Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 9) — Detained Senator Leila de Lima will face a Quezon City Court Friday afternoon in what could be a make or break hearing for her “disobedience to summons” case.
The Quezon City Metropolitan Trial Court Branch 34 will decide whether her case should be dismissed or proceed to trial during a hearing scheduled at 2 p.m.
The court on June 3 junked De Lima’s appeal for a case dismissal “for lack of merit.”
READ: Court denies De Lima’s petition to junk disobedience to summons case
The court also summoned House Committee on Justice Chairman Reynaldo Umali as the prosecution’s first witness.
Umali and House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez filed the complaint against De Lima, accusing her of violating the Revised Penal Code when she advised her former driver-bodyguard, Ronnie Dayan, not to attend a Congressional probe on the alleged drug trade inside the New Bilibid Prison.
READ: Dayan: De Lima urged me to skip probe, hide
De Lima questioned the court’s jurisdiction, saying the Sandiganbayan should instead hear her case instead. Her lawyers also argued her advice to Dayan via text message did not qualify as an act of inducing disobedience to summons.
The senator has been detained without bail at the Philippine National Police Custodial Center in Camp Crame since February 24 for allegedly abetting illegal drug trade in the New Bilibid Prison while she was Justice Secretary from 2010 to 2015.
