SENATOR Leila de Lima on Friday denied any links to the illicit drug trade, but continued to keep silent on President Rodrigo Duterte’s allegations that she had an affair with her driver, a married man, who supposedly collected drug money for her.
“An absolute lie! That’s completely false!” De Lima said of Duterte’s charge that she was a protector and coddler of drug lords, who had contributed to her successful election campaign to become senator.
In her second press conference in so many days, De Lima said she had opted to remain silent at first because it was difficult for her to be publicly engaging in a piecemeal explanation.
“But this is what I can tell you. We’ve seen some snippets of facts, snippets of truths, but the bulk of it are distortions, exaggerations, and lies,” she said—without saying which parts of Duterte’s accusations were true.
“And foremost of the lies, is what they’re saying that somebody was collecting money for me from Bilibid. That’s an absolute lie,” she said.
On Wednesday, Duterte called De Lima an “immoral woman” and an “adulterer” for having an affair with her driver, whom he said collected drug money for the former Justice secretary from drug lords in the New Bilibid Prison.
De Lima vowed she had never condoned the use of illegal drugs and would never do that because she would never betray her oath as a public servant.
In her two press conferences, however, De Lima did not address Duterte’s allegations of her supposed affair, or that she had gifted him with a two-story house in Urbiztondo, Pangasinan.
The senator denied, however, that she owned the Urbiztondo house where her driver lives.
De Lima chairs the Senate committee on justice and human rights, which is set to investigate the summary executions of drug suspects during police anti-drug operations.
A “bloody” campaign against crime and illegal drugs was among Duterte’s key promises during the 2016 elections.
To date, almost 1,000 drug suspects have died in police operations around the country. More than half a million drug users and pushers have yielded to the authorities, and more than 7,000 have been arrested.
Duterte said the senator had no right to complain about the recent killings of drug suspects due to her “very sordid personal and official life.”
Duterte and De Lima have had a long-running word war stemming from the then Justice secretary’s investigation of vigilante killings in Davao City when Duterte was still a mayor
As the commissioner on human rights, she investigated Duterte for his alleged links to the Davao Death Squad, a vigilante group that killed criminal suspects.
She said she had a witness who could prove Duterte’s link to the Death Squad.
None of the investigations uncovered the mayor’s alleged links, however.