Former senator Leila de Lima attended on Sept. 11 a hearing of her last remaining drug case in Muntinlupa under a new judge.

Last July, it was announced that Presiding Judge Gener Gito of the Muntinlupa Regional Trial Court Branch 206 was assigned to hear case 17-167, which was filed by the Department of Justice (DOJ) against De Lima and others in February 2017. 

Former senator Leila de Lima at the Muntinlupa Hall of Justice on Sept. 11 (Contributed photo)

The case accused De Lima, former Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) director Franklin Jesus Bucayu, Ronnie Dayan, Joenel Sanchez and Jose Adrian Dera of conspiracy to commit illegal drug trading. 

The DOJ charged that between March 2013 to 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.

During the hearing, the prosecution presented its next witness, Froilan Trestiza, a person deprived of liberty (PDL). 

Inmate Rodolfo Magleo was present in court and was supposed to be presented as witness by the prosecution. 

However, he was not presented by the prosecution as he had hearing difficulty because of an ear infection, according to Lawyer Boni Tacardon, De Lima’s legal counsel.

De Lima has a pending motion for reconsideration to overturn the decision of the former judge in the case, Romeo Buenaventura of the Muntinlupa Regional Trial Court Branch 256, who denied last June the petitions and motions for bail filed by De Lima Bucayu, Ronnie, Sanchez and Dera. 

Buenaventura inhibited himself from the case after Bucayu, Dayan and Sanchez filed motions for him to recuse himself.

Case 17-167 was raffled off to Alcantara but prosecutors filed a motion for him to inhibit from the case. The case was finally handled by Gito. 

The Office of the Court Administrator under the Supreme Court previously ordered Buenaventura to finish hearing the case within nine months as it has dragged on for six years.  

Two of the three drug cases filed by the DOJ against De Lima were already dismissed. Case 17-166 was dismissed by a Muntinlupa in February 2021 when it granted De Lima’s demurrer to evidence while case 17-165 was dismissed last May.  

“We are confident of an acquittal,” Tacardon said of case 17-167. 

Meanwhile, government prosecutors filed an appeal to overturn the decision of  Presiding Judge Abraham Joseph Alcantara of the Muntinlupa RTC Branch 204, which acquitted De Lima and Dayan in case 17-165. Last May 12, the court dismissed the case. 

Prosecutors filed a motion for reconsideration before the court, which denied it in a decision last July. 

In the decision, Alcantara ruled that “the Motion for Reconsideration filed by the prosecution is denied for lack of merit.”

“Every acquittal becomes final immediately upon promulgation and cannot be recalled for correction or amendment. With the acquittal being immediately final, granting the State's motion for reconsideration in this case would violate the Constitutional prohibition against double jeopardy because it would effectively reopen the prosecution and subject the accused to a second jeopardy despite their acquittal,” the judge wrote in his decision. 

About the appeal, Tacardon said, “Senator Leila was already acquitted in that case. Therefore, the DOJ cannot appeal a decision of acquittal.”