EMBATTLED Senator Leila de Lima said Thursday she had two wishes for her 57th birthday on Saturday and one of those was personal: a love life.
“This one is a personal wish. I hope I will have a love life so I will have a partner to share what I have been going through,” De Lima said.
She said it was very difficult if the person fighting you was the President.
President Rodrigo Duterte and De Lima have been engaged in a word following De Lima’s accusation that Duterte is sanctioning the killing of the people involved in illegal drugs and Duterte’s accusation that she was involved in illegal drugs when she was Justice secretary.
De Lima, whose marriage had been annulled, said her desire to have a love life was not a joke.
“I’m bearing with all of this on my own because, as much as possible, I don’t want to involve my family who are hurting and sad,” De Lima said.
“This is really unimaginable, phenomenal and unprecedented.”
Despite wanting to have a love life, De Lima said, she had no intention to remarry.
After the annulment of her marriage, she made a commitment to herself and her two children that she would not remarry.
“Now I have no love life. I’m thinking that with all the things that I’m going through, maybe I need a partner. Please help me. That’s my feeling,” De Lima said.
She denied the President’s claim that her new boyfriend was a certain “Warren,” an employee of the MMDA who served as her motorcycle escort.
She said Warren was assigned to her after she requested a motorcycle escort.
“That was an official request, but I don’t think it’s personal. Is that an evidence of my relationship? My God!”
De Lima said her having no love life belied the accusation by Duterte that Warren was her new boyfriend.
But she remained mum about her relationship with her former bodyguard and driver Ronnie Palisoc Dayan, who has been accused by Duterte as the one who collected drug money for De Lima during the last election campaign.
De Lima merely said she became close to Dayan, but refused to expound on their relationship.
Her first wish was for Duterte to end the “madness.”
“I hope the President takes pity on me and ends his attacks. This is already madness, Mr. President,” De Lima said.
He called on Duterte to focus on far more important concerns than wasting “government time” attacking her.
