The Court of Appeals has shut down another legal maneuver by the former barangay captain once tagged as Manila’s so-called drug queen, who tried to overturn a ruling that upheld her arrest warrant for the killing of an alleged “ninja cop.”

In a three-page resolution dated 2 July 2025, the CA’s Third Division, through Associate Justice Jaime Fortunato Caringal, stood firm that the issues raised should be threshed out during the trial, not before it. For the court, the matters of evidence belong before the judge and jury hearing the murder charge against her.

The former official who rose to local power as chairperson of Barangay 484 in Sampaloc in 2018, has long faced allegations of building a drug ring with the protection of “ninja cops” — rogue police who recycle confiscated narcotics back into the streets. According to case files, she allegedly ordered the execution of Police Officer 1 Roderick Valencia, a suspected reseller who reportedly failed to turn over large proceeds from the sale of repackaged drugs.

Valencia was gunned down by two men on a motorcycle in Barangay Salvacion, Quezon City on 14 July 2011. For nearly a decade, the case went cold until the man who claimed to have driven the motorcycle, Ernesto Encarnado, gave an extrajudicial confession that pointed the ex-official as the mastermind.

Encarnado’s testimony claimed that Valencia’s murder was orchestrated as punishment for his unremitted drug money. This confession became the backbone of the murder case and the basis for the Quezon City Regional Trial Court to issue an arrest warrant against her.

The ex-official’s legal team moved to quash the warrant, insisting that Encarnado’s confession should carry little weight given that it surfaced eight years after the killing. They also argued that the absence of an autopsy report or death certificate left Valencia’s cause of death unproven.

The Court of Appeals, however, saw no merit in these arguments. It emphasized that the spot report dated 13 July 2011 clearly indicated that Valencia suffered three gunshot wounds and was declared dead on arrival.

“An average, reasonable person, which is the standard for determining probable cause, would naturally conclude that the victim died from gunshots on the specified date,” the CA said. “Such a person would not require a death certificate or autopsy report to reach this conclusion.”

“Upon a thorough re-examination of the case records, this Court finds absolutely no grave abuse of discretion on the part of the lower courts in denying the petitioner’s motion to quash the warrant of arrest,” it stated.

The court also did not give merit to the attempts to discredit Encarnado’s extrajudicial confession by arguing that it took him eight years to come out and execute an affidavit. The CA noted that there is no deadline for a witness to make an extrajudicial confession.

“The essential point remains that, based on the available evidence thus far, there is a probable cause to issue a warrant of arrest against the petitioner,” the CA said.

For now, the ex-official will have to answer the allegations against her when the murder trial finally unfolds in court.