PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte on Wednesday appeared very assured of his destination in the afterlife, but said he would ask Satan to instead take his top critic, detained Senator Leila De Lima as the queen of hell.
“I think that with this age, I would really go first… But I don’t have any ambitions [going to heaven]. I’m really going to hell. But I will wait for her until she comes,” Duterte said of De Lima.
“I will tell him, Senyor Satanas, here’s the queen you’re waiting for. Really,” he added.
Meanwhile, both the Department of Justice and the Office of the Solicitor General have denied the claim of De Lima’s lawyers that there was conflict in their respective positions on the appropriate drug charges filed against her.
Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II and Solicitor General Jose Calida stressed they had no conflicting opinions on the proper cases against De Lima.
“If there’s conflict in the information filed by the panel of prosecutors and the OSG’s interpretation, there should already have [been] an amendment but we did not amend the information since there is no conflict,” Aguirre said in an interview.
In fact, Aguirre joined with Calida during the second oral arguments of De Lima’s case before the Supreme Court last Tuesday in a display of solidarity in defending DoJ’s cases against the senator.
Calida also disputed the assertion made by De Lima’s counsel and former solicitor general Florin Hilbay during the first hearing last March 14.
“It’s very clear there is no conflict between our positions. The conflict is just a figment of their imagination,” Calida stressed.
The DoJ filed before the Muntinlupa Regional Trial Court against De Lima cases for three counts of violation of Section 5 of Republic Act 9165 (Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act), which penalizes the “sale, trading, administration, dispensation, delivery, distribution and transportation of illegal drugs.”
During oral arguments, Calida emphasized that De Lima was charged Section 26 (b) of the same law, which penalizes “any attempt or conspiracy to commit sale, trading, administration, dispensation, delivery, distribution and transportation of any dangerous drugs.”
He vowed to discuss this issue more substantively when he presents the government’s side in the third hearing next Tuesday, March 28.
“While the DoJ alleges in its defective Information that petitioner is an actual drug lord—a master of puppets—the OSG is now saying petitioner is a theoretical drug lord—a drug lord in words and not by deed— one who merely conspired to trade in drugs with alleged co-conspirators but actually never did so,” Hilbay told the SC magistrates last week.
With this discrepancy, Hilbay said they could already ask for the dismissal of the case, adding that with that comment, Calida in essence was now saying that Muntinlupa RTC Branch 204 Judge Juanita Guerrero found probable case and issued a warrant of arrest against De Lima for the wrong case.
Duterte, who previously linked De Lima to the illegal drug trade inside the New Bilibid Prison, scored De Lima for criticizing him continually even behind bars.
“De Lima wants me removed. But the things she did? That’s tragedy. The tragedy is she’s the secretary of Justice. She controls the prisons yet went into trafficking. That’s no bail,” Duterte said.
“She kept on writing, she kept on cursing but she cannot admit [her mistakes]. She already did a free advertisement of herself and telling that she’s not the one. But the dog walking behind her in bed, that’s the same dog she’s bringing when she’s outdoors,” he added, referring to De Lima’s alleged sex video.
Duterte also poked fun at her and told prison guards to stay away from De Lima, who admitted her driver Ronnie Dayan had also been her lover.
Duterte also denied he and Aguirre just filed trumped-up charges against her.