MAMAMAYANG Liberal party-list Rep. Leila de Lima yesterday filed a formal complaint for grave misconduct and gross ignorance before the Department of Justice (DOJ) against the government prosecutors who filed and later withdrew a petition appealing her acquittal for drug-related charges.
“It is in this light, that I formally ask your good office to exercise its disciplinary authority and initiate a formal administrative investigation against the following prosecutors for grave misconduct and gross ignorance of the law,” De Lima said in her complaint addressed to Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla.
Named respondents in the complaint were Provincial Prosecutor Ramoncito Bienvenido Ocampo Jr.; City Prosecutors Blas Antonio Tuliao and Laurence Joel Taliping; Deputy City Prosecutors Leilia Llanes, Evangeline Viudez-Canobas, and Darwin Canete; and Senior Assistant City Prosecutors Rudy Ricamora Jr., John Quincy Carandang, Wendell Bendoval, and Alfred Joseph Jamora.
In her complaint, the former senator and DOJ secretary recalled how she suffered the “shameless weaponization” of the justice system when she became the target of “fabricated and politically motivated” cases during the previous Duterte administration due to her criticisms against the illegal drugs campaign of former president Rodrigo Duterte.
The DOJ, during the leadership of former DOJ secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II, filed three drug-related cases against De Lima before the Muntinlupa regional trial courts, alleging that she benefitted from proceeds of the illegal drugs trade in the New Bilibid Prison when she headed the justice department.
All three cases have been dismissed by the Muntinlupa courts for various reasons. The third and last case was junked by Branch 204 of the Muntinlupa RTC following the recantation of the prosecution’s main witness, former Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) director Rafael Ragos, who previously testified that he delivered P10 million in alleged drug sale proceeds from the BuCor to De Lima’s bodyguard in her residence in Paranaque City.
In recanting his testimony, Ragos claimed that he was allegedly coerced by Aguirre to link De Lima to the narcotics trade.
During the pendency of her cases, De Lima was detained for seven years at the PNP Detention Center in Camp Crame before she was freed after her last case was junked.
But the prosecution panel led by Ocampo appealed her acquittal on June 27, 2025, telling the court that it has enough evidence to warrant a reversal of the court’s decision despite Ragos’ recantation.
The appeal came after the RTC stood its ground on acquitting De Lima after the Court of Appeals remanded its earlier acquittal decision.
Prosecutor General Richard Anthony Fadullon later on said the appeal was filed without his go-signal. He said he only learned about it “through my staff whom they (prosecutors) informed, after the panel of prosecutors had already filed it .”
The panel of prosecutors on July 23 withdrew their motion of reconsideration on orders of Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla and Fadullon.
De Lima accused the government prosecutors of turning a blind eye to the recantation of Ragos and the “glaring absence” of material evidence linking her to the illegal drugs trade inside the national penitentiary.
Without Ragos’ statement, she said, there was no link, no crime, and no basis for her arrest and detention in 2017.
“This constitutes grave misconduct. Their relentless pursuit of my conviction even after Mr. Ragos and other key witnesses recanted and exposed the pressure they were under demonstrates a flagrant disregard for their duty to seek truth and justice. They allowed themselves to become instruments of persecution, not prosecution,” De Lima said, stressing that the appeals violated the rule against double jeopardy.
“Their action amount to gross ignorance of the law. A judgment of acquittal is final and immediately executory. This is a fundamental principle that every lawyer should know, let alone a government prosecutor,” De Lima said.
De Lima also said that their decision to file the motion without the imprimatur of either Remulla or Fadullon highlighted the panel’s “rogue and abusive conduct.”
“Their persistence was not a simple error in judgment, it was a malicious attempt to prolong my ordeal and subvert the rule of law,” she said.
She added that her “politically motivated persecution” eroded the integrity of the DOJ, saying that Remulla must take action to address the situation and restore public trust against the abuse of prosecutorial power.
“The prosecutors who lent their authority to this travesty must not be allowed to continue wielding the powers of the State with impunity. Their actions were not a simple mistake, they were a tyrannical exercise of power that cost me years of my life and eroded the foundation of our justice system,” stressed.
