SENATOR Panfilo Lacson said he wants to reconcile the conflicting statements of self-confessed drug lord Kerwin Espinosa and the former lover and alleged bagman of Senator Leila de Lima, Ronnie Dayan, when both meet before his Senate panel Monday.
In his testimony before the Senate, Espinosa said he gave money to De Lima through Dayan in 2015, but Dayan, testifying before the House, insisted that the money changed hands in 2014 because he was no longer working for De Lima in 2015.
The separate testimony by the two established that money had changed hands, and that De Lima was implicated, Lacson said.
Still, Lacson said, he still wanted to tie up loose ends, including details on how and when they met and when money changed hands.
He added that based on his testimony before the House, Dayan was protecting himself by saying he thought Espinosa was an engineer, and not a drug lord.
Lacson said there would be no personal questions posed to Dayan about his affair with De Lima. In the House, this line of questioning drew angry reactions from the public.
De Lima, a member of the panel, said she would not be there when Espinosa and Dayan faced off, but she would show up later in the hearing, when they had finished testifying.
“I just don’t want to create an atmosphere [similar to the House]. Although, of course, I trust my colleagues in the Senate that they are more professional, much more decent than their counterparts in the House, especially the House committee. You know some of them are really…these are chauvinist, sickening, sexist pigs,” De Lima said.
She added that she would monitor the testimony of Espinosa and Dayan from outside the Senate.
Communications Secretary Martin Andanar on Sunday ducked questions about Lacson’s accusation that President Rodrigo Duterte had a double standard in his war on drugs.
Lacson had criticized Duterte for countermanding Philippine National Police chief Dir. Gen. Ronald dela Rosa, by ordering the reinstatement of the head of the Region 8 Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, Marvin Marcos, who led the team that killed Albuera Mayor Rolando Espinosa, father of Kerwin, inside his jail cell while serving a search warrant at the Leyte provincial prison.
The younger Espinosa had testified before the Senate that he gave drug payoffs to Marcos.
“I thought it was an all-out drug war I was supporting. Talk about double-standard. Talk about double-speak,” said the senator in a Twitter post Friday. “Change isn’t coming after all.”
Asked to comment on Lacson’s statement, Andanar said: “What do you think…? Maybe you should answer that question.” With Sandy Araneta