A coalition of cause-oriented groups on Thursday accused former Justice Secretary and senatorial candidate Leila de Lima of deliberately bungling the plunder charges against Janet Lim Napoles and two other lawmakers, which prompted the Sandiganbayan to grant them bail for temporary liberty.
In a rally in front of the Department of Justice, Sanlakas pinned down De Lima’s strategic role in making the criminal charges against Napoles, dismissed Masbate Gov. Rizalina Seachon-Lanete, and former Association of Philippine Electric Cooperatives party-list Rep. Edgar Valdez weak.
Leody de Guzman, first nominee of Sanlakas to the party-list election, said De Lima was “incompetent” as justice secretary because she failed to tighten the pieces of evidence so that the Sandiganbayan would not allow Napoles and Lanete to bail out.
Sanlakas members who participated in the protest asserted that “De Lima has no moral authority to become a senator due to fake crusade against graft and corruption and justice for victims of state terror.”
On Wednesday, the anti-graft court’s Fifth Division approved Napoles’ and Valdez’s bail petitions due to weak pieces of evidence.
The court’s fourth Division, in a separate decision, also granted the bail petitions of Napoles and Lanete since the pieces of evidence presented by the government lawyers at the Sandiganbayan, which were originally prepared by DoJ, were not strong enough to prove the supposed guilt of the two.
Napoles, however, could not get temporary liberty since she was convicted by a Makati City Regional Trial Court on April 15 2015 for the crime of serious illegal detention.
Lanete posted a total of P830,000.00 bail (P500,000 for the plunder case and P330,000 for the 11 counts of graft).
Valdez posted P1.7 million bail for his temporary freedom.
The plunder charges against Napoles, Lanete, and Valdez are connected with the P10-billion Priority Development Assistance Fund.
De Guzman, who is also the chairman of the Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino, said De Lima should be held accountable for the government’s failure to imprison ‘big fishes’ whom Sanlakas believe to be “guilty” of plunder.
After serving the top post of DoJ for almost six years, De Lima for the first time threw her hat in politics by running for a Senate seat under the Liberal Party .
De Guzman pointed that De Lima was always visible in the media during the Senate investigation about the P10-billion PDAF scam because she personally managed and supervised the collection of pieces of evidence and the filing of cases against Napoles, Lanete, and Valdez.
A number of senators, who took part in the Senate investigation of the PDAF scam, like Senator Grace Poe stressed that the huge pieces of evidence against those who were implicated in the plunder charges were “strong,” particularly on Napoles.