FORMER Supreme Court spokesperson and human rights lawyer Theodore Te yesterday said the
state prosecutors who appealed the acquittal of Rep. Leila de Lima (Mamamayang Liberal PL) should be made to face “consequences” for their “rogue” behavior.
Te issued the statement a day after the panel of prosecutors headed by Provincial Prosecutor Ramoncito Bienvenido Ocampo Jr. withdrew the motion for reconsideration they filed before Branch 204 of the Muntinlupa Regional Trial Court which sought the reversal of the decision acquitting De Lima in the charges of conspiracy to commit drug trading filed by the Duterte administration.
The prosecutors withdrew their appeal on the order of Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla, who told Prosecutor General Richard Anthony Fadullon to stop the prosecutors’ “foolishness.”
Lawyers Wilfredo Garrido and Jesus Falcis also slammed the prosecutors’ move to file a motion for reconsideration and called for disciplinary action against them.
Te said: “There must be consequences for this rogue behavior, which both the justice secretary and the prosecutor general have already implicitly acknowledged as rogue by their direction to withdraw the offensive ‘motion for reconsideration.”
He said the prosecutors should be subjected to, “least of which, perhaps, a re-tooling, a re-training, or even back to school, or constitutional law 1 and 2.”
Falcis urged Remulla to impose sanctions against the prosecutors, including suspending them.
“Boying Remulla should suspend those prosecutors and De Lima should have them disbarred for gross ignorance of the law – you can’t file a motion for reconsideration of an acquittal – and gross violation of legal ethics – which says lawyers must delay no man for money or malice,” Falcis said in a Facebook post.
Garrido, in a Facebook post, also called for the imposition of disciplinary actions against the state prosecutors.
“On the part of Leila De Lima, she must really file a criminal case for malicious prosecution against these scalawags,” he said.
Te also criticized the prosecution team’s motion to withdraw, which he was unapologetic, resentful and even disrespectful to De Lima, the trial court and the public.
On his part, Garrido decried what he called the “monkey business” of the prosecutors handling De Lima’ case.
“This monkey business by the fiscals handling De Lima’s case has been going on for some time now,” he said.
Garrido explained that once a trial court renders judgment in a criminal case, the matter is now out of the hands of the fiscal, especially if the judgment is acquittal.
He cited two reasons for this: filing a motion for reconsideration violates the rule on double jeopardy, and “if the State must appeal in the teeth of the prohibition against double jeopardy, such extraordinary appeal must be initiated by the Office of the Solicitor General, not by the fiscal, not even by the secretary of justice.”
He said the DOJ handles the prosecution, while the OSG handles the appeals, pointing out that “even the petition for certiorari questioning the acquittal of De Lima on the ground that the trial court didn’t explain its decision well enough was filed by the Solicitor-General under Menardo Guevarra, not the fiscal, not the DOJ under Remulla.”
