How do you solve the problem of De Lima?

Why can’t we solve the problem of De Lima?  The story has become a nightmare. The lady is still a tramp. You see her everywhere. You hear her loud and strong voice, sometime soft depending on the ‘episode’.  Well, based on all the allegations thrown at her, the stories written and the video clips circulating the web, she really is one tough momma.

On her love affair, she should have been discreet.  Love is blind, so they say, and lovers cannot see. To love, indeed, may be the best decision but it could also be the worst indiscretion. Facing Senate ethics committee proceedings that may result to her suspension or removal from public office; a disbarment case that may strip her of the license to practice her legal profession; a criminal charge for a non-bailable offense that could deprive her of freedom; and public ridicule via congressional hearings that is slowly and painfully denying her of human dignity, how could Senator Leila solve the De Lima’s dilemma?

With her admission of a romantic relationship with a married man, what appears to be certain, based on judicial precedents, is disbarment. The Supreme Court, in justifying the disbarment of a lady lawyer, resolved that her “behavior over a long period of time unequivocally demonstrates a basic and serious flaw in her character, which we cannot simply brush aside without undermining the dignity of the legal profession and without placing the integrity of the administration of justice into question. She was not an on-looker victimized by the circumstances, but a willing and knowing full participant in a love triangle whose incidents crossed into the illicit.” On this point, the lady senator might need a legal miracle for the law may not accept the defense that love is blind and lovers cannot see.

But would this romantic indiscretion be a sufficient ground to deprive her of her Senate seat and the representation of the millions who elected her to office? Under civil service rules, a lowly public servant could be dismissed for immorality, but maybe her colleagues, applying Senate ethics rules, may be more forgiving for they may not be as white as snow themselves. This will be the first for the Senate and the wait should be interesting as it would define a standard of morality for higher public office.

On the other hand, the criminal case involving complicity in the proliferation of illegal drugs in the country is a very serious charge, but it seems the key witnesses so far presented in public read from prepared affidavits conflicting accounts that may prejudice the prosecution of a case in the proper forum. A self-confessed drug lord was very spontaneous and spoke from his heart in narrating the events which he believed led to the killing of his father, but noticeably had to read very slowly his written allegation of his having given drug money to the senator as if he did not know how it happened. The Department of Justice should be swift if there are competent and admissible evidence against the senator so that punishment, if warranted, be imposed with dispatch, but must be fair too if there is nothing better than the obviously rehearsed testimonies of witnesses with even darker reputations, so that the ends of justice would be served.

But in this partly political brouhaha, which many believe is meant to silence the talkative lady senator, I think she deserves to be spared the circus-like proceedings where questions from the mundane to the stupid are being asked not for purposes of crafting a piece of legislation but apparently aimed to break a person into pieces and wish that she should not have been born at all. Others may say this is karma for what may have happened in the past; that the aggrieved woman is the legal wife, not the one with the legal mind; that she should not have cast the first stone because of the skeletons in her closet; or that she should have honored the publicized handshake with her silence. But to use public ridicule against a woman, even a sinner like Magdalene, may not be the best option under the circumstances. Let the Senate Ethics Committee, the Integrated Bar of the Philippines and the Department of Justice accord her due process in the exercise of their legal mandate, and let the people go back to work and be more productive than spending hours on a congress-sponsored telenovela.

Indeed, there seems to be some truth to the scandal.  But to say that she is the only mastermind, I doubt it.  Such practices have been going on in the past and no leader has been strong enough to stop it.  This just goes to show how leaders can tolerate such acts with all the NBI, PNP, AFP, other intelligence agencies around them, who would be too dumb not to know or too clever to hide it.

In this country where money talks nothing can stop the bad.  Everyone wants a part of the deal.  Remember Napoles and the meetings in the cemetery?  Who were the characters in the plot?  What about Angelo Reyes?  What happened to him?  Why did he decide to kill himself?  Now the ERC director who just killed himself leaving a note with many leads not to mention the death of Espinosa.  Who mysteriously killed him?  The plot gets thicker and there are just way too many things yet untold and here we are forcing ourselves to take a stand.

So, what will happen to De Lima now?  Yes, she should be held accountable for the inefficiencies and violations she did during her reign as DOJ chief.  The other DOJ chiefs should also be held accountable for their shortcomings and gross misconduct.  Who will hold them accountable?  Does everything have to be dictated by the President?  Can’t the Department of Justice, the Ombudsman and the Supreme Court do something?  Does everything asserted need to have a political color?

The courage of Senator Leila to stand up and fight for what she believes in is admirable, but maybe next time, she should realize, as wise men say…only fools rush in.