There’ll be hell to pay, Leila warns DOJ chief

Senator Leila de Lima leaving after her speech as the Rotary Club of Manila’s guest of honor and speaker in Manila Polo Club, Makati City. INQUIRER PHOTO/LYN RILLON

Sen. Leila de Lima on Thursday said that she would one day hold Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II and her other accusers answerable for “fabricating” evidence that would link her to the illegal drug trade.

De Lima also aired concerns that her phones had been tapped, confronting Aguirre and the Philippine National Police leadership about her suspicion during a hearing at the Senate.

Angered by De Lima’s investigation of extrajudicial killings in his brutal war on drugs, President Duterte recently publicly linked the senator to illegal drugs, alleging that her former driver, Ronnie Dayan, whom he described as also her lover, collected payoffs for her from convicted drug lords being held at New Bilibid Prison (NBP) in Muntinlupa City.

“My appeal to Secretary Aguirre and the NBI (National Bureau of Investigation) is to not allow [themselves] to be used. I know you are decent officials. Do not be a party to perjury or the subornation of perjury,” De Lima said in a talk with  reporters later.

“They know that knowingly coming out with fabricated evidence or false testimony is a crime, a subornation of perjury,” she said.

De Lima, a former justice secretary who busted the drug trade at NBP in 2014, faced Aguirre during a Senate committee hearing on bills related to illegal drugs on Thursday, but did not raise the allegations against her during the proceedings.

“If they continue to do that consciously, to knowingly manufacture and force so-called evidence, then I will hold them answerable in some future time.  It is useless to be filing cases at this point. Where do I file that? The DOJ (Department of Justice)?” she told reporters outside the hearing.

Two former members of De Lima’s staff at the DOJ and an inmate at Bilibid reportedly executed affidavits detailing her alleged participation in the drug trade inside the national penitentiary.

The witnesses, who Aguirre on Thursday maintained were not coerced but instead volunteered information, claimed that De Lima ordered them to deposit millions of pesos in  drug money to certain bank accounts.  The accounts were not under her name, they said.

‘Kangaroo court’

The witnesses are also being questioned at a House inquiry into the proliferation of illegal drugs at Bilibid under the previous administration.

De Lima has refused to face the House inquiry, calling it Mr. Duterte’s “kangaroo court” that has no legislative bearing.

De Lima found the contents of the affidavits incredible, saying she received information the day prior to the report that her former staffers were being forced to link her to the drug trade at Bilibid.

“Of course, they were surprised and I think they denied it. I have not spoken to them. Somebody just told me that they are being made to admit that they have accounts with millions in deposits,” De Lima said, adding that the allegations were part of the “lies and madness” being publicized against her.

“And they were being made to admit that I ordered them to open those accounts through which I coursed money from drug lords and drug convicts. Jesus Christ,” she said.

She called the allegations “a fabrication.”

“I don’t think those two would have those accounts. If so, then they are instant millionaires. Then, number two, certainly, that’s not my doing. I did not ask anyone to open an account for me and make a conduit from the deposits from alleged drug lords,” she said.

“This is too much. They might already be in a panic. They know they have nothing (against me). So now they’re rushing the fabrication and manufacture of so-called evidence,” she said.

Wiretapping

During a hearing led by the Senate committee on public order and dangerous drugs, De Lima told DOJ and Philippine National Police officials that she believed her phones had been  tapped.

“What is the legitimate purpose being served? Am I a terrorist? Is it because I am being accused as a coddler [of drug lords]? Let us not fool each other,” De Lima said.

PNP Director General Ronald dela Rosa broke the tension, saying: “Me too, I have also suspected that my cell phone is being tapped.”

Dela Rosa said the PNP had no capability to eavesdrop on electronic communication, telling De Lima that only “foreigners” had such a capability.

“We have no control over technology. We have foreigners. . . they can monitor our conversations from a faraway place,” he said.

Later in an interview, De Lima said she believed her phones had long been tapped, even before she was elected to the Senate.

She said she had no particular suspect in mind, but implied doubts about  Dela Rosa’s testimony that the PNP had no wiretapping capability.

Sen. Panfilo Lacson, a former PNP chief, was also incredulous, saying the police force during his time already had wiretapping capability.

“Who’s violating the law here? Who’s violating my rights? Especially my right to privacy? But you know I tend to be careful. I’m very cautious now. Sometimes I get paranoid with the gravity of what they’re doing to me,” De Lima said.

Usual suspects

Asked about the matter in an interview, Dela Rosa said: “[We’re the] usual suspect.  Even if she suspects us, there is nothing because we don’t have that capability.”

Addressing members of the Rotary Club of Manila later on Thursday, De Lima said President Duterte must be very angry with the DOJ because it could not “decently fabricate evidence” against her.

De Lima said Mr. Duterte had become obsessed with destroying her.

“It is as if he is afraid that if he cannot destroy me and pin me down, with all the government machinery and executive power behind them, they would simply look like impotent fools before a defenseless woman whom they have dishonored and maligned,” she said. With a report from Erika Sauler