SENATOR Leila de Lima, under chronic criticism from the administration, pounced on President Rodrigo Duterte Friday and called the 71-year-old chief executive a “self-confessed, unfaithful and proud womanizer.”
“If that is not sexism, what is? If so-called journalists cannot follow the logic, how can we expect the general public?” De Lima, a former secretary of Justice and chairman of the Commission on Human Rights, told students of the Catholic Miriam College in the latest of her tour of colleges and universities.
De Lima’s academic tour continued as Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II formed a five-man panel to conduct a preliminary investigation of the drug trafficking cases filed against De Lima and seven others for allegedly conspiring to perpetrate the illegal drug trade inside the New Bilibid Prison.
Aguirre, San Beda-educated like Duterte and De Lima, designated Senior Assistant State Prosecutor Peter Ong as chairman of the panel and Senior Assistant City Prosecutors Alexander Ramos, Leila Llanes, Evangeline Viudez-Canobas and Assistant State Prosecutor Editha Fernandez as members.
The panel will conduct a preliminary investigation on the two separate complaints for violation of Republic Act 9165 or the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002 filed by the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption and former National Bureau of Investigation deputy directors Reynaldo Esmeralda and Ruel Lasala.
Before her applauding audience, De Lima asked: “How can we make our children understand what is wrong with that scenario? How can we hope that our young students, our daughters will not fall victims to the same situation [and] will know how to recognize the situation and, should they be unfortunate enough to encounter it, be able to adequately defend themselves from it?
“How do we teach our sons to be better than their President or their congressmen?”
Answering her own questions, the 57-year-old Iriga City-born lawyer, said “we can do that by not being cowed into silence.”
De Lima stressed it was not the motive for trying to destroy her that makes the issue of sexism and misogyny relevant, but the manner in which they set out to do so, calling her “an immoral woman” who should be so ashamed and hang herself.
She acknowledged, without going into details, she had “frailties and weaknesses, certain flaws” and that she made mistakes in her personal life, but said she was not an evil woman or a slut Duterte and his allies were trying to portray her.
She added: “I have not partied or slept with any drug convict.” She was referring to Duterte’s suggestion she was using Jaybee Sebastian, an inmate interred at the New Bilibid Prison who was convicted for kidnap-for-ransom and carjacking in 2009.
Sebastian is known for running a prison gang inside the NBP and was allegedly involved in the illegal drug trade within the prison. On Sept. 28, Sebastian and two other inmates were injured, while a Chinese drug lord named Tony Co died after being involved in a stabbing incident in NBP Building 14.
In its complaint, the VACC named as respondents De Lima, former DOJ undersecretary Francisco Baraan III, former Bureau of Corrections chief Franklin Bucayu, De Lima’s former aides Ronnie Dayan, Joenel Sanchez and Jose Adrian Dera; Bucayu’s alleged bagman Wilfredo Ely and Sebastian.
Esmeralda and Lasala’s complaint named only De Lima and NBI deputy director Rafael Ragos as respondents.
Both complaints, accused De Lima and her co-respondents of violating the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act, which prohibits the sale, trading, administration, dispensation, delivery, distribution and transportation of any dangerous drug or controlled precursor and essential chemical.
The offense carries a penalty of life imprisonment and a fine ranging from P500,000 to P10 million.
The VACC accused the respondents of being involved in the illegal drug trade inside and outside the NBP from 2012 to 2016.
Esmeralda and Lasala’s complaint, on the other hand, is anchored on Ragos’ admission during the House of Representatives inquiry on the proliferation of illegal drugs in the NBP that he personally delivered millions in drug money to the residence of De Lima in Parañaque City on several instances in 2012 and handed the money to Dayan, her aide and alleged lover.
In Miriam, De Lima again denied any involvement in the illegal drug trade when she was Justice secretary.
She said: “I have not received anything from a drug convict or a drug lord, or anyone else. I have not received P2 million in one meeting with one of those convicts at the office of a former director. I have not received P3 million a week, a month—I think that’s what they said—since 2012.
“I did not receive P10 million from anyone, let alone from a drug convict. I did not receive P5 million in two or three occasions in my house from a former official of Bureau of Corrections.”
She also rejected accusations she benefited from the illegal drug trade as convicted felons said she did at hearings in the House of Representatives.
“I am not one who won as a member of the Senate and has turned this country into a narco-state, because, in the first place, our country is far from being a narco-state,” she said.
De Lima said Esmeralda and Lasala have an axe to grind against her because she fired them from the NBI because of their links to the alleged brains of the pork barrel scam, Janet Lim Napoles.
“Never did I betray my country. I want that made clear because that’s what I fear that some of you may have started to believe the relentless, vicious attacks being launched and led by the most powerful man in this country,” she said.
The House committee on justice, which investigated the proliferation of illegal drugs in the NBP, is expected to convene Monday to approve its recommendations.
Oriental Mindoro Rep. Reynaldo Umali, the panel chairman, said his committee will meet on Monday to immediately draft legislation aimed at reforming the penal system.
“Our committee report is still being finalized and we have a scheduled hearing on Monday to approve the report,” Umali said. With Maricel V. Cruz
