De Lima may benefit from SC ruling on Reyes – Remulla

MANILA, Philippines — Detained former senator Leila de Lima may benefit from a Supreme Court (SC) resolution that had lawyer Jessica “Gigi” Reyes, former aide of Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Juan Ponce Enrile, released from jail after over eight years, Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla said yesterday.

Reyes had been in jail since July 2014 after a graft court ordered her arrest together with then-senator Enrile for allegedly embezzling P174 million of his pork barrel in conspiracy with Janet Lim Napoles.

Last Thursday, Reyes was released from the Taguig City Jail following the SC resolution that issued a writ of interim habeas corpus which resulted in her “temporary liberty.”

Yesterday, Remulla explained that the SC’s habeas corpus for Reyes constitutes something of a precedent for other high-profile criminal cases like that of De Lima’s.

“Possible. The same reasoning may apply to Sen. De Lima’s case,” said the Department of Justice secretary.

Essentially, Reyes’ petition for writ of habeas corpus questioned the length of her detention after she was charged with plunder related to the pork barrel scam.

In the House of Representatives, Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman asserted that the “scales of justice have finally evened out” upon Reyes’ release from “vexatious restraint.”

“It is a cruel travesty of justice for a subaltern to suffer continuing detention while the primary accused has been granted liberty much earlier pending criminal prosecution,” said Lagman, who drew a comparison with Enrile who has long been released for “humanitarian reasons.”

On the other hand, former SC spokesman Ted Te expressed the same view as Remulla about De Lima’s case on his official Twitter account, @TedTe.?

Te said that De Lima should also file a petition for habeas corpus “as a test” to the SC’s ruling, which “distinguished the privilege of the interim writ in this case from HB (habeas corpus) as post-conviction remedy because the applicant is still facing trial.”

Te also emphasized that the guidelines set “show that it is a new remedy similar to, but not exactly like, bail” as there is no security required in this case.

“One of the SC’s functions is to provide guidelines to the bench and the bar, which it did here, pursuant to its rule making power under AVIII, s5(5). Effectively, the Rules on HC have been amended since it is not designated as PHV and guidelines have been issued,” he said.

“The (unforeseen?) consequence of this new interim writ is that all those similarly situated to the applicant under the guidelines will now file petitions with the SC. Hopefully, it will not become an opportunity to narrow the scope of the interim writ’s application,” he added.

Te also believes that other political offenders whose cases have been moving slowly can file for a similar legal remedy, which for him “widens the space and opportunities for freedom for those who are being tried for offenses where bail is discretionary and whose rights to speedy trial are violated.”

But for Solicitor General Menardo Guevarra, the SC’s ruling in the case of Reyes “will have to be applied on a case-to-case basis, depending on the facts of each particular case, and not as a blanket precedent.”

Guevarra said that the Office of the Solicitor General will have to carefully study the legal ramifications of the Court’s resolution.

“The Supreme Court has made it clear that its ruling on the petition for habeas corpus is not tantamount to an acquittal of the accused nor to a dismissal of any of her pending cases. It will only result in the temporary liberty of the accused, as if bail was granted without any amount fixed by the court,” he said.

‘Speedy trial, release’

Meanwhile in Congress, Sen. Risa Hontiveros said the trial of De Lima, which she claimed was based on fabricated drug charges, should move faster as she has the right to speedy court proceedings like any other Filipino.

“The right to a speedy trial is a right that should be enjoyed by all Filipinos, including Gigi Reyes. My only hope is that this is applied equally and not by a double standard,” Hontiveros said in a statement.

“Because if there is any victim of vexatious, capricious and oppressive detention, nothing could be worse than Leila de Lima,” she said partly in Filipino.

Similarly, Lagman said that “what is even more of a charade is the interminable solitary confinement of former senator Leila de Lima for trumped up drug charges.”

“It must be recalled that De Lima has already been acquitted of one of the three cases and that principal prosecution witnesses in the two other pending cases have voluntarily recanted for having been coerced to testify, and the other witnesses have failed to pin down De Lima,” he added.

The lawmaker called for the immediate release of De Lima on bail “as her prolonged detention is inordinately odious.”

De Lima has been in detention since her arrest in February 2017 when she was still a senator.

She was detained at the Philippine National Police Custodial Center at Camp Crame until October last year after she was held hostage by another detainee, who was trying to escape before being fatally shot by policemen.

She accepted President Marcos’ offer for a transfer to another place within Camp Crame.

De Lima has insisted the allegations by government prosecutors that she abetted the illegal drug trade at the New Bilibid Prison when she was justice secretary was politically motivated as then president Rodrigo Duterte could not get over her investigating him for allegedly constituting the “Davao Death Squad” when he was mayor of Davao City.

Her lawyers have called for the dismissal of the cases as prosecutors’ key witnesses have recanted.  – Paolo Romero, Sheila Crisostomo