(Eagle News) – The Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption (VACC) filed on Tuesday drug trafficking complaints against Senator Leila de Lima and seven others for their alleged involvement in the illegal drug trade at the national penitentiary.
The complaints were based on earlier testimonies of inmates from the New Bilibid Prisons (NBP) who were presented as witnesses at the hearing of the House committee on justice on the proliferation of drugs and the rampant illegal drug trade at the NBP.
The complaints were filed before the Department of Justice.
Aside from De Lima, those who were also named in the complaints were former Justice Undersecretary Francisco Baraan III, former Bureau of Corrections director Franklin Bucayu, De Lima’s former close-in aides Ronnie Dayan, Joenel Sanchez and Jose Adrian Dera (with an alias Jad De Vera), high profile inmate Jaybee Sebastian, and a certain Wilfredo Ely.
But De Lima, also on Tuesday, questioned the filing of the drug trafficking complaints against her before the DOJ, saying that the proper venue should be at the Office of the Ombudsman.
The VACC said the respondents “acted in concerted effort, whose actions exhibited the display of uniform agreement to engage in illegal drug trade.”
“Each one of them had played significant roles in order to ensure the perpetuation of the illegal drug trade inside the Bilibid,” according to the complaint.
The VACC’s complaint, which was filed on behalf of VACC by its founding chairman Dante Jimenez, said De Lima’s power and influence allowed the proliferation of the drug trade at the NBP.
“Her influence and power likewise offered respondents in this case shield and protection to ensure the invincibility in the conduct of their illegal trade; in this same manner that she was also able to eliminate the competitors of Jaybee inside the prison by having them transferred to the NBI (National Bureau of Investigation) (in December 2014,” the complaint stated.
The complaints were prepared by inmate Herbert Colanggo’s counsel, Ferdinand Topacio. The DOJ prosecutors will still determine if there is a probable cause to press charges in court.
The complaints accused De Lima, Baraan, Bucayu, Sebastia, Dayan, Sanchez and Ely of benefiting from the illegal drug trade within the NBP between 2012 to 2016.
But De Lima claimed the filing of the complaints with the DOJ was a waste of time, and that the complainants should have filed the cases before the Ombudsman.
“The lawyers of VACC and Atty. Topacio should know that such a case against me for acts done while Secretary of Justice should be filed with the Ombudsman,” she said.
“In the meantime, the complainants would have wasted time by filing it with the DOJ. In the interest of the speedy administration of justice, they should have directly filed this complaint with the Ombudsman, not the DOJ,” De Lima said.
The former Justice secretary also accused the present DOJ chief of being a “master of fakery.”
“Unless they have other reasons for filing it with the DOJ instead of the Ombudsman. Maybe because that is the domain of Aguirre, the master of fakery. Justice under Aguirre is fake,” she added.
De Lima has denied that she was into the illegal drug trade or that she benefitted from drug money.
She claimed that Sebastian may have been forced to testify against her.
Sebastian, however, told the House inquiry that he was not forced to testify at the House hearing on Monday (October 10).
The controversial high-profile inmate directly contradicted De Lima’s earlier statements that he was a government asset.
He also said that he gave De Lima, while he was still the DOJ secretary, a total of P10 million in drug money, P2million of which he handed to her personally.