The Department of Justice has sought the inhibition of the new Muntinlupa City judge who has been assigned top handle the remaining drug case of former Senator Leila de Lima, citing his prior decision to acquit the former lawmaker.
In a motion for voluntary inhibition filed on Wednesday, the DOJ prosecutors asked Judge Abraham Joseph Alcantara, presiding judge of Muntinlupa Regional Trial Court Branch 204, to recuse himself from handling De Lima’s case.
De Lima has been detained since February 2017 on drug charges. Her two other drug charges have been dismissed.
In May this year, Alcantara acquitted De Lima and co-accused Ronnie Dayan of the conspiracy to commit illegal drug trading charge on the ground of reasonable doubt, after the main witness, former Bureau of Corrections OIC Rafael Ragos, recanted his allegations that he personally delivered P10 million in drug money to De Lima’s residence in Parañaque in 2012.
According to the DOJ prosecutors, Alcantara’s ruling casts doubt on his impartiality.
“Having adversely decided against the People in the previous Criminal Case No. 17-165, the undersigned Panel of Prosecutors cannot help but be apprehensive that the Honorable Presiding Judge will carry over his perceptions to the instant case,” the motion stated.
“Thus, to erase any doubt as to the impartiality of the Honorable Presiding Judge as well as to remove any impression that he will similarly decide on the instant case in favor of the accused, the prosecution most respectfully moves that the Honorable Presiding Judge voluntarily inhibit himself from hearing the instant case,” it said.
The state prosecutors stressed that the “slightest doubt on the actions of a judge, whether well ground or not” can be the basis for voluntary inhibition, citing various rulings of the Supreme Court.
It also cited Section 1, Rule 137 of the Rules of Court which states: “A judge may, in the exercise of his sound discretion, disqualify himself from sitting in a case, for just or valid reasons other than those mentioned above.”
De Lima’s last drug case was raffled to Alcantara after the former handling judge, Romeo Buenaventura of Muntinlupa RTC Branch 256, inhibited from the case.
Buenaventura had denied the former lawmaker’s bail petition on the ground that the evidence is strong.
But De Lima’s 3 co-accused, Dayan, Joenel Sanchez and former BuCor chief Franklin Bucayu asked Buenaventura to inhibit from the case after learning that his brother had assisted Dayan in executing an affidavit prior to a House hearing in 2016, which Dayan later recanted.
Dayan had claimed the late Rep. Reynaldo Umali, then-chair of the House Committee on Justice, coerced him to testify against De Lima.
It turned out Atty. Emmanuel Buenaventura, the judge’s brother, had acted as legal adviser to Umali.
Judge Buenaventura denied knowledge of his brother’s professional undertakings but recused from the case.
In case Alcantara inhibit, the case will be re-raffled for a second time.