De Lima asks Duterte: How much have you spent in persecuting me?

Senator Leila de Lima and President Rodrigo Duterte. JOAN BONDOC / INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA —  Senator Leila de Lima challenged President Duterte on Wednesday, to specify how much in government money he has spent in efforts to destroy her name, noting the “shady characters” behind the revelations against her.

“My question now is, I want to know from the President or from anyone: how much are you spending in the operations against me? It’s is not possible that all of those are for free,” she said.

She noted that she has been slapped with a total 16 cases so far, including criminal charges and disbarment complaints.

De Lima aired the challenge to the President after Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II linked her and Senator Antonio Trillanes IV to the stabbing of kidnap convict and alleged drug lord Jaybee Sebastian at the national penitentiary in September.

De Lima had only harsh words for Aguirre, saying that if he could fake his own hair, how much more his words?

“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?,” De Lima, among the administration’s fiercest critics, said in a statement.

She later expounded on this in a presser, having choice words for Aguirre, among administration officials tagging her in the drug trade.

De Lima has repeatedly denied accusations that she had taken drug money from the illicit trade at the New Bilibid Prisons during her time as justice secretary purportedly to fund her senatorial bid.

“It’s the new year, and it’s again the start of their lies. I’m afraid our Secretary of Justice is such a lying bastard, a despicable lying bastard. What is this again? This is laughable!,” De Lima told reporters.

“Is Secretary Aguirre already taking fentanyl?,” said the senator, in reference to the powerful pain killer that President Duterte had recently admitted to taking some years back.

De Lima added President Duterte and his “operators” were the ones behind the plot to intimidate Sebastian into testifying against her before the House committee on justice investigation into the Bilibid drug trade.

He appeared about two weeks later at the House of Representatives and told lawmakers that he had given a total of P14 million to De Lima’s campaign. In November, he filed charges of graft, bribery, ethical breaches and violations of the Anti-Torture Act against De Lima.

Sebastian followed a roster of high-profile Bilibid inmates who also testified against De Lima at the House probe.

“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,” De Lima said.

She hit Aguirre for failing to take responsibility for the Bilibid stabbing that happened during his watch, where inmate Tony Co was killed, while Sebastian and two other inmates were hurt.

“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,” De Lima said.

“Instead, he creates a convenient scapegoat in the person of two senators who were at least several kilometers away from the crime scene,” she added in her statement.

She appealed to her accusers to “be stricken by their conscience” and “end the burden” she has been carrying since first being tagged in the drug trade by no less than President Duterte in August.  SFM