De Lima’s drug complaint vs inmate junked; senator appeals

The Muntinlupa City Prosecutor’s Office has junked the criminal complaint filed by detained Senator Leila de Lima against a murder convict who linked her to the illegal drug trade inside the New Bilibid Prison (NBP).

The complaint for conspiracy to commit illegal drug trading against inmate Joel Capones was dismissed due to insufficiency of evidence, according to the resolution approved by City Prosecutor Aileen Marie Gutierrez on August 31.

De Lima’s complaint alleged that Capones admitted before the Muntinlupa City Regional Trial Court Branch 256 last February that he and other members of the Sigue Sigue Sputnik Gang, including Ferdie Morellos, Reynaldo Punga, and Anton Miya, agreed and sold illegal drugs in exchange for a sum of money and particular benefits inside the NBP.

Morellos, Punga, Miya, and 10 other unidentified members of Sigue Sigue Sputnik were included in the complaint for the same crime. De Lima’s lawyers also filed a similar complaint against the same individuals.

“An evaluation of the records indicates that there were no other evidence, real/object or documentary and more importantly testimonial evidence, meaning witnesses with sworn statements, other than the statements made by respondent Capones implicating himself, that would establish that [the] respondents traded illegal drugs,” the resolution stated.

“Neither is there anything to prove how these purported transactions were made, who respondents traded with, and what was the consideration for the transactions.”

Capones’ admission could only be considered an extrajudicial confession, which according to the Rules of Court cannot be a basis for conviction without proof of the commission of the crime, the prosecutor’s office said.

De Lima rejected this argument.

In an appeal filed on Tuesday, the senator said a “confession is evidence of the highest order.”

She said the prosecutor’s office’s definition of what constitutes a judicial confession was “pure invention, unfounded in both law and established jurisprudence.”

“It is a mere figment of the Office’s imagination of a law school lesson that never happened in a classroom, that never existed by a law professor who never lived,” her motion for reconsideration said.

Even assuming that it was an extrajudicial confession, the rule on the degree of proof necessary for conviction is inapplicable in a preliminary investigation, where the prosecutor must only determine whether there is probable cause to indict a person, De Lima said.

The Muntinlupa prosecutors conceded that the allegations presented by De Lima and the other complainants “cannot simply be ignored.”

“Thus, the complaints should be referred to the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA)…for further investigation, data, information or evidence gathering, and case build-up, and re-filing of the case, if warranted,” the resolution said.

De Lima has been detained at the Philippine National Police Custodial Center in Quezon City since February 2017 over allegations that she allowed the illegal drug trade to proliferate inside the NBP during her term as justice secretary.

Her alleged complicity in the sale of illegal drugs was supposedly in exchange for funds for her senatorial campaign in 2016, a charge she has repeatedly denied and claimed to have been fabricated by the Duterte administration.—AOL, GMA News