‘Marcelino no government witness’

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Justice did not force former Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) official Marine Lt. Col. Ferdinand Marcelino into testifying against Sen. Leila de Lima to avoid having his illegal drug case reopened.

“Senator De Lima was wrong to accuse the Department of Justice of blackmailing Colonel Marcelino,” Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II  said yesterday. “I have nothing to do with it. The first time I knew about it was from the newspapers. I have not even read a single line or sentence from the Marcelino case because it has not reached my level as of now. I believe it is still at the level of Chief Prosecutor Claro Arellano.”

Aguirre said Marcelino’s drug case might reach his office once there is a motion for reconsideration.

Meanwhile, Marcelino filed yesterday a motion to quash the charges of possession of drugs filed against him by the DOJ at a Manila regional trial court.

The justice secretary was grateful to Marcelino for calling a press conference on Thursday night to deny De Lima’s allegations that the DOJ had forced him to testify against the lady senator. He also denied having sent her text messages.

“I do not know why her defense is like that,” Aguirre said. “She is accusing us of harassing the witnesses, but she could not produce a single witness who could prove that the witnesses are being harassed. That is why I said that Senator De Lima has a different way of reasoning.”

The dismissal of the drug case against Marcelino last June was among the alleged “midnight resolutions” issued by the DOJ.

Aguirre admitted Marcelino’s case was “worth revisiting (because) this was one of the midnight (resolutions).”

Motion to quash

 In a 23-page motion, Marcelino and his co-accused Yan Yi Shou, the Chinese interpreter who was arrested with him during a raid inside a condominium unit in Sta. Cruz, Manila last January, asked the court to suspend the arrest warrant to be issued, stop the arraignment and trash the case altogether because of lack of probable cause.

Public Attorney’s Office chief Persida Acosta accompanied Marcelino to the Manila RTC Branch 17 around 2 p.m. yesterday.

In his motion, Marcelino asserted that prior to the DOJ’s September resolution of his drug case, two other resolutions citing weakness of evidence against him and Shuo were already out.

Marcelino was referring to the May 27, 2016 resolution of the Quezon City RTC branch 82 and the DOJ resolution dated May 23, 2016.

Marcelino also argued that the chain of custody – as far as the evidence allegedly recovered from him were concerned – was violated, since there were no inventory markings and the inventory was not done in front of the accused or a DOJ representative.

Members of a special unit of the PDEA were surprised to see Marcelino when they raided a suspected shabu laboratory inside the Celadon Residences on Felix Huertas Street in Manila in the wee hours of Jan. 21, 2016.