THE Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption and former officials of the National Bureau of Investigation have asked the Supreme Court to disbar Senator Leila De Lima for improprieties and violation of the code of conduct for lawyers.
In a complaint filed with SC’s Office of the Bar Confidant, the VACC, former NBI officials Reynaldo Esmeralda and Ruel Lasala and whistleblower Sandra Cam said De Lima should be disbarred for impropriety and for violating the Lawyers Oath and the Code of Professional Responsibility.
“The practice of law is a privilege…It is a privilege that can be revoked, subject to the mandate of due process once a lawyer violates his oath and the dictates of legal ethics,” the complainants said.
The complainants cited the testimonies of witnesses before the House committee on justice’s probe on the proliferation of illegal drugs inside the New Bilibid Prison.
Based on the testimony of witnesses, including NBI officials and inmates, the complainants said De Lima knew that prohibited drugs were being sold and traded, and provided protection for the incarcerated drug lords so as to raise funds for her senatorial campaign.
The complainants noted that De Lima spent P86.1 million during the campaign, questioned where she got the funds, and suggested she had “generous benefactors from inside the Bilibid.”
The complaint also mentioned De Lima’s alleged illicit relationship with her former driver Ronnie Dayan, and the alleged existence of two sex videos of the two.
“Measured against the definition of gross immorality, we find Senator De Lima’s actions grossly immoral. Her actions were so corrupt as to approximate a criminal act, for she has a relationship with a married man… Her actions were also unprincipled and reprehensible to the highest degree,” the complaint said.
De Lima has three other disbarment cases pending. All the other cases were filed in 2012.
Private lawyer Agustin Sundiam asked the high court to take disciplinary action against De Lima and former presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda for their utterances and remarks on national television where they called Chief Justice Renato Corona a “lawless tyrant.”
Sundiam said the two secretaries violated their oath as lawyers requiring them to “observe and maintain the respect and dignity due to the courts of justice and judicial offers.”
The other complaints against De Lima were filed separately, all questioning her defiance of the Supreme Court when she stopped former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her husband Jose Miguel Arroyo from leaving the country.
The Arroyo camp on Friday dismissed De Lima’s allegations that they were behind the attempt to implicate her in the illegal drug trade inside the national penitentiary.
Arroyo, through her lawyer Ferdinand Topacio, maintained she had nothing to do with De Lima’s accusations of connivance with the lawmakers and President Rodrigo Duterte as well to besmirch her reputation over supposed involvement of drug money at the national penitentiary.
Topacio hit De Lima, saying she created her own problems through her own deeds, and that her situation was not brought about by political vendetta.
He said De Lima must take responsibility for her act to raise campaign funds for her supposed senatorial bid in 2013.
In addition, he said, Arroyo did not have the time to sow political vendetta against De Lima, saying his client was too busy attending to the needs of her constituents in Pampanga. With Rio N. Araja