Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo (left) and Senator Leila de Lima (right)
MANILA – Members of the Senate minority bloc should focus on the deliberation of the proposed 2021 budget instead of renewing calls for the release of detained Senator Leila de Lima, Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo said Sunday.
“The colleagues of de Lima should focus on their duties on deliberating on the national budget and stop themselves from lawyering for de Lima. That’s not what the taxpayers pay them to do,” Panelo said in a statement.
This, after de Lima's colleagues in the opposition called for her release noting that the "fraudulent concocted evidence" against her is "crumbling."
In a joint statement, the Senate minority bloc said considering that testimonies from the Anti-Money Laundering Council and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency were made under oath, the testifiers "had no reason not to tell the truth."
De Lima’s legal counsel Boni Tacardon earlier said AMLC financial investigator Artemio Baculi Jr. and PDEA digital forensic examiner Krystal Caseñas have told the court that they did not find any suspicious transactions that would link the senator to drug trading inside the National Bilibid Prison (NBP) in Muntinlupa City.
However, Panelo said it was “foolhardy for the minority senators to believe de Lima’s lawyer “as he will not make any statement against his client.”
“His (Tacardon’s) evaluation of the testimonial and documentary evidence favoring his client is expected and unsurprising. It is the Court hearing the case that will give evidentiary weight to the evidence presented before it,” he said.
Panelo said Baculi’s testimony does not exculpate de Lima because he never investigated her and there were other witnesses that testified that she received money from drug lords.
“At any rate, what witness Artemio Baculi, Jr. of AMLC said was even if de Lima’s name was mentioned in the talks among drug lords, he never investigated her. That testimony does not exculpate de Lima. Other witnesses have testified she received money from the drug lords,” he said.
According to Panelo, Baculi merely testified that no money flowed to the bank account of de Lima and one of her co-accused Jose Adrian Dera, but does not prove that she didn’t receive money at all.
“That testimony does not prove that she did not receive drug money. It can only mean she did not deposit the money she received from the drug lords in her bank account,” he added.
He also explained that while Caseñas testified that there were no exchanges of any drug transactions between De Lima and Dera, based on the messages and call logs extracted from the cell phones, the senator could have made transactions through other means.
“The drug transactions need not be made through cell phones, it can be made through couriers. De Lima, as a lawyer, knows that bank accounts and messages and call logs on the mobile phones can be used as evidence,” he said.
Panelo said de Lima is being afforded all the rights and privileges of a person accused of being involved in the drug trade, so her colleagues should “know better.”
“They should know their law, do they? There are remedial processes that may be availed of should they feel that the cases against the embattled senator must be dismissed. Issuing statements before the media is among them. That is a job for the lawyer of de Lima,” he said.
He said the minority bloc should simply allow the law to take its course.
“Regardless of the exuberant optimism of the opposition senators, the law must take its course. Let the court perform its duty. And let the rule of law prevail,” he added.
De Lima has been in detention since February 2017 due to drug-related charges. She has so far filed two distinct motions for bail, claiming her innocence. (PNA)
