Sen. Leila de Lima.
INQUIRER FILE PHOTO/LYN RILLON
Senator Leila de Lima on Friday said she was no longer surprised by the latest case filed against her by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI).
“What else is new? I expected that already and I am expecting more cases in this continuing saga of madness and persecution,” De Lima said in a statement.
The NBI on Thursday filed another criminal complaint against the senator stemming from a claim that she had accepted P8 million in protection money from alleged drug lord Kerwin Espinosa. Also included in the complaint were Espinosa and De Lima’s former driver-boyfriend Ronnie Dayan.
READ: De Lima, Dayan, Espinosa face criminal raps over drug money
De Lima, who has been painted by President Rodrigo Duterte as a narcopolitician, assailed the government’s moves against her.
READ: Duterte says De Lima played lead role in narcopolitics
“Bakit kapag sakin, buong pwersa ng gobyerno ang gamit nila at ang bilis ng mga pagsasampa ng kaso (Why does the government use its full force just to quickly file cases against me)?” De Lima asked.
“At mukhang gagawin pa nilang mga state witnesses mga drug lords (like Kerwin Espinosa) at drug convicts para lang ma-indict ako (And it seems like they will make these drug lords (like Kerwin Espinosa) and other drug convicts state witnesses just to indict me),” she added.
READ: De Lima asks Duterte: How much have you spent in persecuting me?
Slamming the cases as a “travesty of truth and justice,” De Lima said that drug lords were now being absolved in the government’s efforts to pin her down.
“’Yung mga tunay na drug lords/convicts, and these are big time criminals, are the ones absolved or to be absolved basta ba si De Lima ang makasuhan at makulong (The real drug lords/convicts, these big-time criminals are the ones being absolved or to be absolved just so I will be convicted and jailed.),” she said.
She then turned the tables on Duterte and Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre for the “selective justice being employed” by the Department of Justice and the NBI in the extortion case against two Bureau of Immigration commissioners who allegedly got money from gaming tycoon Jack Lam.
The complaint filed by the NBI was the second complaint by the agency, and the sixth criminal case filed against the Senator. IDL/rga