SENATOR Leila de Lima may have miscalculated public sentiment when she admitted this week on national TV that she had a years-long affair with her married driver-bodyguard, after evading the issue for months.
Asked what made her fall for a driver-bodyguard, the senator’s reply was almost glib. “Frailties of a woman,” she said, with half a smile.
When the sympathetic talk show host asked, “You mean to say, propinquity?” De Lima sounded almost dismissive. “Call it whatever it is,” she replied.
De Lima also seemed to play down how long the affair lasted.
“A few years?” she offered, with a slight shake of the head as if to say it was unimportant. Then said she couldn’t remember if the affair had started when she was Justice secretary, or even earlier, when she headed the Commission on Human Rights.
Asked if it were possible that her driver-lover, Ronnie Dayan, could have used her to collect money from drug lords detained in the national penitentiary without her knowledge, De Lima’s answer was telling. “It is within the realm of possibility,” she said, because she could only be 100 percent sure of her own actions.
Until her TV admission on Monday, De Lima had kept silent on the rumored affair for months, neither confirming nor denying the administration’s claim that Dayan was her lover.
She later refused to answer more questions about her personal life, saying she was “uncomfortable” talking about it in public.
She did issue a statement, however, that expounded on her “frailties” reply.
“Like many of us, including my detractors, some decisions and relationships in our past have not been the best and the wisest. I have learned from these experiences and resolved to use my pain to focus on the good I can do.”
De Lima also vowed she had never allowed her personal life to affect her work in public service.
On this last point, the senator is clearly mistaken.
Months of speculation—and finally, her admission—that she had a love affair have also damaged her credibility, particularly since the lover she chose has been identified by several witnesses as a collector of drug money at the national penitentiary.
Her admission, too, that it was possible that Dayan, unbeknown to her, had collected drug money using her name suggests that she had already allowed her personal life to compromise her work when she was Justice secretary.
Finally, without passing judgment on her morality, we can also say that her “frailties of a woman” defense fell short of its goal of gaining public sympathy.
The women’s rights group Gabriela observed that the so-called frailties of women—and men or any gender—can never be cited as a defense for crimes, be it adultery, abuse of authority by a public official or drug trafficking.
“It should not be used—especially by one who holds position of power like Senator Leila de Lima—as an excuse from criminal accountability or to paint herself as a victim,” Gabriela said.
The point is well made. It is true that we all make mistakes, and sometimes, as De Lima points out, our decisions and relationships are not always the best or the wisest. However, not all of us hold high national office—or pass ourselves off as a moral guardian of the public good.