THE alleged sex video of Senator Leila de Lima will not be played during the resumption of the House probe on the illegal drug trade at the New Bilibid Prison, Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II said Tuesday.
“We are not going to present anything about it,” Aguirre told reporters at the sidelines of the plenary deliberations on next year’s P3.35-trillion General Appropriations Bill in the House of Representatives.
He made the statement even as senators on Tuesday condemned and opposed the House’s plan to show the video.
Led by Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III, they adopted Senate Resolution 184 initiated by Senator Risa Hontiveros, head of the Senate committee on women, and signed by Senators Grace Poe, Cynthia Villar, Nancy Binay and Loren Legarda.
The chamber unanimously approved the resolution and all senators were made co-authors of it.
Aguirre admitted having watched one of the alleged sex videos of De Lima, and that it allegedly came from the cellular phone of De Lima’s former driver-bodyguard Ronnie Dayan.
“I do not have any details about it but all I can say is I was able to watch the video. It was them,” Aguirre said referring to De Lima and Dayan who has gone into hiding after the NBP controversy broke out.
Aguirre said the Justice Department had been preparing an airtight case against De Lima, who has denied any involvement in the illegal drug operations inside the national penitentiary during her tenure as Justice chief.
During the House hearing on Thursday, Aguirre said they will present 10 new witnesses that will corroborate earlier testimonies that the former Justice secretary had indeed accepted drug money from the inmates at the national penitentiary.
“There are several new witnesses who will attest that they gave the [drug] money directly to De Lima,” Aguirre said.
The House committee on justice, led by Oriental Mindoro Rep. Reynaldo Umali, will resume its hearing on Thursday, when the new witnesses to be presented by the Justice Department are expected to testify that they gave the drug money directly to De Lima.
Aguirre said one of the witnesses will testify on the existence of one of the supposed sex videos of De Lima.
He said he was pretty sure it was De Lima who was in the sex video he watched, but he refused to elaborate.