Ronnie tells on Leila

TELLING VIBER MESSAGES Hannah Mae, daughter of Ronnie Dayan, shows lawmakers a purported Viber message from Sen. Leila de Lima on Oct. 1 telling her father not to appear in the House committee investigation. — JOAN BONDOC

Just as Sen. Leila de Lima had feared, a congressional committee feasted on her former driver/bodyguard, Ronnie Dayan, and his seven-year romance with her.

She warned Dayan, in a Viber  message to his daughter on Oct. 1, to stay away from the House of Representatives inquiry into allegations she had received drug money when she was the justice secretary.

On Thursday, during the resumption of the hearing, the House justice committee approved a motion to issue a show-cause order directing De Lima to explain why she should not be cited in contempt for telling Dayan to ignore the summons and go into hiding instead—an advice suggesting obstruction of justice.

“The continuing snub of De Lima, to my appreciation now, I think is also an affront to a coequal chamber,” said Misamis Oriental Rep. Reynaldo Umali, the committee chair.

Dayan said he had asked De Lima for advice on what to do after his sister received the House invitation but that the senator did not reply, prompting him to ask her daughter to contact her.

Messages  from TL

Dayan’s daughter, Hannah Mae, 23, showed to the lawmakers the exchange of Viber messages between her and “TL” or “Tita Leila.”

“Pakisabi sa kanya magtago lang muna siya. Kagagawan yan nila Speaker (Pantaleon) Alvarez at dikta ni Digong. Pagpipyestahan lang siya at kaming dalawa kapag nag-appear siya sa hearing (Tell him to hide … hide for now. That’s the work of Speaker Alvarez and dictated by Duterte. They will only feast on him, on the two of us, if he appears at the hearing).”

Dayan’s daughter then asked the senator if her father won’t be arrested if he snubbed the probe, to which De Lima reportedly replied:  “‘Di ba nagtatago naman siya (Isn’t he hiding anyway)?”

ABS Rep. Eugene Michael de Vera made the motion to issue a show-cause order against De Lima.

In response, three members of the Liberal Party in the Senate—Senators Bam Aquino, Frankon Drilon and Francis Pangilinan—said the House should direct the matter to the entire Senate, not to just one senator.

The three senators noted the unparliamentary conduct of some members of the House committee.

“The disrespectful and condescending line of questioning, which at one point seemed to justify an act of domestic violence, has no place in the halls of Congress,” they said.

Dayan had disappeared for three months. He had ignored a summons to appear before the House, for which an arrest warrant was issued against him for contempt and a P1-million bounty was put up. On Tuesday, he was arrested in a rice field in La Union province.

Questioning during the seven-hour hearing on Thursday dealt with the romance between Dayan and De Lima, who had earlier confirmed the affair in a TV interview, blaming it on the “frailties of a woman.”

But the lawmakers got nowhere in trying to elicit from Dayan admission that De Lima had received protection money from drug lords at New Bilibid Prison (NBP).

Dayan, who earlier received a House immunity from suit for his declarations, claimed he did not personally know confessed drug lord Kerwin Espinosa, but received money from him five times on orders of De Lima in parking lots at Mall of Asia in Manila and in Baguio City.

In a four-page affidavit, Dayan denied allegations made in earlier House hearings  by convicts doing time at NBP that Dayan demanded protection payoffs when De Lima was justice secretary to fund her senatorial campaign. He said he did not know the NBP drug lords.

He said he knew Rafael Ragos, acting bureau of corrections chief, but denied he received money from him.

Dayan admitted he and De Lima had a seven-year affair, which started in 2007 when he was employed as her driver/bodyguard when she was still an election lawyer.

Espinosa payoffs

Dayan said that he did not know Espinosa was a drug lord whenever they met for the payoffs. Dayan said he thought Espinosa was the engineer who De Lima said gave her a white Fortuner. He said De Lima had texted him directing him to meet with Espinosa.

Dayan said he first met Espinosa in August 2014 on the fifth floor of the SM Mall of Asia parking building in Pasay City. Espinosa slid open the door of a white van and gave him the money. It was followed by another meeting in October the same year at the Dampa in Parañaque City.

Dayan said he was alone when he met with Espinosa, who gave him the money in a paper bag that was stapled close. Dayan said he gave the bags to De Lima at home.

Under questioning by the congressmen, Dayan said he never looked inside the bags and only assumed they contained money by feeling it.

But he said that on his day-off he told De Lima he did not have any money, and she simply opened the bag and gave him P25,000 to P30,000.

Dayan said it was only in November 2014 when they met on the fourth floor parking lot of Building A of MOA that Espinosa asked for his name. This was followed by two more meetings that same month, the last of which was in Baguio.

He said Espinosa gave him the money at the parking lot of Alexandria Residence where Espinosa stayed. He said Espinosa arrived in Baguio on Nov. 19, 2014. Dayan said he, De Lima, and Espinosa met there on Nov. 22, 2015.