JUSTICE Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II on Tuesday assured Senator Leila de Lima that she will be accorded due process when the Justice Department acts on a criminal complaint filed by allies of President Rodrigo Duterte in the House of Representatives.
Aguirre said the department would follow normal procedure by accepting the complaint, assigning a prosecutor to evaluate the case and setting a preliminary investigation and giving De Lima time to answer the allegations raised in the complaint filed by House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, Majority Leader Rodolfo Fariñas, and House committee on justice chairman and Oriental Mindoro Rep. Reynaldo Umali.
“First of all, there’s no basis for us to be biased. We’re just here to receive the complaint, the evidence. In other words we are going to treat this like just any other case where we will decide without fear or favor,” Aguirre said.
He said he would probably assign a single prosecutor to handle the case, in contrast to the panel of prosecutors assigned to four other cases filed against De Lima by inmate Jaybee Sebastian, the National Bureau of Investigation, the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption and former NBI deputy directors Ruel Lasala and Reynaldo Esmeralda, over her alleged involvement in the proliferation of illegal drugs inside the New Bilibid Prison.
The new complaint accuses De Lima of disobeying a summons issued by Congress, which is punishable by up to six months imprisonment or a fine of P200 to P1,000. The case stems from testimony by her former lover and driver, Ronnie Dayan, that De Lima advised him to go into hiding to avoid testifying before the House of Representatives committee on justice.
Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez on Tuesday expressed hope that the Justice Department will take the necessary action against De Lima, whom he branded a “liar.”
“As an incumbent senator, former secretary of Justice and a lawyer, advising and inducing Mr. Dayan to hide and not to attend and or appear in the House inquiry for which he was duly summoned is tantamount to inducing disobedience to a summons issued by Congress, of which she is a sitting member,” the complaint said.
The complaint also cited De Lima’s repeated refusal to attend the House congressional investigations on the New Bilibid Prison drug trade.
“Respondent opted to ignore all invitations and failed to attend any of the hearings conducted by the committee. Worse, respondent even insulted the House of Representative by calling its committee a kangaroo court-committee and its proceedings a sham,” the complaint said.
De Lima dismissed the new complaint as an attempt by House leaders to save face, after their inquiry into the proliferation of illegal drugs at the NBP when she was Justice secretary was exposed to be a farce.
On several occasions, she has also denied the testimony of witnesses, including convicted drug lords, who claimed they gave her money to bankroll her senatorial campaign for the 2016 elections.
In his testimony before the House and the Senate, Dayan insisted he never received money from the drug lords, except Kerwin Espinosa, the No. 1 drug lord in Eastern Visayas.
The House considered Dayan the missing link to prove De Lima took drug money, but senators cited inconsistencies in his testimony.
“Despite the attacks against me, my honor and integrity as a woman and as a public official remains intact,” said De Lima who was cited in Foreign Policy magazine’s list of 100 leading global thinkers for 2016 for her works in investigating the spate of extrajudicial killings in the country.
De Lima was honored “for standing up to an extremist leader” as one of the 13 global thinkers in the “Challengers” category under the 100 leading global thinkers for this year.
She said the President was behind the charges being filed against because she investigated him for summary executions when he was Davao mayor. She also initiated the Senate investigation on extrajudicial killings as an offshoot of his administration’s drug war.
“As I have repeatedly said, the first casualty of the administration’s war on drugs is the truth. And it seems those in power are determined to do everything they could to accomplish their personal and political agendas,” she said.
“Little do they know that the public is slowly beginning to realize who are responsible for the real crisis our nation is facing, because they have no real accomplishments to show after six months in power.”