MUNTINLUPA City Regional Trial Court Branch 204 Presiding Judge Abraham Joseph Alcantara yesterday inhibited from handling the last drug case against detained former senator Leila de Lima after state prosecutors filed a motion stating they want him out of the case.
While he maintained he remains impartial despite acquitting De Lima in her second drug case, Alcantara said he said decided to grant the prosecution’s motion “not because the prosecution’s assertion is true but to put to rest any questions against (my) credibility, integrity, and fairness.”
“At the very first sign of lack of faith and trust in his or her actions, whether well-grounded or not, the judge has no other alternative but to inhibit himself or herself from the case,” Alcantara said in a four-page order.
He ordered that the records of the case be immediately transmitted to the Office of the Clerk of Court of the Muntinlupa RTC for re-raffle to avoid further delay in the resolution of the case.
Earlier on Thursday, state prosecutors filed a pleading with the Muntinlupa trial court Branch 204 and asked that Alcantara inhibit from handling De Lima’s final drug case.
In seeking his inhibition, the prosecutors expressed apprehension that Alcantara would “carry over his perceptions” when he ruled to clear De Lima and her former aide Ronnie Dayan of conspiracy to commit illegal drug trading in the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) while she was the secretary of the Department of Justice during the Aquino administration.
Alcantara had cited “reasonable doubt” when he acquitted De Lima in the case involving Dayan and former Bureau of Corrections officer-in-charge Rafael Ragos. The judge had ruled that the government’s case against De Lima crumbled after Ragos recanted his allegation that the former senator received P10 million from proceeds of the drug trade inside the national penitentiary.
In its eight-page motion, the prosecution panel said: “Having adversely decided against the People in the previous Criminal Case No.17-165, the undersigned Panel of Prosecutors cannot help but be apprehensive that the Honorable Presiding Judge will carry over his perceptions to the instant case.”
“Thus, to erase any doubt as to the impartiality of the Honorable Presiding Judge, as well as to remove any impression that he will similarly decide on the instant case in favor of accused, the prosecution most respectfully moves that the Honorable Presiding Judge voluntarily inhibit himself from hearing the instant case,” it added.
It stressed its concerns were “legitimate,” saying that Alcantara’s recusal would “ensure a just and fair administration of justice” and “maintain and preserve the trust and faith of the party-litigants.”
De Lima’s remaining case was raffled to Alcantara’s sala after Muntinlupa RTC Branch 256 Presiding Judge Romeo Buenaventura granted the petition for his inhibition filed by the former senator, Dayan, former Bureau of Corrections chief Franklin Jesus Bucayu, and Joenel Sanchez.
The four co-accused had taken fault at Buenaventura’s failure to disclose his blood relations to lawyer Emmanuel Buenaventura, who had helped Dayan in executing his affidavit implicating De Lima in the drug trade inside the NBP.
In May last year, Dayan retracted his allegations and testified that he had been coerced into signing his affidavit.
Prior to this, Buenaventura denied De Lima’s bail petition in the case in where she is accused of conspiring with Bucayu to engage in the illegal drug trade to fund her 2016 senatorial campaign. He had said that the prosecution panel has strong evidence to prove her guilt.
De Lima’s camp has already appealed the denial of her bail plea.
The former senator has won two of the three drug cases lodged by the Duterte government against her, one through a demurrer of evidence and the other through lack of merit of the prosecution’s case.
De Lima has been in detention at Camp Crame since February 2017 months after launching a Senate inquiry into former President Duterte’s bloody crackdown against illegal drugs.
