Sen. Leila de Lima accused forces close to Pampanga Rep. Gloria Arroyo on Thursday of being behind efforts to vilify her as a drug coddler as payback for barring the former president from leaving the country when she was justice secretary.
De Lima again denied allegations that she was behind the drug trade at the national penitentiary, as a fresh complaint was filed against her at the Department of Justice and the House minority report backing her prosecution as an alleged coddler and protector of jailed drug lords.
“As I’ve been telling you, up to my last breath, I will maintain and profess innocence because that’s the truth. I have nothing to do with the drug trade either within or outside Bilibid,” De Lima said in a news conference.
“I’m not at all involved,” she said. “Even if they have to employ every investigator, continue bugging my phone, they will find nothing about the so-called drug money.”
De Lima said she was confident her accusers would not find any money trail “unless they fabricate evidence.”
Not a cent
“I have no millions. I have no billions. I have never received a single cent from the drug trade,” she said.
De Lima again accused President Duterte, who was first to air drug allegations against the senator in public, as being behind the string of charges against her, backed possibly by Arroyo and her supporters.
It was De Lima, then a justice secretary, who stopped Arroyo from leaving the Philippines in 2011 to seek medical treatment in Singapore while facing corruption allegations.
She placed Arroyo and her husband, Jose Miguel, in a watchlist order, despite a Supreme Court injunction against it. Arroyo was cleared and ordered freed from
detention in July.
“Some people keep on blaming me until now for barring the former President (Arroyo) from leaving the country. Even the President (Duterte) is now saying that I will suffer the same fate, that of former President GMA. In other words, I will be locked up in jail and rot in jail,” De Lima said, but did not give out names.
“But since they are on the same side now, they have political alliances, the GMA forces and then the PDAF (Priority Development Assistance Fund) senators,” she said, in reference to former senators tagged in the P10-billion fund diversion racket.
De Lima did not identify who among the three former lawmakers facing trial for the scam—Juan Ponce Enrile, Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr., and Jinggoy Estrada—were among those she believed were behind efforts to taint her name.