A WHISTLEBLOWER on Friday tagged Senator Leila de Lima’s driver and ‘paramour’ of allegedly collecting more than P5 million in drug money weekly from high-profile inmates inside the New Bilibid Prison.
“The name is Ronnie Palisoc Dayan from Urbiztondo, Pangasinan. He was De Lima’s house guard when she was still CHR [Commission on Human Rights] chief. Then he became her driver and [De Lima] brought him to the DoJ [Justice Department] when she was appointed by the President,” said whistleblower Sandra Cam in an interview on radio dzMM.
Cam, who had informed President Rodrigo Duterte of De Lima’s alleged affair, criticized De Lima for denying her links to the illegal drug trade, since her lover-driver was her bagman inside the New Bilibid Prison.
“My question is this. If you’re the secretary of Justice, don’t tell me that you don’t know about the drugs going in and out of the Bureau of Corrections, while you’re flying high because you have a bagman who is protecting you on the inside,” she said in Filipino.
Cam said Dayan would frequent the national penitentiary to collect drug money from high-profile inmates.
She added that her sources within the bureau told her he would enter the penitentiary twice a week, collecting money from drugs and illegal gambling.
Cam, who ran but lost for senator under Duterte’s banner, said the President would soon divulge who got the drug money that Dayan collected.
She said she would not divulge more details of his alleged transactions because she did not want to preempt the President.
Cam said among the high-profile inmates whom Dayan collected money from were gang leader Jaybee Sebastian and Peter Co, reportedly the leader of the so-called “Bilibid 19” or a group of drug convicts living a luxurious lifestyle in the national penitentiary.
Co, together with Peter Lim alias Jaguar and Herbert Colangco alias Ampang, were earlier named by Duterte as part of the top tier drug lords in the country.
“After 2014, she ordered a raid in Bilibid, right? They transferred the Bilibid 19 to NBI. But she left one inside Bilibid: Jaybee Sebastian, the commander of the Commando Gang.”
“Jaybee Sebastian became De Lima’s finger man inside,” Cam claimed.
She also said Dayan’s links to De Lima were “an open secret” inside the Justice Department, the National Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Corrections.
“This is not a character assasination because his driver became the source of any promotion inside the DoJ. He would even do the dirty work just to derail high-profile cases. If you want to dismiss your cases in the DoJ, just approach him,” Cam said.
“I pity her, but this is karma,” she said of De Lima. “I feel vindicated.”
On Thursday, Duterte kept up the attack on De Lima, saying she had only herself to blame for the scandal that has befallen her. He also said he would never apologize to her for his statements.
“[De Lima] created the scandal, she know she’s a public official–but she kept on making scandals herself,” Duterte said.
In the House, Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez on Friday spearheaded the filing of a resolution seeking a congressional probe into the alleged proliferation of illegal drugs at the New Bilibid Prison when De Lima was Justice secretary.
In House Resolution No. 105, Alvarez, together with House Majority Leader Rudy Fariñas of Ilocos Norte, Deputy Speaker Raneo Abu of Batangas, Karlo Nograles of Davao City, among other House leaders, condemned the rampant drug use at the national prison during De Lima’s tenure.
The lawmakers said in the resolution that the NBP has become an “asylum for drug lords, gambling lords, and local ‘mafiosi,’ operating freely within the enclosed facility, imposing control on the inmates, and operating side by side with institutional workers and security personnel.” With Maricel V. Cruz