Former Senator Leila de Lima has been cleared of drug charges after the Muntinlupa Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 206 Judge Gener Gito granted her demurrer to evidence on June 24, 2024. De Lima has been incarcerated since February 2017 after she was slapped with criminal charges for the drug trade in the National Penitentiary in Muntinlupa by the administration of former president Rodrigo Duterte.
De Lima earned Duterte’s goat when, as chief of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) during the Arroyo regime, she lectured Duterte on human rights after the summary killings of at least 3,000 purported drug dealers and addicts in Davao City during his incumbency as mayor.
The criticisms de Lima aired apparently were more than a slight on Duterte, who ruled the city with an iron fist and was even appointed by former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo as “anti-crime czar.” Duterte doesn’t forgive and doesn’t forget.
After Duterte marched to Malacanang in 2016, a flood of anti-de Lima stories swamped the internet and the media, with social media going nuts over sex videos of de Lima that had nothing to do with the drug charges that were later slapped against her. Duterte threw everything at her, including the kitchen sink, to ensure that she would be jailed.
Duterte is also a lawyer capable of producing “alternative facts” and conjuring scenarios and fictive evidence to nail suspects. He also worked as a prosecutor in Davao City but we do not know his batting average, and whether or not he won a case at all.
De Lima was accused of profiting from the drug trade inside the penitentiary and the Duterte prosecutors insisted that the raids at Bilibid were “opportunities” to collect revenues from the dug trade. Blame it on the eerie scenarios but the yarn about drug lords meeting De Lima and bundles of cash being ferried by her close associates even bombed, and incredulous observers saying Duterte was taking the people for a ride. He did and so the cases that actually had no legal leg to stand on had to be dragged to give de Lima the maximum stay at the Camp Crame brig.
The cases against de Lima, also justice secretary during the incumbency of the late President Benigno Aquino III, were described as being “eldritch,” or weird, unnatural and ghostly, that they eventually were dismissed once Duterte left his perch at Malacanang. The prosecutors themselves should have known that a case based on fiction will fall but they would certainly not admit that. Whatever Rody wants, Rody gets.
So, Judge Gito finally ruled on the demurrer to evidence filed by Atty. Boni Tacardon, de Lima’s legal counsel, in March 2024, the de Lima camp heaved a sigh of relief as the last fish bone lodged in de Lima’s throat was finally extricated. Will de Lima now seek to secure justice for her 7-year detention? The Duterte minions at the Department of Justice (DOJ), some of whom are still employed by the Marcos Jr. administration, may now feel the heat as de Lima can move against those who perpetrated her malicious persecution. Duterte himself cannot invoke immunity from suit since unjust prosecution is a crime not covered by his official acts.
