"Now the tables have turned against De Lima."
"Now the tables have turned against De Lima."
She might have just been a pawn in Noynoy Aquino’s personal war against his perceived enemies but she was nonetheless his most vicious attack dog. And a brutal attack dog she was as she readily and rabidly pounced on anyone as if no law ever existed, just to please her equally-salivating master.
On November 15, 2011, Senator Leila de Lima, in her capacity as the Justice Secretary, stopped former President, now Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo from leaving to seek medical treatment for a rare bone disease in another country.
Despite not being physically present to stop the former President from entering the airport premises that time, De Lima admitted she had ordered the Bureau of Immigration and requested then Transportation and Communications Secretary Mar Roxas to direct the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines and the NAIA management and personnel to enforce the watch list order. The Supreme Court had already issued a temporary restraining order against this.
The very reason for preventing the former President from leaving the country, de Lima said, was because a non-bailable case was being prepared against her, thus the need to ensure she would never ever leave the country.
Aware she was treading on thin ice—there was no pending case against the former President that time, nor was a hold departure order issued against her by any competent court—De Lima hurriedly prepared a case against Arroyo, conferred with the then officials of the Commission on Elections, had a resolution for the filing of an electoral sabotage case against Arroyo in relation to alleged tampering of the 2007 senatorial elections and had it filed just a day after preventing the Arroyos from leaving.
Sources even claim that de Lima had former Comelec chair sign the resolution even as he was then confined at a hospital.
What an efficient attack dog De Lima was. Filing the case just a day after holding the Arroyos at the airport, having it raffled merely 15 minutes after filing and securing an arrest warrant against Arroyo just a couple of hours after.
De Lima stood her ground, continued to defy the SC and refused to allow Arroyo to leave the country for medical purposes, disregarding the fact that even the rush the filing of of the Joint DOJ-Comelec panel of an information for poll sabotage should not automatically result in barring the Arroyos’ departure because:
(a) The Supreme Court has still to decide on the petition challenging the validity of the formation of the said panel;
(b) The resolution finding probable cause is subject to a motion for reconsideration and subsequent appeal before the higher courts; (c) A hold departure order (HDO) has to be issued by the proper court after due notice and hearing, which issuance is likewise subject to a motion for reconsideration and appeal; and
(d) An HDO can only be issued based on the three grounds prescribed by the Constitution justifying the impairment of the right to travel.
Nevertheless, the case, which was simply borne out of De Lima’s blind subservience to her master, was so weak that Arroyo’s counsel, lawyer Ferdinand Topacio, described it as, “as thin as the soup made from boiling the shadow of a chicken that has been starved to death.”
Even opposition senatorial candidate, lawyer Romy Macalintal, who at that time refused to make any comment on the charges against Arroyo, had this to say after Pasay City RTC Juge Jesus Mupas finally dismissed the case against the former President: “From the very first time that I was informed of the filing of the said electoral sabotage case I knew it will not succeed if tried by an impartial tribunal.”
He even congratulated Arroyo for a “much-deserved victory on the dismissal of the apparently baseless and politically motivated electoral sabotage case against her.”
And De Lima should be aware of that. She was after all, an election lawyer before Arroyo plucked her out and gave her a break as chairperson of the Commission on Human Rights.
But with the backing of her master, De Lima violated and misinterpreted the law and put Arroyo in hospital arrest for the next 13 months—five at St. Luke’s and eight at Veterans Memorial Medical Center.
After being granted bail after having spent more than a year in hospital detention, the Aquino government again manufactured a non-bailable case against Arroyo based on more misinterpretation of the law.
But now, the tables have turned against them, particularly against De Lima. All cases against Arroyo have been dismissed, the latest was the electoral sabotage case, the very first case which sent her into detention. On the other hand, we now have De Lima in jail.
The justices and the judges have spoken. There was no truth to the trumped up charges against the former President, now Speaker Arroyo. Her colleague had already admitted the cases were politically-motivated.
Maybe it’s about time De Lima admitted her part in the persecution against Arroyo and apologized to her personally.