Senator Leila de Lima said powerful personalities whom she investigated during her time as justice secretary in the Aquino administration are using President Rodrigo Duterte to exact revenge against her.
GOING IT ALONE – Senator Leila de Lima finds herself without a seatmate during the opening prayer before the start of yesterday’s Senate session. The embattled solon delivered a privilege speech, hitting back at colleagues who stripped her of the chairmanship of the Senate Committee on Justice and Human Rights on Monday.
As such, De Lima said she will pursue filing charges with President Rodrigo Duterte as her “primary respondent” and House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez whom she said made her life difficult lately.
De Lima, who had denied allegations of benefiting from drug money in the alleged illegal drug trade at the New Bilibid Prison, did not categorically identify what particular charges she would file against the president but assured she would file it “soon.”
“Alam n’yo naman na ang ating Pangulo, mayroon talagang dinidibdib na personal vendetta against me since 2009 so here he is, naging pangulo, vindictive as he is, kaya pagkakataon niya ito na balikan ako (You know our president, he really wants to exact a personal vendetta against me since 2009 so here he is, now president, vindictive as he is, now is his chance to get back at me,” De Lima said during a weekly press conference at the Senate.
But the senator identified former President Gloria Macapagal- Arroyo and “one or two PDAF” senators—those involved in the so-called pork barrel scam that she investigated while at DOJ—as behind the attacks against her.
Among those who were charged are Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada and Ramon Revilla, Jr.
“I’m referring to personalities lalo na the powerful ones na natapakan ko noong ginagawa ko iyong trabaho ko as secretary of justice,” said De Lima.
She also shrugged off the House minority report saying those part of the group are not even genuine members of the minority.
“May mga sariling agenda rin iyan and some of them were so passionate about vilifying me in the course of the House inquiry na talaga naman ang bilis nilang mga naniniwala kaagad doon sa mga kasinungalingan lalo noong mga drug convicts and they did not bother at all to really probe seriously into the apparent inconsistencies and self-contradictory points in the testimonies of some of them (They have their own personal agenda and some of them were so passionate about vilifying me in the course of the House inquiry in that they were really convinced with the lies especially of the drug convicts and they did not bother at all to really probe seriously into the apparent inconsistencies and self-contradictory points in the testimonies of some of them),” she pointed out.
The post De Lima Vows to Pursue Charges vs Duterte appeared first on Manila Bulletin
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