Muntinlupa RTC junks contempt case vs. De Lima, counsel

The Muntinlupa Regional Trial Court on Friday dismissed the contempt case against Senator Leila de Lima and her legal counsel over their statements about the testimonies of prosecution witnesses.

In a 33-page decision, the Muntinlupa RTC Branch 206 junked the petition to cite De Lima and Atty. Filibon Tacardon in indirect contempt for lack of merit and rendered other pending incidents as moot and academic.

“[W]hat respondent Atty. Tacardon reported to the media are mere echoes of the testimonies of the prosecution witnesses. The court does not find malice in them nor contumacious in those statements,” the court said.

“If respondent Atty. Tacardon cannot be punished for those statements, the same can be said true likewise for Senator De Lima. Her indictment to the case was on the basis of complicity; of she having authorized respondent Atty. Tacardon to make those statements,” it added.

The petitioners argued that Tacardon violated the “sub judice” rule when he made a statement to various media outlets regarding the testimonies of witnesses, saying that the statements would “tend to impede, obstruct, or degrade the administration of justice.”

According to the court, for the statement to be considered contemptuous, there must exist a “clear and present danger to the administration of justice,” something it did not find.

Further, the court said the statements cannot even be considered sub judice.

“Last Word. The power to punish for contempt is not limitless. It must be used sparingly with caution, restraint, judiciousness, deliberation, and due regard to the provisions of the law and the constitutional rights of the individual,” it said.

‘Review cases’

In a statement, De Lima said the petition was “baseless and frivolous from the very start, designed to further silence me and my lawyers and to prevent us from relaying to the public how the prosecution cases are crumbling before the court.”

Self-confessed drug lord Kerwin Espinosa and former Bureau of Corrections official Rafael Ragos have retracted their drug allegations against De Lima.

De Lima said the retractions of Ragos, Espinosa, and Ronnie Dayan, “the dismissal of this contempt charge should now convince the DOJ to review my cases once and for all and decide if there is any merit or honor at all in prosecuting an innocent person.”

De Lima has been in detention since February 2017. —KBK/RSJ, GMA News