BEFORE she was elected senator in 2016 Leila de Lima was a celebrated lawyer who could have landed any job in the legal firmament.
She was class salutatorian of the San Beda College of Law class of 1985. She placed 8th in the bar examinations administered in the same year.
De Lima did well in practice, primarily in the field of election law. Many politicians had retained her services – some of whom ended up as detractors when she went against the vortex of power by the Pasig River.
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De Lima was appointed Chairperson of the Commission on Human Rights in 2008 under the presidency of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
In 2010 she was named Secretary of Justice by President Noynoy Aquino.
At one time De Lima was touted to be in the running for Chief Justice, a post that instead went to Ma. Lourdes Sereno who, as we all know, faced troubles of her own after fiercely guarding judicial independence against unwelcome intrusions by the executive department.
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In 2016 De Lima managed to squeak into the 12th and final Senate slot despite a spirited negative campaign waged by an influential religious organization that she had offended when she was Secretary of Justice.
Yet the skies painted dark hues of foreboding.
A divided administration party got shellacked at the polls. A swashbuckling baddy from the deep South rode the darkest horse of the Apocalypse and conquered the Presidency on the promise that Manila Bay would soak red with the blood of drug pushers and drug addicts.
Would De Lima survive the imposing bully pulpit that carried the seal of the Presidency?
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De Lima’s case shows that a sitting senator is no match against the vaunted powers of the Presidency.
Just a month into office, then President Rodrigo Duterte turned gossip into royal edict by claiming that De Lima had been having an affair with her driver Ronnie Dayan who functioned as her bagman when she was Secretary of Justice.
Duterte also said that Dayan was himself a drug user, claiming that his allegations were supported by bank statements and wiretaps provided by a foreign country.
Justice Leonen’s dissenting opinion in De Lima vs. Guerrero listed Duterte’s 37 statements against De Lima made on 24 different occasions from Aug. 11, 2016 to Nov. 28, 2016, accusing her of being involved in the drug trade and repeatedly threatening to jail her.
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Those pronouncements were the foundation of the government’s drug cases against De Lima. That it was the driver who collected drug money to fund her senatorial campaign.
All evidence against her had been anecdotal. Stories told by men who feared for their lives.
Drug prosecutions rely on physical evidence. The reason is obvious. The only way to know whether the substance used, traded, or manufactured is an illegal drug within the purview of the drug law is to have it tested and presented as such in the course of trial. Sugar or talcum powder do not qualify.
Yet De Lima is being tried on evidence flimsier than refined sugar. A thousand men saying the same thing cannot be the basis for conviction without the presentation of the corpus delicti – or the body of the crime.
This led former Justice Antonio Carpio to opine that the indictment against De Lima is a “fake charge.”
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The Department of Justice is scrambling for witnesses now that Rodrigo Duterte has descended from power.
Ronnie Dayan, Kerwin Espinosa, and Rafael Ragos have recanted their affidavits.
Minority denators Risa Hontiveros and Koko Pimentel have called for the withdrawal of the charges against De Lima.
May we say, enough of the “special treatment” that singles out government critics for prosecution and persecution./PN
