(Eagle news) — Senator Leila de Lima is set to question the issuance of a warrant of arrest against her at the Supreme Court, one of her lawyers said.
In an ambush interview at the Muntinlupa Regional Trial Court on Friday, Atty. Bonifacio Tacardon said the senator’s legal team would “definitely” file the petition questioning the arrest warrant issued against her by Branch 204 Judge Juanita Guerrero on Thursday.
Guerrero is hearing one of three cases filed against De Lima in connection with her alleged involvement in the illegal drug trade at the national penitentiary in Muntinlupa.
Branch 205 Judge Amelia Fabros-Corpuz and Branch 206 Judge Patria Manalastas-De Leon are hearing the other two cases.
“Because there is grave abuse of discretion…that is the grounds for the certiorari,” Tacardon said.
He said the legal team would be filing the petition “as soon as (it was) completed.”
Meanwhile, Manalastas-De Leon and Fabros-Corpuz, who held hearings on the cases lodged against De Lima in their salas on Friday, scheduled the next hearings to March 3 and March 10, respectively.
In the case of Branch 205, Friday’s hearing was reset because the prosecutors could not make it as they were attending a Mandatory Continuing Legal Education meeting that had been set earlier.
De Lima’s camp also sought legal reliefs in Fabros-Corpuz’s court: a motion to quash, a petition to hold in abeyance the warrant of arrest, and a motion for judicial determination of probable cause.
