The case against Senator De Lima should be dropped without prejudice.
Looking back at the Marcos era and post EDSA era, many trumped up charges against the opposition have been filed to silence criticism. Make no mistake that this case is not similar to those in the past. Sen. Benigno Aquino was sentenced to die due to alleged possession of illegal weapons. Sen. Panfilo Lacson was implicated in the Dacer-Corbito double murder case. Both charges were found to be fabricated. The two are known critics of past administrations. Globally, authoritarian practices are seen using the judiciary to wreak havoc. Suharto of Indonesia and Najib of Malaysia are known to send their critics to prison.
So the case of Sen. De Lima is an old fashioned, capricious extension of government muscle.
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Atty. Tony Lavina examined the demurrer of Sen. De Lima. He found out that (1) the prosecution failed to establish the conspiracy between Sen. De Lima and certain Jad Dera for the purpose of drug trading. (2) The Anti Money Laundering Council (AMLC) testified that there is no money trail to prove the drug trade. Atty, Lavina, argued that since Sen. De Lima is not found in the physical drug trade or, in esoteric terms, is not found in corpus delicti or body crime, then the evidence against her is not beyond reasonable doubt. Furthermore, physical evidence is not present in the case at bar, e.g. the illegal drugs per se, their quantity or identity. Atty. Lavina questioned the capacity of the court to decide as to the correct penalty because the law provides that it should be based on the identity and quality of the illegal drugs.
Recently, key witnesses for the prosecution recanted their initial statement that implicated Sen. De Lima in this case. One of them is Rafael Ragos, former deputy director for intelligence at the National Bureau of Investigation. He signed an affidavit disproving all accusations against the senator. Allegedly, he was coerced by the Department of Justice under the supervision of then Sec. Aguirre. The said retraction was put in writing; hence, it is strong evidence that can stand scrutiny in an open court.
According to literature, those who do not learn from their mistakes are doomed to repeat them. We are the nation that once sent the father of the Philippine revolution, Anders Bonifacio, to trial and execution for political advancement. We repeatedly linked Sen. Aquino to the Maoist movement in the Philippines based on rumors. And we once condemned Sen. Lacson, but later admired him when Cesar Mancao admitted that the past administration coerced him to implicate the senator in the murder case. In the present, we once again repeated the history of putting critical thinkers in prison-box hoping the truth would be incarcerated with them. But as Martin Luther King says: "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it will bend toward justice."
References
- https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/05/04/philippines-witnesses-retract-testimony-against-duterte-critic
- https://www.rappler.com/voices/thought-leaders/analysis-crossroads-de-lima-case/
- https://www.manilastandard.net/news/314225538/another-witness-recants-claim-vs-jailed-de-lima.html
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