THE Department of Justice (DOJ) has appealed the May 12 decision of Branch 24 of the Muntinlupa City regional trial court acquitting detained former senator Leila de Lima in one of her drug cases.
In asking the court to reconsider its ruling, state prosecutors challenged the integrity of and questioned the motive for the recantation of the allegations of former Bureau of Correction’s (BuCor) chief Rafael Ragos against the former DOJ secretary.
Ragos’ retraction was used as basis by Branch 204 Judge Joseph Abraham Alcantara in his ruling to acquit De Lima in the case alleging conspiracy to commit illegal drug trading case in the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) when she was the DOJ chief.
Ragos had said that he was coerced and threatened by then DOJ secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II to implicate De Lima in the narcotics trade by saying that he delivered P10 million in drug money in two batches to the former senator’s residence.
In its appeal, the DOJ questioned the motive behind Ragos’ recantation, which it noted came out eight days before the May 2022 elections when De Lima ran but lost for reelection.
“The silence of a witness for several years was deafening, his active participation in the trial and his resounding affirmation in the four walls of Congress, Senate and this Court that there were still rampant drug trading in the damned halls of the penal institution are solid proof that there are individuals who assented to these illegal activities and eventually benefited from it,” the appeal said.
‘But after more than four years of earsplitting silence, the witness sang another song and recanted his previous testimony and that news came as a bombshell eight days before the 2022 presidential elections, where the accused Sen. de Lima was seeking re-election. This clearly raises doubt as to the motive behind the sudden retraction.,” it also said.
It added: “Verily, the precipitous recantation of former NBI and deputy director and BuCor OIC Rafael Marcos Ragos is coming off as highly suspect and should not be the sole barometer and guiding threshold in rendering the assailed judgment.”
The also DOJ argued that Ragos’ recantation was “not sufficient to vitiate his original testimony” given before the House of Representatives, the Senate, the media, and the court which were all made “under oath, in the presence of a judge, and subjected to extensive questioning and cross-examinations.”
State prosecutors said that allowing Ragos’ recantation will make solemn trials a mockery and place the investigation of the truth at the mercy of unscrupulous witnesses.
“To reiterate, it is only where there exist special circumstances which, when coupled with desistance or retraction, raise doubts as to the truth of the testimony or statement given, can a retraction be considered and upheld. However, in the case at bar, other than his subsequent retraction, no other circumstances were presented to sufficiently uphold the veracity of the same,” they added.
They said the RTC ruling was a complete surprise since it contradicted its February 1, 2021 ruling denying the demurrer to evidence filed by De Lima’s camp, which would have effectively dismissed the case due to alleged weak prosecution evidence if it was approved.
Likewise, the state prosecutors said there are other pieces of evidence to prove all the elements of the crime charged, including the role played by De Lima in the illegal drug trading inside the NBP, as well as the testimony of Jovencio Ablen Jr. that he accompanied Ragos in delivering the drug money to De Lima’s residence.
The state prosecutors also cited the testimonies of convicted drug lords Hans Anton Tan and Peter Co that the money delivered to De Lima came from illegal drug trading.
They also told the court that the illegal drug trade inside the NBP and the complicity of De Lima with it were also established by the two sets of reports prepared by another NBP inmate Nonito Arile and confirmed by Police Supt. Jerry Crisostomo Valeroso of the PNP-CIDG.
Sought for comment, De Lima’s camp said they will ask the court to expunge the DOJ’s motion for reconsideration.
“The court no longer has jurisdiction over the case after acquittal which is final and executory. Even the judge no longer has jurisdiction to alter his own judgment of acquittal because it is final and executory immediately,” they said.
De Lima’s camp stressed that a judgment of acquittal, whether ordered by the trial or appellate court, is “final, unappealable, and immediately executory upon promulgation.”
