EDITORIAL - Free after six years
There’s a lot of understandable rejoicing over the release, even if still temporary, of former senator Leila de Lima. Her release on P300,000 bail, however, is yet another indictment of the inefficiency of the Philippine justice system.
De Lima still has one last drug case to hurdle, after the other cases were dismissed following the retraction of key witnesses’ testimonies against her. Last Monday, the Muntinlupa Regional Trial Court’s Branch 206 allowed her to post bail along with her four co-defendants: her former driver Ronnie Dayan and security personnel Joenel Sanchez and Jad Dera as well as former Bureau of Corrections director Franklin Bucayu.
Arrested on Feb. 24, 2017 just over half a year after assuming a Senate seat, De Lima was detained without bail at Camp Crame on several drug charges revolving around accusations that she received payola from drug traffickers in the New Bilibid Prison when she was the justice secretary. The money was allegedly raised for her Senate bid.
The administration of Rodrigo Duterte is widely suspected of initiating De Lima’s prosecution because of her investigation, when she was the human rights commissioner, of his involvement in drug killings in Davao City when he was the mayor. Duterte has consistently denied the use of so-called death squads in the city’s crackdown on illegal drugs.
This issue remains unresolved, and is part of the investigation by the International Criminal Court on possible crimes against humanity committed by Duterte in his bloody campaign against the drug scourge when he was Davao mayor and then president.
On Oct. 9 last year, De Lima survived being taken hostage by another inmate at the Philippine National Police Custodial Center at Camp Crame. The Marcos administration offered to have De Lima placed under house arrest. De Lima refused, preferring instead to gain her freedom, even if initially on bail, through the regular judicial process.
How much longer she will wait for final judgment on her case is anybody’s guess. In 2017, the Supreme Court had issued revised guidelines for continuous trial of criminal cases. For drug cases, lower courts were required to complete the trial not later than 60
