The de Lima circus

We can only commiserate with the neophyte senator, former Justice Secretary Leila de Lima. It looks like her planned expose’ on alleged extrajudicial killings linked to the police was not just a dud – it is backfiring on her. 

It was clear that de Lima wanted to conduct that hearing under the Senate Committee on Justice and Human Rights, which she heads— and wanted it badly. In a radio interview, Sen. Panfilo Lacson Jr. revealed it was his committee—the Senate Committee on Peace and Order—which was supposed to probe the reported drug-related killings.

Lacson said de Lima had begged him to let her committee do it. It appears she wanted to stage-manage the process. There are signs she went about trying to do just that.

During the two-day hearing last week, de Lima paraded supposed “witnesses”—alleged widows and orphans—an apparent bid to build a strong case against the Philippine National Police (PNP).

She paraded the witnesses clad in what appeared to be uniform sunglasses and turbans. The spectacle, however, apparently failed to create excitement.

She quizzed some of her witnesses with the adeptness and skill of a prosecutor and seasoned trial lawyer.

However, in so doing, de Lima apparently merely created the impression that her questions were leading both the witnesses and the listening public to make the conclusion she had in mind. Her witnesses were sharp and precise with their answers, drawing impressions that they may have gone through much rehearsal.

If there is one thing she achieved by that hearing, it was to cement public affection on one man—PNP Director-General Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa.

In that de Lima-staged hearing, “Bato” displayed the full array of his colorful personality.

He would be feisty and firm at one point, comic and authentically humble at other moments.

He was frank and candid. He was quick to admit faults and gaps, and was equally quick to defend his men and the institution he represents.

He lacked the sophistication of those to the manor born. Instead, he showed that side of himself that every ordinary Filipino could identify with —exasperation, frustration, irritation and the need to go to the bathroom to empty his bladder after four hours of obliging the de Lima circus.

At the end of two days of intense grilling, “Bato” emerged with greater public admiration, affection and trust.

If de Lima had intended to make a villain out of the man by parading her sunglass-sporting witnesses, the senator dismally failed. She had given the supposed object of her probe the biggest opportunity so far to endear himself to a people that are sick and tired of politics standing in the way of real change.

If de Lima had planned to use the Senate hearing to get back at the President who had accused her of immorality and alleged links to illegal-drugs operations, then she had also dismally failed.

She appeared too eager to present her turbaned “witnesses” and her fellow senators could not hide their own frustration and consternation over the neophyte lawmaker’s antics.

While some of the supposed “witnesses” could have been telling the truth, what they did was to highlight the evil that their involvement in the illegal drugs trade has heaped on the Filipino people.

No massive public sympathy is forthcoming as far as these “witnesses” are concerned. While Filipinos would not countenance extrajudicial killing, they cannot help but say that these supposed “victims” had it coming. They played with fire and they got burned.

Now, de Lima apparently wishes to use their misery borne out of their misadventures in the illegal-drugs trade in her bitter war with the former mayor of Davao City whom she accused in the past of running a death squad.

How the public wishes that de Lima had spared “Bato” from this political sideshow. The man has a job to do and has been doing it well. The two-day political circus would have been better used by “Bato” in fighting crime and cleansing the ranks of his organization.

Now, the House wants to investigate de Lima’s alleged involvement in the operations of illegal-drugs rings. News items say De Lima is questioning this planned probe.

De Lima’s problem is that her Senate hearings appear to have pointed out that much of the drugs problem and the killings related to it had happened under the watch of the previous President who happened to be her former boss.

“Bato” obliged her hearings.

De Lima should now face her own probe.