De Lima case clouds credibility of legal system

My daughter is in first-year law at the Ateneo de Manila School of Law (Juris Doctor program) and is hoping to learn not only law but good old-fashioned Christian values and morals from that Jesuit-run institution.

The editorial (“Crumbling case vs De Lima,” 5/6/22) has put the prosecutorial service of this country to doubt as to its integrity and moral rectitude in its handling of the case against Sen. Leila de Lima, whose trial has kept her shackled for five years now. It is under the Department of Justice headed by Menardo Guevarra, a Bar topnotcher and an Atenean lawyer.

It is bad enough that the late chief justice Renato Corona was the first magistrate of the Supreme Court, the highest court of the land, to be impeached and dismissed for “amassing ill-gotten wealth” (corruption). He was also an Atenean who claimed he placed “eleventh” in the Bar exam.

There is no way that Guevarra’s “star witnesses” who “changed their statements at the congressional hearings when they testified in court” can establish proof of De Lima’s guilt “beyond reasonable doubt.” It is, thus, well to note that their previous statements were made before a congressional committee controlled by the lapdogs of the Duterte administration, which was hell-bent on destroying De Lima. Shades of the ABS-CBN “investigation in aid of legislation”!

The choice as to the credibility between the previous testimonies and the ones narrated in a court of law should be obvious. Guevarra should have the moral courage to tell frontline prosecutors under him to go jump in the lake for persisting in their prosecution of bogus charges. But apparently, he serves only “at the pleasure of the President,” and his oath to uphold the rule of law can go hang!

It has made me wonder: What kind of “high-caliber” lawyers has Ateneo been inflicting on this country lately? I am now on the cusp of persuading my daughter to go to another law school, seriously.

GRACE PO-QUICHO
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