President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. turned the tables on former Senator Leila de Lima, whose drug cases were dismissed on a technicality and who was lately all over town proclaiming that she would testify before the International Criminal Court (ICC).
PBBM used the Muntinlupa court decision that granted De Lima’s petition for a demurrer of evidence as proof that the justice system is functioning in the country.
The President was firm in dismissing the need for “assistance” from the ICC in prosecuting drug-related cases. The ICC is investigating the war on drugs of former President Rodrigo Duterte.
De Lima was among the central personalities in the signature pursuit of Duterte as she was accused of using her position when she was justice secretary to collect money from the syndicated shabu operations inside the maximum security New Bilibid Prison.
A demurrer to evidence is a motion to dismiss due to insufficiency of proof of the allegations. Granting the petition is tantamount to an acquittal, but it did not prove that the allegations against De Lima were not true.
Still, Marcos used the court decision to assert there is no political persecution in the Philippines; what the country has, however, is a slow grind of justice, which the judiciary has attributed to the lack of courts and justices.
The ICC, which is a war crimes tribunal, looks into allegations that crimes against humanity or aggression against certain groups of individuals are not being acted on in a country with a broken justice system.
This is not the case in the Philippines where the courts are functioning and ICC involvement is a redundancy.
“This is something we should show the ICC,” Marcos said, referring to the court ruling on De Lima.
“The judiciary is working properly, our investigative services are working properly. I don’t know what further comments there could be. She went through the process, and then got acquitted,” he said.
Marcos stressed the government’s position of non-cooperation with the ICC stands as he reiterated that the international court does not have jurisdiction over the country.
The government in March 2019 withdrew from the Rome Statute that created the ICC. President Marcos said the country has no plans of rejoining the intrusive international body which is notorious for running exclusively after small countries such as the Philippines and several African nations.
“We still stay with our position that the ICC had no jurisdiction in the Philippines because we have a working police force, we have a working judiciary, and do not require any assistance in that regard,” he said.
The prosecutors in the De Lima case were hobbled by the recantation of former Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) officer-in-charge Rafael Ragos and several other witnesses, which resulted in the evidence being weakened.
Ragos had previously accused De Lima of receiving P10 million in two tranches that he delivered to her house and were received for De Lima by Ronnie Dayan, her lover and co-accused.
The state lawyers called the sudden change of heart of the witnesses anomalous.
“To set aside a testimony, which was solemnly taken before a court of justice in an open and free trial and under conditions precisely sought to discourage and forestall falsehood simply because one of the witnesses who had given testimony later changed his mind would simply make a mockery of our criminal justice system,” one of the prosecutors said.
Her release from detention through a technicality, however, has left hanging any closure to the highly revolting issue of narcotics operations orchestrated not only by De Lima but somebody higher up the ladder.
