PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte on Sunday accused Senator Leila de Lima of giving her driver—whom he said was also her lover—the authority to grant special privileges to inmates at the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa when she was still the Justice secretary.
In an early morning press conference in Davao, Duterte also defended his exposé of De Lima’s alleged affair with her driver, a married man.
“Some of my relatives, the women, were asking me, why did you have to include the relationship between De Lima and her driver,” Duterte said.
“The crux of the matter is if I do not talk about that relationship… there is no topic to talk about. Because what is really very crucial there is that… the relationship… gave rise to the corruption inside the national penitentiary,” Duterte said.
“That’s why there were special privileges,” he said, noting there were guns inside the prison, and that there were parties being held almost every night, alcoholic drinks flowed freely and women went in and out of the prison.
“Now if I do not mention the connect between the senator, who was then a secretary of Justice and her driver, how would you now explain [why] these things happened, the partying, drugs and even cooking shabu, went unbridled, unhampered because of the driver? Would you think that a driver of the Department of Justice could have allowed these things all by himself?”
Duterte said all of these could have only happened if there was a go-signal from the secretary.
Duterte also said an undersecretary also served as a bagman.
“Were it not for that authority, these cellphones and everything else, the guns, would not have happened,” Duterte said.
He warned all Bureau of Prisons employees to tell the truth about what happened in the NBP.
De Lima’s Liberal Party on Sunday expressed outrage of a House investigation of the NBP during De Lima’s watch, and slammed Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez and other House leaders of allowing Congress to be used as a “political weapon.”
The Liberals questioned the timing of the proposed House investigation, coming on the heels of an investigation in the Senate, spearheaded by De Lima, into the spate of drug-related killings after Duterte took office.
“The Liberal Party stands for free and open debate, for due process of law, and for respect and civility in public discourse. Senator Leila de Lima is doing her job as a senator of the republic. She deserves support, not condemnation; respect, and not gutter language; she and our people deserve the facts, not innuendo,” the LP said in a statement.
LP stalwart Ifugao Rep. Teddy Brawner Baguilat Jr. questioned the “logic and propriety” of the Alvarez-authored House Resolution 105 calling for an investigation “in aid of legislation” of the accountability of De Lima for the proliferation of drugs in the NBP during De Lima’s term as secretary of Justice.
“In the same way that Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez said no new legislation could come out of an investigation into the rampant extrajudicial killings that have cost hundreds of innocent lives, how can any new law come out of an investigation looking for accountability of past officials?” Baguilat said.
“This proposed investigation in fact reeks of harassment and various constitutional violations as it seeks to spend people’s money on a witch hunt, forgetting that the role of Congress is primarily to make laws, not look for criminal evidence, which is an executive function,” Baguilat added.
“Obviously the proposed investigation, which singles out Senator De Lima, wants to discredit the ongoing investigation at the Senate on drug-related killings. It is outrageous that the leadership of the House would allow this venerable institution to be used as a political weapon,” Baguilat said.
The Liberals called on Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III, the President’s party mate in the Partido Demokratikong Pilipino-Laban ng Bayan or PDP-Laban “to uphold the independence of the Senate whose membership must always be vigorously supported as they fulfill the people’s mandate to make inquiries in aid of legislation.”
In the Senate, Minority Leader Ralph Recto said he does not believe De Lima was involved in illegal drugs.
He said he expected the Senate to call an all-member caucus to determine how to deal with the President’s attack on one of its members.
“Senator De Lima is presumed innocent. Those who allege must show proof,” said Recto, a member of the LP.
The Senate minority leader said he was “surprised, shocked and saddened” by the President’s attacks on De Lima.
Senator Antonio Trillanes IV said Mr. Duterte’s attack on De Lima showed that the President did not brook opposition.
But with De Lima standing up to him, Trillanes said Duterte now knows not everyone will bow to him.
“I think President Duterte, because of his long experience as a totalitarian mayor of Davao City, is instinctively intolerant of dissenting voices. But he is slowly finding out that our senators are no pushovers, unlike the city councilors he is used to dealing with,” he said.
Senator Joel Villanueva called for a stop to “personal attacks” and said he hoped the President would be more patient with other officials who were also working for the good of the country.
At the hearing Monday, De Lima will get to grill Duterte’s chief of the national police, Dir. Gen. Ronald dela Rosa, on the spate of extrajudicial killings of suspected drug pushers and users.
“I would be very happy to face you,” Dela Rosa said, addressing De Lima directly.
De Lima and Dela Rosa were both part of the previous administration where the former served as Justice secretary while the latter was police chief of Davao City, where Duterte was mayor for two decades.
Also expected to appear in the hearing were the country’s other top law enforcement and human rights officials.
De Lima said the committee will also look into ways to improve the Philippine’s criminal justice system.
“We need to address the phenomenon of vigilantism and summary killings and to enhance the accountability of state and non-state actors,” she said.
“Regardless of the question whether those killed were in fact criminals, precisely because there was no opportunity for them to be prosecuted before a court of law, the fight against crime is apparently becoming a state-sanctioned cover for a policy of summary executions and extrajudicial killings of any and all suspected criminals,” she added.
Law enforcement officials including Dela Rosa, Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency Director General Isidro Lapeña, and National Bureau of Investigation Director Dante Gierran, are expected to testify on the rising number of extrajudicial killings during the hearing.
Interior and Local Government Secretary Ismael Sueno and Commission on Human Rights Chairman Chito Gascon will also attend the hearing as resource persons to provide their insights.