Ronnie Dayan, former driver and bodyguard of Sen. Leila de Lima, presented at the PNP HQ, Camp Crame. INQUIRER PHOTO/LYN RILLON
On Aug. 17, President Duterte linked Sen. Leila de Lima to the illegal drug trade when he claimed that the senator’s driver, who was also her “lover,” collected drug payoffs for her when she was justice secretary.
Without naming the senator and the driver, the President called her an “immoral woman” whose drug money funded the house of her lover.
This was five days before the Senate committee on justice and human rights, then chaired by De Lima, was set to start an inquiry into Mr. Duterte’s bloody war on illegal drugs.
The driver was later identified as Ronnie Palisoc Dayan, who reportedly lived in a two-story white house at Barangay Galarin in Urbiztondo, Pangasinan province.
During an Inquirer visit to the Galarin neigborhood, Dayan’s neighbors would neither confirm nor deny that the house was De Lima’s gift to her driver. De Lima has denied that she owns the property.
Municipal records showed that the house stands on a 2,482-square-meter lot titled to Dayan’s sister, Elmita Torreta. The house and lot have a combined value of P279,784, as shown in Torreta’s tax
declaration.
An orange bungalow about 100 meters from the white house is owned by Dayan, according to municipal records, where his children live. It sits on a property owned by Isidro Palisoc, possibly a relative of Dayan.
Dayan has two married children with their own families, while his youngest is a high school student, according to the barangay captain, Rodolfo Licuanan.
But Licuanan was uncertain as to whether Dayan’s wife lived with their children.
Senior Supt. Ronald Lee, provincial police director, presented documents during a media forum about an incident in which Dayan had allegedly punched a policeman and threatened to kill a barangay watchman after they reportedly confronted Dayan for indiscriminately firing a gun during a drinking party in April 2014.
No case was filed against Dayan. The complaint was reportedly settled amicably. —COMPILED BY INQUIRER RESEARCH
Source: Inquirer Archives