Former Senator Leila de Lima—INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines — Former Senator Leila de Lima filed a motion for reconsideration to revert a Regional Trial Court (RTC) order which denied her petition for bail.
To recall, Muntinlupa RTC branch 256 Judge Romeo Buenaventura denied de Lima’s bail plea, citing “strong” evidence against the former senator and her co-accused, as well as “great probability that the crime charged has been committed.”
In a 22-page appeal, however, de Lima argued the court, during its cross examination, merely relied on the testimonies of witnesses and never acknowledged the points raised by the accused in her petition for bail.
It was as if “no cross-examination was ever conducted by all the accused in this case,” the motion stated.
“The absolute and complete reliance of the Honorable Court on the testimony of the Prosecution witnesses, but only on their direct examination, is unprecedented, unfounded, and almost brazen,” the motion read.
“At this point of the trial, the Honorable Court is no longer a passive observer, but it already assumes the role of a discerning arbiter of the law and dispenser of justice,” the former senator said.
“As such, in its exercise of judicial discretion in the granting or denial of bail, it should be guided in its appreciation of evidence as it would in arriving at its final judgment,” she stressed.
De Lima also pointed out how the court had a “very lopsided appreciation of the evidence,” after supposedly failing to note the uncorroborated and hearsay nature of the testimonies it based its decision on.
She said this was equivalent to jurisdictional errors “amounting to grave abuse of discretion in its questioned Order.”
“The Honorable Court’s wanton and carefree admission of these hearsay evidence simply cannot be overlooked, and definitely approximates gross disregard of the Rules of Evidence on hearsay testimony so as to constitute grave abuse of discretion,” the motion stated.
According to the appeal, the only basis for the constitutional and statutory provision why bail cannot be granted if evidence of guilt is strong is a mere presumption.
“That presumption is that the stronger the evidence of guilt, the greater the incentive for the accused to simply escape justice, and thus, the likelihood of justice being frustrated in the sense that the penalty cannot be implemented and the accused punished due to the flight of the eventually convicted accused,” the motion read.
“Thus, the required standard of proof in bail hearing is neither static nor is it applied in a legal vacuum. The paramount consideration in bail, therefore, is that if the accused can assure the trial court that the possibility of flight is nil, and that she/he does not pose a danger to society, then bail should be granted,” it added.
De Lima now has only one pending drug case before the Muntinlupa court.
The two other drug cases have already been dismissed.
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