Looks like the prosecuting arm of the government is losing heavily in the latter’s fight against the illegal drug cartel.
In an unexpected and embarrassing development, it lost a very consequential drug case. A Regional Trial Court of Leyte granted temporary liberty to a detained reputed drug lord who is facing a drug-related crime, together with four other co-accused. In 2021 he was acquitted of another illegal drug charge. Earlier this month, a Manila court also dismissed an illegal drug case against him.
According to intelligence reports, this suspected drug lord had been operating his prohibited drug trade in Cebu and Eastern Visayas, which became the basis of all the illegal drug cases filed against him.
For many years, he has been detained at the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology facility at Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig while his cases for illegal drugs and illegal possession of firearms were pending before the Manila, Makati and Leyte courts.
He is one of those targeted by the previous Duterte administration for prosecution and incarceration, among the other drug lords or dealers who have gained notoriety and enormous wealth.
The court’s grant of temporary liberty is anchored on the failure of the prosecution to prove that its evidence against him is strong. His acquittals in his other cases were based on the gross inability of the prosecutors to prove their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
On the basis of those exonerations by the other courts on other criminal cases, and presently the Leyte court’s grant of his petition for bail, it can be reasonably concluded that the prosecutors miserably failed in demonstrating to the court the guilt of the accused and the dearth of evidence against this lucky known drug dealer, hence after posting the P700,000 cash bond imposed on him by the court for his provisional liberty, he can walk away from his prison cell and taste once again the freedom deprived him by the imprimatur of law.
By giving him and the other accused their liberty, the government’s war against the drug cartels has been dealt a deadly blow.
While there are those who may think that the courts’ adjudging him innocence on the other cases and his getting a temporary liberty from another court may have been achieved owing to multi-million reasons, such a thought unfortunately is within the realm of speculation which has no place in law.
What is palpably clear is that there is an abject failure to prove the guilt of the accused, and in the instant case, the evidence against this accused is weak, hence the court had no recourse but to set him free temporarily.
The lesson for those behind the prosecution of criminal offenders is for them to be thoroughly prepared as not to be embarrassed before the courts. They should not intrude into the domain of the investigators by making public, hasty, and reckless pronouncements on the guilt of those charged without credible evidence just to be in the limelight.
If the high official of their department does not change his style of governance, there would be more legal setbacks which will put to naught the gigantic gains President Rodrigo Roa Duterte accumulated during his presidency vis-a-vis his war against drugs thereby putting at risk generations of Filipinos who could be swallowed by this drug menace. And that will be a tragedy for this nation.