Senator Leila de Lima (left) on Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2016, accused, President Rodrigo Duterte (middle) of ordering the stabbing of high-profile inmates at the New Bilibid Prisons in September 2016. De Lima also blasted Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre (right) of being a ‘chronic liar’ for purportedly linking her to the incident. INQUIRER FILES
Senator Leila de Lima on Wednesday accused President Rodrigo Duterte and his “cohorts” of ordering the stabbing incident inside the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) last September that killed a high-profile inmate and wounded three others including her “asset” Jaybee Sebastian.
De Lima also called Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II a “chronic liar” and “without balls” for linking her anew into the stabbing incident last Sept. 28 that resulted in the death of a Chinese drug lord Peter Co and the wounding of Sebastian, Tony Co and Vicente Sy
READ: De Lima Bilibid ‘asset’ hurt in riot; high-profile inmate killed
The senator blasted Aguirre even after the Justice secretary said he “cleared” her and another senator, Antonio Trillanes IV, in the NBP incident. Aguirre told radio dzMM on Wednesday morning that there was no evidence linking them to the stabbings.
“Aguirre is lying. He is a chronic liar like his boss, and a Secretary of Justice without balls. What do you expect from a public official who fakes his own hair?” she said in a statement.
The senator was reacting to Aguirre’s claim that an inmate had allegedly mentioned her and Trillanes as the ones behind the stabbing incident supposedly to stop Sebastian from testifying against her.
De Lima said Aguirre’s new allegation was again “in line with the propaganda thrust of the Duterte Administration to pin all the blame on somebody else except themselves.”
“If I were responsible for the stabbing, it then seems that the NBP is run and managed by idiots who can’t protect high-profile inmates staying inside the most guarded spot in Philippine prisons,” she said.
“Aguirre is exercising all powers of a DOJ Secretary without taking any responsibility for such exercise. He has power and authority as DOJ Secretary over the Bilibid but refuses to take responsibility for the stabbing of several high profile inmates under his watch. Instead, he creates a convenient scapegoat in the person of two senators who were at least several kilometers away from the crime scene.”
Instead of blaming her and Trillanes, De Lima said Aguirre should ask the Philippine National Police-Special Action Force deployed at the NBP for the stabbing incident: “Why they were sleeping at the noodlehouse during the so-called riot.”
“Or was it just a simple case of a state-sanctioned assassination and EJK (extrajudicial killing), albeit frustrated, of a high profile inmate who initially refused to testify against me, but who decided to sing like a bird after he is almost killed by fellow inmates-turned-state-assassins?” she asked.
“The fact is, it is Duterte and his cohorts who ordered the stabbing and also the torture of inmates who refused to testify against me,” the lady senator added. CBB