Former Justice Secretary Leila de Lima joins the legal team of Liberal Party’s vice presidential candidate Leni Robredo before wearing her new hat as senator. JULLIANE LOVE DE JESUS/INQUIRER.net
It was President Benigno Aquino III who asked Senator-elect Leila de Lima to “help out” Liberal Party’s vice presidential candidate Leni Robredo as the latter faces allegations of election fraud from the camp of her rival in the vice presidential race Senator Bongbong Marcos.
In an ambush interview on Wednesday after a media briefing with Robredo’s legal team, De Lima revealed that Aquino had asked her to represent Robredo in the congressional canvassing of votes.
Asked what the outgoing President told her, De Lima said: “pinarating niya sa akin (he let me know) that he would want me to be a part of the legal team to help out Congresswoman Leni. Then it was Cong. Leni herself who made a personal request to me so I readily accepted it.”
READ: Before assuming Senate post, De Lima to join Robredo legal team
De Lima is working as an overall consultant of Robredo’s legal team. She is joined by lawyers Romulo Macalintal, Maria Bernadette Sardillo, Edgardo Carlo Vistan II and Marlon Manuel.
Before joining Robredo’s legal team, De Lima as an election lawyer also held cases of seasoned politicians including former Senate President Manny Villar, Senators Alan Peter Cayetano and Koko Pimentel, former Isabela Governor Grace Padaca and former Pampanga governor Ed Panlilio.
De Lima has won several cases of her former clients. This included the disqualification case against Cayetano, who was then running for senator, in 2007 over his citizenship and Cayetano’s disqualification case against his namesake Senatorial candidate Joselito Pepito “Peter” Cayetano as a nuisance candidate.
She also won the Pimentel’s electoral case against senatorial candidate Juan Miguel Zubiri. Zubiri was proclaimed as Senator-elect in 2007 as the 12th winning candidate.
After three years, the former senator had to resign after Pimentel’s camp contested the 12th seat and showed evidence that there were irregularities in the election in some Mindanao provinces.
Both Cayetano and Pimentel are allied with presumptive president-elect Rodrigo Duterte.
De Lima, a former human rights commissioner, has been critical of Duterte’s style of leadership and pronouncements on death penalty. CDG
READ: Marcos speech bares weakness of fraud claim–Robredo lawyer