UNDAUNTED Sen. Leila de Lima faces reporters to respond to President Duterte’s latest tirades against her. LYN RILLON
In a fight with the country’s most powerful man, she could only appeal for the people she loves.
Emotional yet unfazed, Sen. Leila de Lima on Thursday called on President Duterte to spare her family, friends and colleagues from what she described as a systematic effort to taint her name. She vowed to pursue her inquiry into the spate of unexplained deaths amid the drug war even if she might end up “buried” for her crusade.
Responding to the firebrand President’s latest tirades that portrayed her as an “immoral” woman engaged in illicit affairs, De Lima called on Mr. Duterte to give her a chance to air her side, recognizing the gulf of power between the two of them: “You are the President. I am just a senator.”
“If you will also attack my colleagues or my own family the way you have attacked me, I hope you will spare them. If you are bent on destroying me, please have the decency to spare my colleagues, friends, and family. They have done you no wrong,” said De Lima, a neophyte senator at the center of the President’s most straightforward allegations yet against an elected official.
De Lima faced Senate reporters but did not take questions.
She did not categorically deny Mr. Duterte’s charges that she benefited from the illegal drug trade and that she used her driver, described by the President as her lover, as her bagman in collecting payoffs from convicted drug lords held at the national penitentiary.
What wrong did I do?
The closest to a denial was her statement that “I don’t know what I have done wrong against him.”
She urged the President to stop his “threatening and shaming” campaign.
“Let’s go back to order that is brought by the rule of law and respect for fellow men. I have always been loyal to my oath as a public servant. I am not the enemy here. Stop portraying me as one,” she said.
“They are destroying my dignity and trampling upon my being a woman. Is there anything worse than that?” De Lima said.
Abuse of power
“I will not fight, I will not put up a fight against the President. First of all, I don’t know what I have done wrong against him,” she said, adding she just had a sleepless night following the President’s statements on Wednesday.
De Lima said she was powerless against an attacker who is immune from suit, calling the President’s public tirades “no less than an abuse and misuse of executive power.”
“I don’t think the Constitution has ever contemplated such abuse of power on such scale, as it assumes every President to conduct himself in a manner befitting the office he holds,” she said.
In a speech in Camp Crame on Wednesday, Mr. Duterte denounced De Lima’s “very sordid personal and official life.” It marked the peak of the longtime bickering, which began when De Lima, as chair of the Commission on Human Rights, investigated Mr. Duterte’s alleged links to the Davao Death Squad when he was Davao City mayor.
A mother of two who has long separated from her husband, De Lima described the allegations as “very foul” and smacked of “character assassination.”
‘Bury me instead’
The chair of the Senate committee on justice and human rights said she would pursue her investigation set to begin on Monday.
“If this is his way of stopping the Senate’s investigation on the extrajudicial killings, he can try until he finally silences me or the Senate. But I think it is already clear that what is being done to me is what will happen to anyone who does not bow to the wishes of the President,” she said.
“Your Excellency, I have also thought about stopping the investigation if that’s what you want, just so the personal attacks against me would stop … But if I do that, it would be like turning my back on my principles and beliefs,” De Lima said.
“It would be like burying my own person. I would rather that you and your government bury me instead of me burying myself,” she said.
Alarming public reaction
Senators Franklin Drilon, Risa Hontiveros and Francis Pangilinan rallied to the defense of De Lima, their ally in the administration of President Benigno Aquino III, and urged Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III to initiate a collective stand against Mr. Duterte.
“While he is known for his colorful language, it is not an excuse to insult and threaten women or target, without basis, a person’s reputation,” Hontiveros said.
Vice President Leni Robredo of Mr. Aquino’s Liberal Party said: “It’s sad that the fight has become personal … If we bring down the level of discourse to personal attacks, we may be bringing out the worst in people.”
Fr. Jerome Secillano, executive secretary of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines public affairs committee, described as “alarming” the public reaction to Mr. Duterte’s blast against De Lima.
“It’s as if what the President did was perfectly fine. When Mr. Duterte himself was called names by his detractors, people came to his defense and bullied his critics,” Secillano said. With reports from Dona Z. Pazzibugan and Julie Aurelio
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