What was supposed to be a Senate inquiry into the extra-judicial killings of illegal drug suspects is turning out to be a three-ring circus. Senator Leila de Lima walked out during a scathing privilege speech delivered against her by Senator Alan Peter Cayetano. De Lima walked out on Cayetano and the following day Tuesday delivered her own privilege speech against Cayetano as being Duterte’s lackey. De Lima said it is not her giving the Philippines a bad image but Duterte’s bad mouth that is really doing it.
While De Lima was delivering her speech at the Senate, the three-ring circus was simultaneously going on at the House of Representatives where the senator was implicated by high-profile convict Herbert Colangco who claimed the then-justice secretary received P3 million a month from him as campaign fund in her run for the Senate. The P3 million monthly, according to Colangco, buys a VIP detainee privileges at the Bureau of Corrections: air-conditioning, a flat-screen TV and sauna bath tub. These comforts of life are smuggled into the national penitentiary with the connivance of BuCor officials. The Bucor is under the Department of Justice where De Lima served as DOJ secretary. This would indicate that big business is not the only source of political campaign funds. Drug lords also are. Drug trafficking, after all, is big business in this country as it has been in Colombia and Mexico in the last 50 years. There is no report yet of the Cali cartel presence here but the Sinaloa syndicate, according to law enforcers, is operating with local crime lords.
For not standing her ground and walking out, De Lima has been ousted as the Senate committee’s chair on justice and human rights. Primarily, De Lima was removed for allegedly using her committee to attack President Rodrigo Duterte for his connection to the Davao Death Squad. De Lima has also made known she won’t attend a House hearing where six convicted high-profile inmates at the National Bilibid Prison are set to testify against her allegedly for receiving dirty money from them.
Now if these convicted prisoners spill the beans on De Lima, isn’t there a principle in law that the testimony of convicted felons does not have any value because its source is from persons whose moral turpitude is highly questionable? This is the same suspicious reason alluded to the testimony of Edgar Matobato, De Lima’s surprise witness at the Senate inquiry. For De Lima’s failure to inform him about Matobato’s appearance, Senator Panfilo Lacson assailed the former justice secretary. Lacson heads the Senate committee on public order which is jointly hearing the extrajudicial killings.
Now, as everyone knows, Cayetano is Duterte’s defeated vice presidential running mate. He has to prove his worth to the President while waiting for a job until his Senate term runs out. A loser in an election cannot be given presidential appointment until after a prescribed one-year period which must be why Cayetano is making the most of his time playing the role as Digong’s staunchest defender in the Senate. Two Cabinet members—Communications Secretary Martin Andanar and Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay, Jr.– might have to move over if Digong sees that Cayetano can do a better job than both or either of them.
As reported from New York where he is (on official assignment?), Andanar claimed that a plot to topple Duterte through impeachment or a military coup is being hatched. Martin, in his “pa-andar,” said the plot is being hatched in New York. But by his own admission, he does not have the details and evidence yet of the alleged plot. If you don’t have the proof, why talk about it? Why not do so at the appropriate time when you do? Otherwise, what Andanar did can only be seen as a feeble attempt to gain media mileage if not sympathy for his boss who has been getting a lot of flak from the international press for the series of killings of suspects in his relentless war on drugs.
It’s welcome news Teddy Boy Locsin has accepted his appointment as the country’s ambassador to the United Nations. With Teddy Boy in the New York-based UN, we can be expect more sensible statements coming from a Philippine official, so unlike the instant experts who are overwhelmed by the big city known as a financial and communications center.