By VANNE TERRAZOLA
Senator Leila de Lima has expressed her disappointment over the Supreme Court decision that dismissed her petition to nullify the arrest order issued against her for her illegal drug charges in relation to the drug trade at the New Bilibid Prison.
“I am deeply disappointed by the announcement yesterday that the Supreme Court has denied my Motion for Reconsideration of its earlier Decision to dismiss my Petition for Certiorari questioning, among others, the validity of the original charge filed against me by the DoJ Panel of Prosecutors before the RTC of Muntinlupa, Br. 204, and the jurisdiction of the regular courts to hear and decide the same. I am disappointed but hardly surprised,” De Lima said in a statement yesterday.
The detained senator, however, maintained that the allegations against her “amount to no crime at all” since the witnesses were self-confessed drug lords.
“At most, the allegations amount to bribery, which falls under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Sandiganbayan to hear, try and decide,” she noted.
De Lima said she was also disheartened by the SC ruling as she believed that her petition was “clearly meritorious.”
She cited the “separate opinions” of justices of the High Court, which voted 9-6, to dismiss her motion, saying that it “showed that there was absolutely no consensus as to what is the true nature of the charge against me.”
