Panelo to De Lima: Answer Duterte allegations

Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO / NINO JESUS ORBETA

Chief presidential legal counsel Salvador Panelo on Thursday said President Rodrigo Duterte’s tirade against one of his staunchest critics, Sen. Leila De Lima, was part of his “report to the people on the state of the nation.”

Panelo downplayed Duterte’s latest attacks against De Lima as an “information reported to the nation on the questionable behavior of a public official,” as he called on the senator to respond to the President’s allegations.

“The question that the good senator should respond to is: Is the information given by President Duterte on her true or not? In her press conference she called she did not deny nor refute the information. Character assassination predicates the adverse information on the conduct of a person as being false,” Panelo said in a statement.

READ: Duterte slams De Lima

Duterte on Wednesday accused De Lima of “political posturing” and called her an “immoral woman”  for her alleged affair with her driver, whom he said collected drug money to fund her campaign.

An emotional De Lima, who is leading the Senate hearing on the government’s war against drugs, faced the media on Thursday and denounced Duterte’s attacks as abuse and misuse of power.

READ: De Lima bewails Duterte ‘abuse, misuse of power’

Amid the rising death toll in the administration’s bloody war against illegal drugs and criminality, Panelo reiterated that Duterte will not tolerate “salvaging” of any citizen.

“For six years Sen. De Lima has disparaged the reputation of PRRD (Duterte) as being behind the Davao Death Squads but during her stint as s Chairman of the Human Rights Commission and Secretary of Justice she never filed any criminal complaint against PRRD,” he said.

“As an official policy, PRRD welcomes any investigation by any entity or any branch of the government on the extra-judicial killings as in fact he has directed the PNP to investigate the same,” he added. CDG/rga

READ: De Lima claim to ‘moral high ground’ prompted Duterte attack

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