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Friday, March 29, 2024

‘Probe De Lima accounts’

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JUSTICE Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II on Friday expressed confidence that the government will be able to substantiate its allegation that his predecessor and now Senator Leila de Lima is involved in illegal drugs trade.

Aguirre said the Justice Department will ask the Anti-Money Laundering Council to investigate the bank accounts allegedly being used as conduits for drug money by several individuals with links to De Lima and her former driver and alleged lover Ronnie Dayan.

The Justice secretary denied that he was responsible for the release of copies of bank deposits purportedly showing a former staff of De Lima — Edna Obuyes — having amassed P24 million in a span of two months in 2014.

Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II

However, he admitted having received a copy of the bank deposits, but clarified that these have yet to be authenticated. 

Aguirre said the premature release of the documents was suspicious and could be part of the disinformation campaign being perpetrated by the senator’s camp to discredit the ongoing investigation on her links with illegal drugs trade.

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“We are just at the initial stage of releasing the case,” Aguirre said. “I know they have a disinformation campaign that will make it look like we released the documents.” He described De Lima as the “poster girl” of the disinformation campaign.

Aguirre said the National Bureau of Investigation is still in the process of building up a case against the senator and her alleged cohorts.

In her purported Facebook account, Obuyes questioned the authenticity of the bank slips, noting that she could have not used her nickname “Bogs” in bank transactions.

Other observers also noticed that one of the slips was dated April 18, a Good Friday, thus, banks were surely closed on that day.

But Aguirre confirmed he was in possession of 22 deposit slips amounting to P88 million, which were obtained from a principal source.

Obuyes and another staff of De Lima identified as Jonathan Caranto have reportedly executed their sworn affidavits before the NBI denying that they own millions of pesos in their bank accounts.

The two are among those who have reportedly presented themselves as possible witnesses to the irregularities committed by De Lima during her stint as DoJ chief.

Aguirre said three inmates at the New Bilibid Prison are still executing their affidavits linking De Lima and Dayan in the illegal drugs trade in the national penitentiary.

De Lima on Friday said President Rodrigo Duterte has grown irritated that Aguirre has been unable to produce strong evidence to support the allegations against her.

“As I said, it would appear that they are having difficulty inventing evidence, or they’re trying to fabricate evidence,” said De Lima.

She said it is not far fetched for them to manufacture evidence. 

“In fact, they are already inventing evidence,” she said.

“In his early morning press conference in Davao City, the President himself admitted matter-of-factly that he usually planted evidence against the accused when he was still a prosecutor. So apparently he’s doing it again,” said De Lima who said that instead of throwing mud at her, the administration should support her advocacy and address these alarming incidents of summary executions. 

In their desperation, she said Aguirre has personally summoned two of her former staff at the DOJ to accuse them of being her bagmen and keeping millions of pesos in their personal bank accounts. 

De Lima said she was informed by her sources that after being summoned to the Office of the Secretary, these two staff, who continued working at the DoJ as messengers, are in fact millionaires. 

After summoning them and accusing them of a crime, she said Aguirre himself has ordered them sent to the NBI for investigation, without any warrant of arrest, without probable cause simply because they were her former employees.  The former Justice secretary said this was the extent of illegal methods this government is willing to use to silence her.

“This has already become a personal obsession of the President himself. It is as if they are afraid that if they cannot destroy me and pin me down, with all the government machinery and executive power behind them, they will simply look like impotent fools before a defenseless woman whom they have dishonored and maligned,” said De Lima.

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