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BY ADRIAN STEWART CO
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Sunday, October 15, 2017
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MANILA – Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio criticized the high court decision to dismiss Sen. Leila de Lima’s petition to dismiss the drug-related charges lodged against her and release her from detention.
In his dissenting opinion, Carpio said the accusations against de Lima were “blatantly a pure invention” and the high court should not support 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,” he said.
Associate Justice Marvic Leonen, in a separate dissenting opinion, branded the decision as “quintessentially the use of the strong arm of the law to silence dissent.” De Lima is a known critic of President Rodrigo Duterte.
“Even in strong democracies, dissenting voices naturally find themselves in the minority … 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.
Voting 9-6 in an en banc session last Tuesday, the Supreme Court upheld the jurisdiction of Muntinlupa City Regional Trial Court on de Lima’s cases.
Those who voted to junk de Lima’s petition were associate justices Presbitero Velasco, Samuel Martires, Noel Tijam, Andres Reyes Jr., Alexander Gesmundo, Teresita Leonardo-de Castro, Diosdado Peralta, Lucas Bersamin, and Mariano del Castillo.
Favoring de Lima’s release were Carpio, Leonen, Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, and associated justices Estela Perlas-Bernabe, Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa and Francis Jardeleza.
According to the high court, the Muntinlupa RTC has exclusive jurisdiction over the drug charges against de Lima even if her position, with a salary grade higher than 27, is under the jurisdiction of the Sandiganbayan.
De Lima was accused of receiving around P10 million in drug payoffs from high-profile drug convicts at the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa City./PN
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