Speaker won’t let go of De Lima, presses contempt charge

House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez on Friday defended the House order compelling Sen. Leila de Lima to explain why she discouraged her driver and ex-lover, Ronnie Dayan, from attending the hearings linking her to the illegal drug trade.

Contrary to Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III’s reminder that the House should exercise “interparliamentary courtesy,” Alvarez said it was De Lima who “interfered” in the affairs of the House.

Alvarez said he agreed with House committee on justice chair Rep. Reynaldo Umali’s move to issue the show-cause order that threatened to cite her in contempt if she refused to comply.

“Well, she has to appear in the House of Representatives and show cause why she should not be cited for contempt,” he said.

Dayan was arrested on the basis of a contempt citation, after he failed to heed a show-cause order directing him to explain his absence from the House’s hearings despite being subpoenaed.

During the House justice subcommittee’s hearing on Thursday, Dayan’s daughter showed a Viber message purportedly from De Lima advising Dayan to hide.

“That act of the senator is tantamount to interfering in the proceedings conducted in the House of Representatives and that itself is really contemptuous,” Alvarez said.

Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II said the government may charge the senator with “obstruction of justice” as well as concubinage for cohabiting with Dayan, a married man who has admitted to having sexual relations with De Lima for seven years.

“There is that special law that says that we would file if this will fall under the obstruction of justice provision. Let me study it and if warranted, we will file necessary action,” he said.

He advised the House committee to cite De Lima in contempt first before the Department of Justice moves to charge her for drug offenses.

He said De Lima publicly admitted the affair “and the Supreme Court is unerring in punishing this kind of immorality with disbarment.”

Alvarez also played down the “inconsistencies” observed by congressmen in the testimony of Dayan, who admitted receiving money from confessed drug lord Kerwin Espinosa but contradicted the statements of New Bilibid Prison inmates that he collected drug money from them.

Alvarez said Dayan “confirmed a lot of things” with regard to the allegations hurled at the senator, who was accused by President Duterte of involvement in the illegal drug trade after she launched an inquiry into abuses in the government’s bloody antinarcotics campaign.

“One thing for sure: that he delivered money to then Justice Secretary De Lima,” Alvarez said.

Several senators on Friday backed Sen. Panfilo Lacson’s plan to invite Dayan to reconcile his testimony with that of Espinosa’s. Lacson leads the Senate committee on public order and dangerous drugs, which has launched an investigation into the killing of Espinosa’s father, Albuera, Leyte, Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr. —WITH REPORTS FROM TARRA QUISMUNDO AND GIL CABACUNGAN