The dilemma of de Lima
To those who have not seen it as clearly as the vast many have, all the noise being made by Senator Leila de Lima concerning the predicament she is now in are motherhood statements and generalizations ("justice will be served," "I will prevail in the end," "this is all harassment," "I am a political prisoner"). There is not the slightest material repudiation of the charges being levied against her.
Of course she is expected to do that in court, where her real battle now lies. It is just a pity that she does not seem to realize that. By being noisy, she only succeeds in attracting attention to herself. The problem is, despite the almost unrestrained access she is being given to media, nothing of what she has said so far has extricated her from the hole she built for herself.
Even worse than attracting attention to herself and her problems is the fact that almost every time she opens her mouth now she contradicts herself. She beats her breast as a victim of injustice, and the picture that comes to mind is Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. She screams about the haste of a judge in issuing her warrant, and she brings to mind the swiftness with which she obtained a warrant against Arroyo.
She seeks Supreme Court intervention in her case, and she brings to fresh recall how she ignored a Supreme Court order allowing Arroyo to seek medical attention overseas. Everything is really coming full circle for de Lima. And it is truly sad that she is not the only one that is going down, she is bringing down all of those who have cast their lot with her.
Her partymates, out of a compelling need to show solidarity, are recklessly exposing themselves to be on the side not just of one criminally accused but of the accusation itself when the political yarn no longer hacks. Even her insistence on the Ombudsman as appropriate venue inadvertently brings to bear on that office the unavoidable question why — is it friendly to her, hence her insistence, or is it unworthy of the DOJ's trust, hence the case being filed with RTC?
There is nothing political in her case just because she makes it appear to be one. Her public admission of a dalliance with her married driver opens her to a vulnerability from which she can never recover, no matter how much she protests her innocence. It is a relationship that brings her to the core of Bilibid action. That the media chose not to dwell so much on this vulnerability is only a matter of taste than evidence, Filipinos being that chivalrous to a fault.