Former Senator Leila de Lima may have to wait to make her political comeback as a member of the House of Representatives and its panel of prosecutors in the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte.
This comes after the Court of Appeals (CA), in a decision promulgated on 30 April but made public only on Monday, 15 May, reopened a legal chapter that De Lima had closed — the revival of drug charges against her and a retrial.
In a blistering rebuke, the CA Eighth Division ruled that Muntinlupa Regional Trial Court (RTC) Judge Abraham Joseph B. Alcantara committed “grave abuse of discretion” when he cleared De Lima and her co-accused, Ronnie Palisoc Dayan.
De Lima is the first nominee of the partylist group Mamamayang Liberal, which won a House seat in the recently concluded elections.
On the question of whether De Lima would be returned to detention during the pendency of the retrial, lawyers consulted by DAILY TRIBUNE said the decision would rest with the judge who will try the case.
The charges, rooted in De Lima’s tenure as secretary of Justice during the administration of President Benigno Aquino III, allege that she and Dayan conspired to facilitate the illegal drug trade inside the National Bilibid Prisons.
Prosecutors claimed that inmates, using mobile phones and electronic devices, ran drug operations and funnelled at least P10 million to De Lima via Dayan in late 2012.
Judge Alcantara based his decision to acquit on the recantation of key witness Rafael Marcos Z. Ragos, a former Bureau of Corrections official who initially implicated De Lima but later said his testimony was coerced.
The CA was unsparing in the decision penned by Justice Eleuterio L. Bathan and concurred in by Justices Nina G. Antonio-Valenzuela and Florencio M. Mamauag Jr.
The appellate court blasted the RTC for failing to provide a “clear and distinct statement of the facts and the law” — a constitutional requirement.
The court faulted Alcantara for relying too heavily on Ragos’s retraction, without a thorough analysis of how it impacted the totality of the evidence.
The CA underscored that the lower court never detailed which parts of Ragos’s testimony were withdrawn, nor how those changes undermined other pieces of prosecution evidence.
No double jeopardy
The RTC also failed to weigh the credibility of the recantation or explain why it dismissed other witnesses’ testimonies with little consideration, the CA said.
In an attempt to block a retrial, De Lima’s legal team invoked the principle of double jeopardy, arguing that she cannot be tried twice for the same offense.
The appellate court was unmoved and unconvinced. It ruled that because the initial acquittal was issued with grave abuse of discretion, it was void from the start — and thus offered no shield under double jeopardy protections.
Emphasizing the constitutional mandate for judges to render well-reasoned decisions, the CA made clear that the RTC ruling lacked the clarity, rigor, and legal grounding required by law.
As a result, the appellate court granted the petition filed by the Office of the Solicitor General, nullified the acquittal, and ordered a fresh trial before the same Muntinlupa court — now under strict instructions to adhere to proper legal standards.
Among the pieces of evidence that the RTC glossed over, according to the CA, was the testimony of former PNP-CIDG Director General Benjamin Magalong that offered a window into the intelligence gathered on drug operations within the New Bilibid Prisons during De Lima’s term as justice secretary.
His testimony, supported by the accounts of Jovencio “Jun” Ablen, Joel Otic, and Mark Genesis Caseres, described a sophisticated, well-oiled network allegedly run with the help of individuals close to De Lima.
Adding weight to the narrative were the testimonies of Jose Doloiras, agent Victor Ronquillo, and lawyer Eugene Javier IV. These witnesses traced the drug money trail, allegedly linking the proceeds directly to De Lima through her former aide, Dayan.
Inmate-witnesses Peter Co (Wu Tuan Yuan) and Vicente Sy also gave firsthand accounts of how the drug trade operated within the prison walls and how the cash flowed.
The defense sought to dismantle the prosecution’s version piece by piece, zeroing in on the credibility of its witnesses, especially Ragos.
Eduard Paul M. Dayan, a relative of Dayan, took the stand in an attempt to cast doubt on the testimonies concerning the alleged movement of funds.
The core of the defense’s argument was that the prosecution’s case rested on coerced and inconsistent testimonies — and that Ragos’s recantation had fatally undermined its foundation.
The issue of mobile phones and electronic devices — tools that allegedly enabled inmates to run drug operations from behind bars — also proved divisive.
The prosecution introduced intercepted communications and digital records to show De Lima’s supposed involvement.
But the defense struck back, challenging the admissibility and integrity of the digital evidence, questioning the chain of custody and the authenticity of the records themselves.