PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte wants Senator Leila de Lima’s ex-lover Ronnie Dayan alive to bolster the cases to be filed against her, saying that her admission to an affair is not enough to implicate her in the illegal drug trade.
“It’s a long shot. The guy is not here, you can’t find him and get his statement. He also can’t answer for himself. But I hope he’s alive he’s a vital witness against De Lima,” Duterte told reporters Wednesday.
Dayan went into hiding in August, after President Rodrigo Duterte claimed in a speech that he had an illicit affair with De Lima, and that the two were involved in the narcotics trade at the New Bilibid Prison when the senator was Justice secretary.
De Lima this week admitted to having an affair with her long-time bodyguard during a television interview, saying that the relationship lasted for a “few years” and that she broke up with him before she ran for senator.
De Lima however, maintained that she had never authorized him or anybody to collect money from drug lords inside the NBP to bankroll her senatorial campaign.
The National Bureau of Investigation said they are already hunting down Dayan but would not say anything else.
“Much as we would like to discuss in detail the operational procedures we are applying in trying to locate and arrest Ronnie Dayan, we do not want to jeopardize the ongoing operations,” NBI Deputy Director Ferdinand Lavin told a congressional hearing Wednesday.
“The latest update is that our tracker teams continue to scour Pangasinan and other provinces, your honor. We haven’t received any significant information as of this day,” he said.
“As we discuss this in Congress, your honor, I believe Ronnie Dayan is watching us,” he added.
The NBI and the Philippine National Police said that they have already tapped their regional offices nationwide to hunt down Dayan.
“We sent out a flash alarm…not only to our regional office in Region 1 but in all other regional offices of the police of the Philippine National Police. We have also directed Police Regional Office 1 to create tracker teams. And in two occasions, raids were conducted in Urbiztondo and vicinity, your honor, but unfortunately the result was negative,” Police Director Benjamin Magalong said.
Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II, however, said he believes that De Lima’s admission would lead to her eventual disbarment and prove her links to the illegal drug menace.
Aguirre said that they have an “airtight” case agains the De Lima, which has been strengthened by her own admission of the affair.
“Even without Dayan’s testimony, even without Kerwin [Espinosa]’s testimony, it’s sufficient,” he said of the evidence they gathered.
He said he hoped the P1-million reward offered by the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption for information about Dayan’s whereabouts would pay off.
“We were told that Ronnie Dayan is protected by some high public officials in his home province of Pangasinan and other northern provinces, up to Baguio,” Aguirre said. “I hope the P1-million reward will have a huge effect.”
Aguirre also said that Espinosa, a suspected drug kingpin who was arrested in Abu Dhabi and being sent home, would be used to pin De Lima to the drug trade.
“We were told that Kerwin was very much fearful for his life as well as the lives of his common-law wife and children … He was very fearful for their lives in view of what happened to the father,” Aguirre said, referring to Albuera Mayor Rolando Espinosa, who was shot dead by a police raiding team inside his jail cell in the Baybay City provincial jail.
In a radio interview, Philippine ambassador to the United Arab Emirates Constancio Vingno Jr. relayed Espinosa’s request to place him under the government’s Witness Protection Program in exchange for information he would reveal once he arrived in the country.
“His request is that he be placed under witness protection and he will tell all” Vingno said on radio dzBB.
On October 17, Espinosa was arrested after months in hiding in Abu Dhabi.
Vingno said he was finally able to speak with Espinosa or also known as “Boss K” inside the jail. Espinosa told him that he feared for his life as well as his family after his father was killed inside his jail cell on Nov. 5.
Also on Wednesday, a police officer told a congressional panel that the stabbing incident at the NBP on Sept. 28 was intended to silence inmate Jaybee Sebastian to prevent him from testifying against De Lima.
Police Chief Supt. Francisco Ebreo made the disclosure, citing the affidavit of convict Tomas Doniña, that he stabbed Sebastian so that he would not speak against De Lima during the House probe on the proliferation of illegal drugs at the national penitentiary.