De Lima: No one can force me to resign
Senator Leila de Lima. GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE/INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
“No one can force me to resign,” Senator Leila de Lima said on Wednesday.
De lima was reacting to Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo’s resignation call after she admitted her past affair with former driver Ronnie Dayan, who has been tagged as alleged “bagman” at the New Bilibid Prison.
“Yan naman kasi sila pinagpipyestahan na naman nila ako, yan ang gusto nila,” the senator said.
“Basta resignation is a personal decision,” she said.
Told that her admission of her past relationship is now being used by her detractors to call for her resignation, De Lima said, “Again, it’s my decision, hindi ko papatulan yang mga ganyan.”
De Lima, who has been charged for alleged involvement in the drug trade, also blamed her predicaments to the “no-stop acts of persecution” against her.
“Wala silang ibang ginagawa ngayon, naka focus lang sila sa akin so kaliwa’t kanan ang mga kaso and all that,” she said.
Panelo said the senator’s admission of her past affair with Dayan could bolster the drug charges against her. This also validates, he said, the accusation that De Lima “committed unlawful and immoral acts and opens her to a criminal charge of adultery her lover being a married man.”
“It opens her to expulsion proceedings in the Senate by the Senate Ethics Committee for immorality and grave misconduct in office, apart from opening herself to a disbarment proceeding as a member of the bar for immorality and unethical conduct,” the chief legal counsel was quoted as saying.
“To save the Senate from further embarrassment, she must voluntarily resign,” Panelo added. RAM
