Witnesses not backing out vs. De Lima

ILLEGAL drug personalities familiar with their dealings with former justice secretary and senator, Leila de Lima, are not backing out of their original testimonies pointing to her involvement in the country’s illegal drugs trade.

Maverick lawyer, Ferdinand Topacio, together with Diego Magpantay, president of the Citizen Crime Watch (CCW) who are among the private complainants in De Lima’s drug cases, said they have been  “assured that the witnesses who witnessed first-hand the activities of De Lima regarding the Bilibid drug trade – namely Herbert Colanggo, Noel Martinez, Jose Pepino, Jesus Durano and many others — have shown no indication of wavering in their commitment to stick to the truth in the ongoing drug trial.”

Both added they are now “closely coordinating” with the prosecution panel handling the case in order to further strengthen the government’s cases against her.

De Lima remains incarcerated inside Camp Crame after a long congressional hearing in 2016, highlighted by the testimonies of her personal driver, some DOJ officials and the drug lord themselves who all bared that she is complicit in the illegal drugs trade being consummated inside the National Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa, south of Manila.

However, De Lima’s driver and alleged lover, Ronnie Dayan, along with former Bureau of Corrections director, Rafael Ragos and drug lord, Kerwin Espinosa, subsequently recanted their statements against her.

De Lima, who got elected as senator in 2016 but subsequently jailed over the charges, has consistently denied the accusations against her, claiming she is a “political prisoner” of the Duterte administration.

In their statement, Magpantay also called on incoming Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla, to “resist all improper pressures, both from within and without the country, to go easy on De Lima.”

Magpantay added that “the imprisonment of De Lima, the jurisdiction of the courts trying her, and the validity of the charges against her have all been upheld up to the Supreme Court, and no one, least of all foreigners who know nothing about our justice system, has the right to question the workings of our local justice system in an attempt to influence the outcome of the trial in favor of De Lima.”

The CCW also bewailed the “relentless media spin and disinformation lately being peddled by the camp of De Lima in a vain effort to prejudice the case of the government against her, “erroneously thinking that the next (Marcos) administration can be misled into getting her off the hook.”