MANILA – Former senator Leila de Lima is now cleared of all drug charges filed against her during the administration of former President Rodrigo Duterte.
Muntinlupa City Regional Trial Court Branch 206 Presiding Judge Gener Gito on Monday granted her demurrer to evidence, which effectively dismissing her third and final drug case.
A demurrer to evidence is filed by the defense when they are confident that the prosecution’s presentation of evidence was weak enough that they don’t have to present their own.
In filing her demurrer to evidence last March, de Lima’s camp noted that almost all the important evidence of the prosecution was presented during her bail hearing.
They said that the court had declared that the prosecution’s evidence was unable to prove her alleged complicity in the drug case when it granted her application for bail.
The case stemmed from testimonies of inmates Rodolfo Magleo and Nonilo Arile claiming that big-time drug lords in the New Bilibid Prison were giving commissions to de Lima during her term as Justice secretary.
Magleo and Arile have recanted their statements.
The former senator was freed on bail by the same Muntinlupa City RTC branch in November 2023 after being detained in Camp Crame since February 2017 over drug allegations.
De Lima’s first acquittal came in February 2021 when the Muntinlupa City RTC-Branch 205 junked one of her three cases.
In May 2023, the Muntinlupa RTC Branch 204 acquitted de Lima and Ronnie Dayan, her co-accused and former bodyguard, of an illegal drug trading charge on the ground of reasonable doubt.
The former senator and former Justice secretary was arrested in 2017 for drug allegations. De Lima maintained her innocence and repeatedly denied the accusations against her./PN
