Sen. Leila de Lima on Saturday said his former driver and bodyguard Ronnie Dayan has been facing threats and now fears for his life after being tagged by President Rodrigo Duterte as the senator’s alleged lover and bagman of drug money.
While saying that she has not personally talked to Dayan following Duterte’s pronouncements, De Lima said she was told that her former driver would be coerced to affirm the accusations of drug links against her.
“Hindi na siya nakakauwi sa kanilang lugar dahil may mga nagha-hunting sa kanya. May mga kakilalang pulis na nagsabi sa kanya na papalabasin na mayroon kang mga armas o dudukutin ka dahil balak kang gawing state witness sa dati mong boss,” De Lima said in a press briefing in Quezon City.
“Napipilitan po akong banggitin siya (Dayan) dahil naaawa na rin po ako sa kanya… Nagtatago po siya hanggang ngayon pero may nagpahatid po sa akin na talagang delikado po siya ngayon. Sobra ang pangamba at walang makain,” she added, citing the presence of “suspicious” entities supposedly making the rounds in Dayan’s neighborhood.
(He is unable to go home to their place because he is being hunted down. He has been told by police who know him that it would be made to appear that he had firearms o that he would be abducted because he would be made a state witness against your former boss.
I am forced to mention him because I pity him…He is in hiding until now but I was told that he is in a very dangerous condition. He is in fear and doesn’t even have anything to eat.)
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De Lima said Dayan, who served as her driver and bodyguard as private prosecutor and before entering government service, resigned early last year.
Amid her calls for accountability over the rising death toll in the administration’s drug war, Duterte on Wednesday shamed De Lima as an “immoral woman” over an alleged affair with Dayan, who he said collected drug money that funded her senatorial campaign.
But De Lima said she did not want to dwell on her relationship with Dayan as it was a personal matter.
“Napalapit po siya sa akin pero kung gaano napalapit, I don’t want to touch on that dahil personal na bagay po ‘yan,” she said.
(He is close to me, but I don’t want to touch on the degree of our closeness because it’s a personal matter.) CDG
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