibit from the case, Alcantara said, “According to the prosecution, since this Court adversely decided against the People in the previous Criminal Case No. 17-165, the panel of prosecutors cannot help but be apprehensive that the undersigned Presiding Judge will carry over his perceptions to the instant case.”
“With the foregoing, the undersigned Presiding Judge will exercise prudent discretion and voluntarily desist from hearing the case not because the prosecution's assertion is true but to put to rest any questions against his credibility, integrity, and fairness,” he said.