SENATOR Leila de Lima on Thursday dismissed the House minority bloc as “a company union” that had its own agenda in recommending the filing of drug charges against her.
She said the move by minority lawmakers to issue their own report after the House justice committee failed to recommend charges against her for her alleged role in the illegal drug trade in the national penitentiary showed how passionate they were in vilifying her.
Some of the opposition congressmen easily believed the lies of the drug convicts, who testified against her during the House probe, she said.
“And they did not bother at all to really probe seriously into the apparent inconsistencies and self-contradictory points in the testimonies of some of them,” she said.
“They hear only what they want to hear. They hear only what the President is claiming that I am to be blamed for the illegal drug trade,” she added.
She merely shrugged off and taunted the so-called minority for pretending to be the opposition.
“It’s not a genuine opposition. It works like a company union,” she said.
She said the real opposition in the House is the group led by Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman.
It was the minority bloc led by Quezon Rep. Danilo Suarez that came up with its own report, recommending the filing of criminal charges against De Lima for her alleged involvement in the illegal drug trade at the NBP.
She accused former President and now House Deputy Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her allies of orming an alliance with the President along with what she described as “PDAF senators” to destroy her.
The President, De Lima said, has had a personal vendetta against her since 2009.
When Duterte became President, De Lima said, he then had the chance to get back at her.
“And then there are other personalities who are just too happy that they have a president like that who is hell-bent [on] destroying Leila de Lima and therefore they are exploiting that part of the President, that weakness in the character of the President of being vindictive, to their own benefit also, to serve their respective agenda,” she said.
De Lima said she was referring to personalities “especially the powerful ones,” who wanted to get back at her after she filed cases against them.
She noted how some people kept blaming her for stopping Arroyo from leaving the country to seek medical treatment abroad in 2011.