DOJ Secretary Leila De Lima INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines – Justice Secretary Leila de Lima’s passion for her work cost her her marriage years ago.
Today, a college friend isn’t surprised that De Lima is once again risking everything for the job that she vowed to do.
“She believes in what is right and she speaks from the heart and what she believes in. And she will die for it,” Judge Marilou Runes-Tamang, who has known De Lima for over two decades now, told the Philippine Daily Inquirer on Friday.
The two women were co-founders of the Lambda Rho Sigma Sorority at the San Beda College of Law.
In a 2007 interview with the Inquirer, De Lima admitted she wasn’t able to balance her work with her family life. She was a rising lawyer who was getting all the breaks. Ultimately, her marriage was sacrificed. (She and her former husband remain good friends, calling each other ‘co-parents’, the Inquirer learned from sources.)
Tamang, who presides over a Metropolitan Trial Court branch in Pateros, said she sent her friend via text message a mouthful about the ruckus over the temporary restraining order (TRO) issued by the Supreme Court that would have allowed former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her husband to leave the country last Tuesday.
Tamang, much like other lawyers the Inquirer had spoken to, did not agree with De Lima’s decision, believing the justice secretary had defied the high court.
But she knew De Lima would not budge.
As everyone now knows, the Justice Secretary was practically the one-man security barrier that prevented the Arroyos from flying out of the country.
Watching the circus in Manila from the sidelines in New York City, lawyer Theodore Te told the Inquirer that De Lima simply “had to do what she had to do and defend it basically by herself,” owing to the absence at that time of President Aquino.
“It also was her opportunity to show the President that she could be ‘trusted’ to run the show,” Te said on the phone.
Te believes that De Lima has so far been the only “consistent” performer in Mr. Aquino’s Cabinet.
However, if there’s anything Te wants, it’s for the justice secretary to keep in check her media savviness.
“I just wish she would not ‘try’ cases by press con…. She’s been very visible on media. When you’re the final approving authority for criminal charges that have not been recommended yet, you shouldn’t go on air acting as if they have been filed because you run the risk of diluting the cases on grounds of bias,” Te said.
While an electoral sabotage case has been filed in court against Arroyo, many still believe that the Aquino administration should have had moved faster in making the former President account for her alleged misdeeds.
“The administration has two years to prepare a case that, if airtight, could not have been prevented even by lawyers’ delays. But of course, we know Gloria prepared for this, so evidence will not be easy to obtain,” Te said.
Critics claim that De Lima wants to be visible in the media to make a head start for her supposed plans to seek a Senate seat in 2013. (De Lima has admitted that some quarters have been trying to woo her to run for senator but she has yet to decide.).
Tamang does not think De Lima has any political inclination, however, saying that her friend is simply being who she is.
“She says what she feels in her heart… walang preno magsalita,” Tamang said, laughing.
The justice secretary is one who will regale friends with stories and is herself always interested to hear about theirs.
“Ay naku, she laughs a lot! Todo bigay tumawa!” Tamang said.
The 51-year-old grandmother of two has a sense of humor and would still “blush” when she’s teased about being introduced to men, Tamang said.
At their sorority and fraternity events, De Lima would let her hair down and would always be the first to urge everyone to get on their feet to sing and dance, Tamang added.
De Lima also has a “compassionate, soft side” to her even if many see her as the “tough-talking justice secretary.”
“I know Sundays are reserved for her family, especially spending time with her kids and grandkids,” Tamang said.
She added that De Lima was a “very simple person who would rather have a boodle fight” with friends than lunch at a fancy restaurant.
Tamang added, however, that De Lima did not show that so-called “feisty” side when they were in law school.
“Like now with her job, she was very focused on her studies. She would be too engrossed with studying that it was difficult to talk about sorority matters with her. She’s not a nerd, though. Just very intelligent. In fact, I passed Commercial Law because of her. I borrowed her book where she had all these marginal notes that contained [the professor’s] questions and the answers,” Tamang said.
De Lima topped the bar exams in 1986.
Tamang said that what she wants for her friend now was to develop a “peripheral view” of the world she now moves in “for her own protection.”
“She trusts the people around her and as a boss, would really take full responsibility for everything that happens under her watch,” Tamang said, adding she wants De Lima to be extra-cautious these days.
“This is what I want to tell her – be very, very careful kasi nilalaglag ka din naman [you could be dropped],” Tamang said.