De Lima calls Aguirre ‘administration clown’ for failed photo expose

Senator Leila de Lima and Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II. INQUIRER FILE PHOTOS

Detained Senator Leila de Lima mocked Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II, calling him the administration’s “clown” for his alleged attempt to link some opposition members with the ongoing crisis in Marawi City.

“Aguirre’s reputation as the clown of this administration has been further solidified with his bungling accusation linking members of the opposition to the Maute siege of Marawi,” De Lima said in a statement dated June 8 from her detention cell at Camp Crame in Quezon City.

“His basis—an outdated 2015 photograph of a gathering completely unrelated to the present context of the Marawi crisis—is as stupid as it is outrageous,” she added.

Aguirre earlier claimed that Senators Antonio Trillanes IV and Bam Aquino, along with Magdalo Rep. Gary Alejano and former President Benigno Aquino III’s political adviser, Ronald Llamas, had met with some political clans in Marawi City before it was attacked by the Maute terrorist group.

READ: Aguirre sees ouster plot vs Duterte linked to Marawi crisis

He even reportedly showed to reporters a photo of Trillanes , Alejano, Llamas, former Pampanga Gov. Mark Lapid, and Zamboanga del Sur Vice Govenor Ace William Ceriles in a coffee shop. It turned out, however, that the photo was taken in 2015, and not weeks before the Marawi siege that started on May 23, 2017.

“More than a clown’s bungling, Aguirre’s latest blunder therefore seems more like a calculated step to hype up the terrorist scare by painting a picture of a malevolent conspiracy behind the Marawi crisis involving prominent members of the opposition,” said De Lima, who was Justice secretary before she was elected in the Senate last year.

“This is part of the fake news campaign where the people will no longer be able to determine truth from fiction, because the truth is whatever’s now manipulated by Duterte’s cabal and their social media operation.”

This “social media operation,” she said, is now working overtime to “deodorize martial law and to link those who oppose it to the Maute group or ISIS.”

READ: Aguirre insists on probing alleged destabilization plot against Duterte

“Fortunately, so far not every garbage churned out by Aguirre and Malacañang’s propaganda machine is successful in deceiving our people,” said the senator.

Like President Rodrigo Duterte , De Lima said, Aguirre has been lying about her alleged involvement on illegal drugs.

“And he (Aguirre) has no qualms lying, and sowing intrigues, about many other things. Mga kababayan ko, yan po ang ating Kalihim ng Katarungan! (My fellow countrymen, that’s our secretary of Justice)” she said. JPV