No reply from De Lima, Dayan as DOJ closes probe on drug pay-offs

Sen. Leila de Lima (left) and her former driver and lover, Ronnie Dayan. INQUIRER FILES

MANILA — The Department of Justice wrapped up, on Wednesday, its preliminary investigation of Sen. Leila de Lima’s alleged involvement in illegal drugs at the New Bilibid Prison with the former justice secretary and her former bodyguard lover snubbing the hearings and failing to submit their counter-affidavits.

“This case is now submitted for resolution,” declared Senior Assistant State Prosecutor Peter Ong at the end of the second day of hearing on charges that De Lima abetted the proliferation of drugs inside the NBP and received bribes from drug lords allegedly for her senatorial campaign.

Solicitor General Jose Calida formally inserted himself as counsel of De Lima’s accusers, the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption, at Wednesday’s hearings and was somewhat disappointed that De Lima decided to snub the hearing (which required her personal filing of her counteraffidavit) after being a no-show at the first hearing last Dec. 2.

During Wednesday’s hearing, De Lima’s lawyer Filibon Tacardon questioned the jurisdiction of the DOJ panel and reiterated her appeal for a venue transfer to the Office of the Ombudsman where De Lima hoped to get fairer treatment.

“We are in the position that this honorable panel has no jurisdiction to try the cases, not only one but all four cases. So she sent me here to inform the panel,” said Tacardon.

Tacardon said that De Lima was likely to file her counter-affidavit with the Ombudsman while demanding to have copies of the counter-affidavits of all the parties in the case. This irritated Ong who felt that De Lima had no right to make demands on a court, which she refused to recognize.

De Lima’s lawyer also voiced his client’s opposition to Calida’s presence in the preliminary investigation because he might play a “material” role upon the filing of the cases in court. Ong shot down Tacordo’s complaints saying he was “indifferent” to who represented VACC.

He said that whatever the DOJ panel decided on the cases would be her own “lookout” for deciding not to participate in the hearings, especially in the Dec. 2 hearing when she sent only a messenger as a representative who arrived after the hearing.

With the face-off with De Lima aborted, Calida resorted to name calling and challenging De Lima to resign after she called him and her accusers as a group of “lunatics.”

“I hereby put a challenge to De Lima.  She accused me that I have an empty skull.  She is a former Secretary of Justice. I challenge her to reveal her grade in criminal law during the bar exams. If her grade is higher than mine, then I will resign as solicitor general. But if my grade is higher than hers she should resign as Senator of the Philippines,” said Calida. Calida had a perfect score in the criminal law  exams but De Lima was number eight when she took the bar in 1985.

Calida called De Lima  “public enemy number one,” “high priestess of hyprocrisy” and “patron saint of narco-politics”  and  added a new one: he called her the “diva of drugs in this country.”

Aside from De Lima and Dayan, three other respondents did not file their counter affidavits on Wednesday: NBP inmates Peter Co and Jojo Baligad, and former Bureau of Corrections employee Rainier Cruz.

Ong’s five-member panel has been tasked to decide whether there was probable cause to charge De Lima and her co-accused with the cases filed by the VACC, National Bureau of Investigation,  and former NBI deputy directors Ruel Lasala and Reynaldo Esmeralda.

De Lima was charged with violations of Republic Act No. 9165 (Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act), qualified bribery under the Revised Penal Code, R.A. 3019 (Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act), Presidential Decree 46 (Act Punishing the Receiving and Giving of Gifts of Public Officials and Employees) and R.A. 6713 (Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees).

Aside from Ong, the other members of the prosecution panel are Senior Assistant City Prosecutors Evangeline Viudez-Canobas, Leila Llanes, Alexander Ramos and Assistant State Prosecutor Editha Fernandez.  SFM