By this time, it is common knowledge that individuals affiliated with the civic organization Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption, headed by its founding chairman Dante Jimenez, filed a disbarment case against Senator Leila de Lima before the Supreme Court. The group accused De Lima of gross immorality over an alleged love affair with her driver Ronnie Dayan, a married man, who is himself accused of being her bagman in what government investigators exposed as a complicated narcotics enterprise operating inside the national penitentiary. According to the VACC, De Lima never denied her romantic ties with her driver.
The complaint against De Lima cited the Lawyer’s Oath and the Code of Professional Responsibility, both of which embody the ethical standards governing the legal profession. It is alleged that De Lima “failed in her duty as a lawyer to adhere unwaveringly to the highest standards of morality.”
Jimenez is joined in the complaint by Reynaldo Esmeralda and Ruel Lasala, both ex-deputy directors of the National Bureau of Investigation, and Sandra Cam, a whistle blower who has exposed anomalies in high places in the government.
News archives indicate that this is the third disbarment case filed against De Lima ever since she became a ranking public official.
On an earlier occasion, Jimenez, Esmeralda and Lasala filed a criminal case against De Lima for violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act for allegedly allowing drug lords detained at the national penitentiary to operate a drug trade network from inside the prison.
The disbarment complaint against De Lima is pending before the Office of the Bar Confidant in the Supreme Court. As in all complaints for disbarment, an investigation is expected. There is the possibility that the case may be referred to the Integrated Bar of the Philippines.
If the VACC complaint against De Lima prospers, the senator faces sanctions ranging from her removal from the list of lawyers authorized to practice in the Philippines, or suspension from the practice of law for a specified period. Should the disbarment complaint turn out to be speculative or unfounded, or designed for harassment purposes only, De Lima has the option to file counter-charges.
As a respondent in a disbarment case, what De Lima must do is to disprove the accusations against her. Instead of doing so, De Lima called Jimenez “a creepy clown with a horrible dark mask, obsessed at being in the headlines instead of finding out the truth and justice for the thousands of victims of unresolved drug-related killings in our country.” She called Esmeralda, Lasala and Cam as a “circus act of performing monkeys,” with President Rodrigo Duterte as “master puppeteer.”
De Lima has been the focus of public attention after her critics connected her to drug syndicates operating at the national penitentiary under her watch when she was the justice secretary of ex-President Benigno Aquino III. It was also revealed in the news media that the drug lords enjoyed special treatment while in detention, such as air-conditioned quarters, catered food, and access to cyber facilities, mobile telephones, firearms, cash, and drugs.
The senator denies being involved in the illicit drug trade, and claims that President Duterte has embarked on a campaign to destroy and discredit her ever since she styled herself as an anti-Duterte legislator. De Lima has publicly accused Duterte and top officials of the Philippine National Police of allowing extra-judicial killings in the current administration’s ongoing drive against illegal drugs.
Anyway, since De Lima did not deny her romantic involvement with a married man, something a lawyer is not supposed engage in, she must have expected the disbarment suit to come her way sooner or later.
With the disbarment suit against her now a reality, De Lima ought to have shown how and why the complaint against her should not be believed by the public, much less paid any attention to by the Supreme Court. Instead of doing so, De Lima resorted to intemperate language and called Jimenez “a creepy clown with a horrible dark mask” and Esmeralda, Lasala and Cam as “a circus act of performing monkeys.”
If it was the intention of De Lima to discredit Jimenez and his group, she could have conveyed the same message to the news media using less objectionable language. Her resort to name-calling is certainly uncalled for, especially considering that she is a lawyer, and an incumbent senator at that.
Under the Code of Professional Responsibility, a lawyer is admonished against using abusive, offensive or improper language in his or her professional dealings. Thus, De Lima’s use of offensive language against Jimenez and his group may be an additional ground for the imposition of even more disciplinary sanctions against her by the Supreme Court. At the very least, what De Lima did aggravates the on-going disbarment case against her.
De Lima may also be courting libel raps for her offensive statements against Jimenez and company. Since De Lima appears to have uttered them outside of official judicial proceedings, her offensive remarks are not considered privileged communication—public remarks that do not give rise to legal liability.
In addition, the ethics committee of the Senate may soon find itself with a new burden if the Jimenez group decides to file a complaint against De Lima for the unparliamentary language she used in an announcement delivered in a public forum. If that situation materializes, De Lima may have to answer questions she has conveniently and cleverly dodged on past occasions.
At the end of the day, De Lima must realize that calling her detractors by offensive names does not help her in the disbarment case lodged against her by the VACC. Her behavior only invites more scrutinizing attention to herself and the controversies she is currently immersed in, and to what so far appears to be her inability or refusal to categorically deny the charges against her.