Pride and Debacles of de Lima
Posted on Monday, 5 December 2016
Pride and the Debacles of de Lima
By Apolinario Villalobos
The hatred of Duterte against de Lima could
be traced back to the time when he was yet the mayor of Davao City, while de
Lima was the Head of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR). The animosity between
the two was anchored on the issue of extra-judicial killing cases of drug
personalities against Duterte. De Lima strappingly threatened to bring Duterte
to court to which the latter dared the former with equal tenacity. The threat
of de Lima just became more pronounced when she became the Secretary of
Justice. All of these happened during the administration of Pnoy Aquino during
which nothing came out of the threat of de Lima to bring Duterte to court.
Unfortunately for de Lima, the guy that she
hates to the bone became President. And, although, she won the last seat of the
Senate, it was overcast with many questions and doubts. Her winning was
purportedly part of the design of the past administration to have a stalwart
Liberal representative in the Senate, and there’s no better choice than de Lima
who has an intense hatred against Duterte who has plans to run after the
shenanigans under the past administration.
With arrogance and pride, de Lima continued
to threaten the new President, and this time, she warned that she will be his
obstacle in the Senate, virtually, his pain in the neck. As an ignorant
neophyte in the Senate, she thought that she has the control of the House, and
that the Congress is at her command. She
forgot that at the House, she belongs to the Minority, while at the Congress,
there was a massive change of color from yellow to red, right on the first day
of Duterte’s first day in Malacaἧan.
Duterte is right all the way when he said
that if de Lima really deemed that he has violated human rights, she should
have filed cases against him in court while she was still the Head of the CHR,
and more especially, when she became the DOJ Secretary. But she did not, and
instead, she kept on badmouthing him incessantly.
What de Lima could have done was gave
Duterte a chance in eradicating the drug problem in the country. She could have
offered her hand for cooperation and reconciliation for the sake of all
Filipinos for whom all of them elected officials work. Obviously, her pride
stood in the way. And, because of such pride, she is now in a quandary to prove
that she did not benefit from the illegal drug transactions inside the Bilibid
that overflowed on the streets and further involved even some government and
Philippine National Police officials. Now, she has more problems that ballooned
beyond her control, than she thought could be handled with a breeze during the
good old days under Pnoy Aquino.
De Lima should have taken the handshake
from Duterte during his proclamation as a cue for reconciliation, but she did
not. Instead, the following day, she let out a barrage of threats. At the time,
she was blind to the fact that she was going against a charismatic person who
even claims that he won the presidency as part of his destiny. He may be accused
of extra-judicial killings but nothing has been proven, yet. As a lawyer, de
Lima’s eyes should be opened by this other fact, as under the justice system of
any country, a person is innocent unless proven guilty in court.
De Lima was able to hurdle the first
obstacle, that of immorality for living in with a married man by admitting,
perhaps with a heavy heart, such fault. But what she could not undo are the
tangles of other debacles in which her pride trapped her.
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