AN ADMINISTRATION official on Friday said his birthday wish for Senator Leila de Lima was “a good night’s sleep.”
“According to President [Rodrigo] Duterte, Senator De Lima has been having nightmares. So my birthday wish for the good senator is I hope she sleeps soundly tonight and thereafter,” said Salvador Panelo, chief legal counsel of President Duterte.
Panelo added that Duterte’s tirade against the former Justice secretary was just the beginning.
“Stop? But the President has not even begun. That was just a foretaste,” he said, smiling.
De Lima, Aquino’s former Justice secretary, is the highest ranking government official in the matrix released by President Rodrigo Duterte showing the personalities allegedly involved in the drug operations inside the national penitentiary.
On Thursday, De Lima said that she had two wishes for her birthday: a love life and for the President to leave her alone.
De Lima, whose marriage had been annulled, said her desire to have a love life was not a joke, making a commitment, however, to herself and her two children that she would not remarry.
“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,” she added.
Despite wanting to have a love life, De Lima said, she had no intention to remarry. She also denied the President’s claim that her new boyfriend was a certain “Warren,” an employee of the MMDA who served as her motorcycle escort.
“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.
The Palace on Friday said the President had wiretapped evidence that could implicate De Lima, her driver Ronnie Dayan, and former Pangasinan governor and now Rep. Amado Espino Jr. in the narcotics web in the New Bilibid Prison.
“The President said that he has an intercept of the conversation between that drug lord and the driver. So, it’s included in the evidence that will be released,” Panelo said.
While he acknowledged that the wiretapped conversation might not be admissible in court, it “does not alter the fact that there was a taped conversation and there’s truth to what you hear in that conversation.”
He said Duterte had access to all the intelligence reports to prove his accusations against De Lima.
“Remember that he is the President of this country and that he has access to all intelligence reports. He won’t spill a word without thinking. He’s a lawyer,” he said.
The President on Thursday revealed a matrix of the drug operation allegedly being run by De Lima and Espino.
Also identified in the matrix, aside from De Lima and Espino were former Justice undersecretary Francisco ‘Toti’ Baraan III; Baraan’s brother Raffy; former Bureau of Corrections chief Franklin Jesus Bucayu; and De Lima’s former driver and bodyguard Ronnie Dayan.
Presidential Spokesman Ernesto Abella, meanwhile, said that De Lima and other people named in the prison drug matrix revealed by Duterte may face graft charges, saying that the narcotics web was based on “collaborative intelligence.”
”Actually whatever he comes out with is based on collective intelligence. It’s a collaborative intelligence and so he has certain basis for which we are not privy to,” Abella said in a press briefing.
”If and when they have been finally verified, the charges made have to deal with graft and drug-related graft once information is actually verified,” Abella added.
On Wednesday, Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II said his department had witnesses to prove that his predecessor, De Lima, and Baraan were responsible for the proliferation of the illegal drug trade at the NBP.
Aguirre said four to six witnesses, composed of NBP guards, inmates and “people close to” De Lima and Baraan, would be presented at the upcoming House investigation into the NBP mess.
Aguirre also reiterated that the goal of their investigation was to know why the illegal drug trade flourished at NBP and not just to pin down certain people.
Abella expressed confidence that the “several witnesses” who surfaced to prove “certain allegations” against the people named in the drug matrix.
”They are in the process of taking the affidavits of these particular witnesses, including New Bilibid Prison guards, inmates and former friends of these personalities that have been referred to,” he added.
In a Thursday interview, Espino denied his involvement in the illegal drug trade.