De Lima moved by dissenters’ opinions, hopes other justices to vote fairly

MANILA, Philippines — Detained Sen. Leila de Lima remains hopeful that the Supreme Court justices will be convinced of her camp’s position once the plea for reconsideration is presented to them, a week after the High Court decided to keep her in jail for drug charges.

“[I] hope that they find both the wisdom and the fortitude to vote equally according to the dictates of their reason and to the counsel of their conscience—either one of which would lead them to see the blatant lies and the sheer and apparent acts of abuse of power committed in this case,” De Lima said.

SC justices voted 9-6 to dismiss De Lima's petition seeking the nullification of her arrest and a halt order on the criminal proceedings against her at the Muntinlupa Trial Court.

Associate Justice Presbitero Velasco Jr. penned the ruling after rejecting the plea of De Lima for his inhibition due to alleged “conflict of interest.” 

Those who voted to junk the petition were: Associate Justices Teresita De Castro, Disodado Peralta, Lucas Bersamin, Mariano Del Castillo, Samuel Martires, Noel Tijam, Andres Reyes and Alexander Gesmundo—all appointees of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and President Rodrigo Duterte.

“[I] hope that each one of them—veteran and newly appointed members of the Supreme Court alike—will realize the huge stakes that are involved in this case, over and beyond what it means to me personally as one falsely accused, and even beyond what it means to this President and this regime, who wants to silence and make an example out of me in order to inspire fear and blind obedience from others,” De Lima said.

She said her camp would file a motion for reconsideration.

READ: SC votes to keep De Lima in jail

Moved by dissenters’ words

The embattled senator admitted that she ended up “teary-eye and deeply moved by the wise and discerning words of the honorable dissenting justices.”

De Lima lauded the justices’ dissertations on issues of jurisdiction and probable causes, assertion of the primacy of constitutional issues and substantial justice over rigid technicalities.

“Their lamentations on the unjustness of the Velasco ponencia reveal the dissenters’ underlying belief in my innocence, which is, to be completely honest, most important to me on a personal level,” she said.

The magistrates who dissented were Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, Associate Justices Alfred Benjamin Caguioa, Estela Bernabe and Marvic Leonen.

In his 39-page dissenting opinion, Carpio said the SC’s decision to keep De Lima in jail is “one of the grossest injustices” in recent memory.

He also described the accusations against the lady senator as “blatantly a pure invention.”

READ: Carpio: SC ruling on De Lima 'one of the grossest injustices' in recent memory

In his separate dissenting opinion, Leonen said that while the majority’s position was not surprising at all, such a decision was “deeply disturbing.”

Leonen also said that it is “reasonable to suspect” that the charges against De Lima, a known vocal critic of the Duterte administration, were “quintessentially the use of the strong arm of the law to silence dissent.”

Caguioa, in his 59-page dissenting opinion, stressed that the Muntinlupa City Trial Court had no legal bases to issue an arrest warrant against De Lima and the information should have been quashed or nullified.

Jardeleza also echoed Caguioa’s opinion.

Sereno, moreover, insisted that De Lima’s case falls only within the jurisdiction of the Sandiganbayan, noting that drug courts do not have the necessary machinery, expertise or competence to resolve the accusation.

‘Persecution’ by Duterte’s regime

“One cannot emphasize enough the magnitude of the persecution done, and is still being done, to me by this regime,” De Lima lamented.

Last week, she noted the SC’s majority decision shows the extent to which “Dutertism has distorted reason, suppressed the truth and rejected the primacy of conscience.”

READ: SC decision legitimizes political persecution, says De Lima

De Lima said that legal attacks—criminal, ethics, disbarment and election protest cases—have been thrown at her from all fronts.

She was accused of protecting and coddling drug traders inside the New Bilibid Prision during her stint as Justice secretary.

De Lima, who has repeatedly denied the charges, is facing three counts of violations of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002. 

She is currently detained at the police headquarters in Camp Crame.

Last year, Duterte vowed to “destroy” De Lima, who had ordered a Senate probe into the killings related to the government’s “war on drugs.”

He also said De Lima “will rot in jail” for accepting bribes from drug lords and allowing the proliferation of narcotics at the Bureau of Corrections.