THE Muntinlupa City regional trial court is expected to rule today on the petition for demurrer of evidence filed by former senator Leila de Lima on the last drug-related case filed by the previous Duterte administration against her.
The petition was filed last March.
De Lima’s counsel, Boni Tacardon, said Muntinlupa City RTC Branch 206 Presiding Judge Gener Gito is set to rule on the plea today.
“If granted, the case will be declared dismissed. Granting of the demurrer means that the prosecution have failed to prove the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt and Sen. Leila and the rest of the accused are acquitted of the charges filed,” Tacardon said.
“If denied, then the accused will have to present their evidence,” he said.
In her 52-page demurrer, De Lima asked Gito to junk the last drug case against her, saying the prosecution failed to present evidence to prove her guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
De Lima said the prosecution has not only failed to present sufficient evidence that would sustain a judgment of conviction beyond reasonable doubt, but it has also failed to present strong evidence of her guilt, referring to the court’s grant of her bail petition in November 2023 that allowed her to regain provisional liberty after spending almost seven years in detention.
In his order allowing De Lima to post bail last year, Gito pointed to the lack of substantial evidence presented by the prosecution, noting that her guilt was not sufficiently established.
Gito also said the prosecution’s witnesses were not able to establish that there exists a conspiracy among the accused to commit illegal drug trading.
De Lima has won two of the three drug cases lodged against her before two other branches of the Muntinlupa RTC, one through a demurrer of evidence in February 2021 and the other through lack of merit of the prosecution’s case in May last year.
The third and last case being heard by Gito’s sala alleged that De Lima accepted bribe money from convicted drug lords at the New Bilibid Prison during her term as justice secretary to help finance her senatorial campaign.
De Lima has said in her demurrer that many of the prosecution’s witnesses have already retracted their allegations against her, including former Bureau of Corrections chief Rafael Ragos and most of the Bilibid inmates who earlier linked her to the illegal drugs trade.
De Lima has repeatedly denied any link to the illegal drugs trade, insisting that she was a victim of political persecution after she earned the ire of then president Rodrigo Duterte due to her opposition to his administration’s human rights abuses and killings associated with the drug war.
Aside from the drug case in Gito’s sala, De Lima is also facing charges for disobedience to summons under Article 150 of the Revised Penal Code.
Tacardon said the case is still pending before Branch 34 of the Quezon City Metropolitan Trial Court.
The case alleged that De Lima induced Ronnie Dayan to ignore or disobey the subpoena issued by the House of Representatives during the 2016 Bilibid drug trade investigations.
