SC’s Carpio: De Lima cases pure invention, ‘grossest injustice’

MANILA, Philippines — Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio believes that the drug trafficking-related charges filed against Sen. Leila de Lima – a staunch critic of President Duterte and his brutal war on drugs – is “pure invention.”

Carpio is one of the six magistrates who voted in favor of granting De Lima’s petition questioning the jurisdiction of Muntinlupa Regional Trial Court branch 204 in issuing a warrant of arrest against her, former Bureau of Corrections (BUCOR) officer-in-charge Rafael Ragos and her former driver and lover Ronnie Dayan.

Associate Justice Presbitero Velasco Jr. penned the ruling denying De Lima’s petition.

In his dissenting opinion, Carpio said the Sandiganbayan has jurisdiction over De Lima’s case, not the Muntinlupa court, because De Lima allegedly used her “power, position and authority” as then secretary of justice to receive money from the illegal drug trade in the New Bilibid Prisons for her senatorial bid in the last elections.

He also pointed out that the Information in the case does not charge the non-bailable offense of drug trafficking since there was no mention of a single essential element of drug trafficking.

The Information failed to show that De Lima actually participated in the drug trade. It simply accused De Lima of allowing the inmates of the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) to continue trading illegal drugs while serving jail time.

“How can petitioner be made liable as co-principal and co-conspirator when there is no allegation whatsoever that she committed an act constituting part of the illegal sale or trade of drugs and not one of the essential elements of the crime of illegal drugs is present?” he added.

What the information charges, Carpio noted, is the bailable offense of direct bribery and yet De Lima is being held without bail.

“Direct bribery falls under the exclusive original jurisdiction of the Sandiganbayan, and not the regional trial court,” he said.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) should also refer the direct bribery charge to the Office of the Ombudsman, he added.

For this reason, Carpio believes that Muntinlupa regional trial court Judge Juanita Guerero should revoke the warrant of arrest she issued against De Lima, Ragos and Dayan, and release them from detention immediately.

“Based on the Information itself, the accusation of illegal trade of drugs against petitioner is blatantly a pure invention. 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 said.

“This kind of Information would be laughable if not for the non-bailable detention of the accused,” he added.

The eight magistrates who concurred with the ruling penned by Velasco are Associate Justices Teresita Leonardo-de Castro, Diosdado Peralta, Lucas Bersamin, Mariano del Castillo, Samuel Martires, Noel Tijam, Andres Reyes and Alexander Gesmundo.

Martires, Tijam, Reyes, and Gesmundo are appointees of Duterte.

Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno and Associate Justices Estela Perlas Bernabe, Marvic Leonen, Francis Jardeleza and Benjamin Caguioa also dissented from the ruling penned by Velasco.

Leonen said that while the decision of the majority is not surprising, it is “deeply disturbing.”

“With all due respect, it unsettles established doctrine, misapplied unrelated canons and, most importantly, fails to render a good judgment: law deployed with sound reasons taking the full context of the case as presented,” Leonen said.

“The Information alleged acts of petitioner when she was secretary of the Department of Justice. That the alleged acts were done during her tenure, facilitated by her office and would not have been possible had it not been for her rank, is also clear in the Information. The alleged crime she had committed was in relation to her office,” he added.

Leonen also pointed that that even Guerero’s issuance of a warrant of arrest was “unconstitutional” because she “did not conduct the required personal examination of the witnesses and other pieces of evidence against the accused to determine probable cause. She only examined the documents presented by the prosecution.”

Leonen also believes that De Lima’s relentless attacks against Duterte’s war against drugs and the hundreds of summary killings committed under it might have been a factor in the filing of charges against her. 

“This would have been a simple and ordinary case had the petitioner’s reaction been different. The petitioner here is known to be a vocal critic of the administration. She drew attention to many things she found wrong. She had been the subject of the colorful ire of the President of the Republic of the Philippines and his allies,” the magistrate said.

Even before the Department of Justice (DOJ) could conduct preliminary investigation, Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II already presented his case against De Lima before the House of Representatives and conducted the examination of prisoners. 

The DOJ has supervision and control over the Board of Pardons and Parole, the Bureau of Prisons and the Witness Protection Program.

“It should not be this institution that wavers when this Court finds rights clearly violated. It is from the courage of our positions and the clarity in our words that empowers our people to find their voice even in the most hostile of environments. To me, what happened in this case is clear enough. The motives are not disguised,” Leonen said. 

“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,” he added.

Sereno also believes that the case should be with the Sandiganbayan. 

“Here, we have a senator whose salary is above Grade 27. She is being charged in the Information with a drug offense that was clearly described as committed in relation to her office as secretary of justice. There is an alleged bribe or damage to the government that this is above the amount of one million pesos. Clearly, the case falls within the Sandiganbayan’s jurisdiction,” the Chief Justice said.

Sereno also believes that De Lima did not deliberately committed forum shopping when she filed the instant petition before the SC and raised the same arguments that she raised in her pending motion to quash before the Muntinlupa court. 

De Lima also clearly mentioned in the verification and certification against forum shopping attached to the instant Petition for Certiorari and Prohibition that she has a pending motion to quash filed before the Muntinlupa court, and that she filed a Petition for Certiorari and Prohibition before the Court of Appeals (CA).

“In this case, in determining the action or the relief that should be dismissed, I believe that the motion to quash filed by petitioner before the regional trial court should be the one disregarded by this Court. The instant petition for certiorari is the appropriate vehicle to settle the issue of whether it is the regional trial court or the Sandiganbayan that should try and hear the charge against petitioner,” Sereno added.

For Caguioa, the Information is a “sham” because it only contains legal terms without specific factual allegations of the elements of the offense charged.

“The separate and discordant voices of the members of the Court have been heard. Yet, there is no direct pronouncement that the Information against the petitioner and her co-accused is valid. The impression that can be gathered is that if it is defective, then it can anyway be subsequently amended. In the meantime, petitioner must continue to languish in jail – even if the Information cannot possibly be amended because it is fatally defective,” Caguioa said.

“The Constitution is deemed no match to the absence of a specific procedural rule that a motion to quash should be ruled upon simultaneously with the determination of probable cause – even if the Information indicting the accused is void on its face and the very jurisdiction of the criminal court is being questioned.”

“The majority of the Court has succeeded, by its decision, to make the Constitution subservient to the rules of procedure. They now allow for the deprivation of an individual’s liberty while waiting for the correct and legal sufficient Information to be filed and approved by the criminal court,” he added.

Caguioa pointed out that the decision apparently sends out the message to “arrest first, resolve the motion to quash and amend the Information later, then proceed to trial: finally, acquit after 10 years or so.”