I sometimes wish I could sympathize with Leila de Lima. But I remember what she did to former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, the late Chief Justice Renato Corona, ex-National Bureau of Investigation Director Magtanggol Gatdula and a host of other people whose lives she destroyed during her term as Noynoy Aquino’s avenging angel of injustice.
And then I don’t feel any sympathy for her at all. Not one tiny bit.
Of course, De Lima may claim that her biggest error was investigating a city mayor in 2009, someone by the name of Rodrigo Duterte, when she was still chairman of the Commission on Human Rights. And to top it all, she had the misfortune, she alleges, of getting elected to the Senate when that grudge-bearing former provincial mayor also became president.
But that encounter with Duterte happened a long time ago, when De Lima was not yet the supremely confident and power-drunk Justice secretary that she would become in the Aquino years. She probably wasn’t even considering a seat in the Senate at the time, since she was just a minor bureaucrat of the Arroyo administration.
For most people, De Lima only became a real national nuisance when she joined the Noynoy government as its ironically-named secretary of Justice. What she did was to unquestioningly implement every one of the unjust actions that Aquino ordered her to do, from ignoring the Supreme Court on Arroyo to sitting on the cases filed against administration officials and congressional allies who abused both the pork barrel funds and the Disbursement Acceleration Program.
And all throughout Aquino’s term, De Lima acted like she was the bee’s knees or the cat’s pajamas. At the height of her power, De Lima had no qualms about applying for the position of chief justice right after the conviction and removal of Corona, whom she helped oust during the impeachment trial in the Senate.
Not only did De Lima believe that she had the power to ignore a Supreme Court temporary restraining order against her in the Arroyo case. After helping prosecute the removal of Corona, she had the unmitigated gall to apply for his job right as soon as it became vacant.
Aquino turned down De Lima’s request to replace Corona as chief justice—a prescient move, because he would need De Lima to selectively prosecute the people behind the pork barrel scandal that exploded the very next year, in 2013. It was De Lima who performed the yeoman’s work of making sure that Aquino, his men and all of their allies in Congress were never charged for their dealings with Janet Lim Napoles.
Some people may actually think that De Lima is being unduly insulted and oppressed by Duterte. But I remember that it was Aquino who gave De Lima the supreme insult by ignoring her threat to resign way back in 2010.
De Lima had been made head of an inter-agency committee that investigated the bloody killing of a bunch of Chinese hostages by a deranged Manila police officer at Rizal Park. De Lima vowed to resign if Aquino did not heed the recommendations in her final report on the incident, which included imposing sanctions on police and other officials who mishandled the hostage-taking at the park.
Aquino basically threw De Lima’s recommendations in the trash can. And De Lima just bowed her head, swallowed her pride and soldiered on.
Is this the same woman who turned hysterical before the cameras yesterday, crying persecution and histrionically asking Duterte to do with her as he pleased? It certainly looked like Leila de Lima – but nobody who knew her before yesterday was buying the victim act.
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Maybe De Lima’s CHR stint did have something to do with the President’s anger with her. But the senator certainly didn’t improve her standing the Malacañang when she started a dubious investigation of killings under the Duterte presidency using a witness from when he was mayor of Davao.
Just like when she became an all-too-willing tool of the Aquino administration in its pursuit of political vendetta, De Lima once again allowed herself to be used by anti-Duterte forces when she brought in Edgar Matobato. And when she admitted yesterday that she was the only senator who knew about Matobato beforehand was the self-confessed nemesis of the president in the chamber, Antonio Trillanes, I became convinced that De Lima had once again been played like a fiddle.
(I don’t know why De Lima didn’t rat out her other “adviser” in the Senate, Franklin Drilon. But then, the difference between the De Lima and Trillanes on the one hand and Drilon on the other is that Frank is such a brilliant schemer that he probably convinced his two not-so-bright colleagues that the plot to bring down Duterte using Matobato was entirely their own.)
And so, I’m forced to conclude that Nora Aunor remains the best actress to come out of Iriga City. De Lima may get some points for effort, especially during the most hysterical parts of yesterday’s performance, but I’m betting she isn’t going to get any offers to star in a movie anytime soon.
Homemade sex videos don’t count. Hysterical, right?
