De Lima says ready “ to be shot” if evidence is real
A defiant Senator Leila de Lima on Saturday disputed allegations of President Rodrigo Duterte she received payoffs from drug syndicates and said she is willing to resign from the Senate and be shot in front of Duterte if there is concrete evidence against her.
“I am willing to resign, willing to be shot in front of the President if the evidence is real,” De Lima said in a news briefing in Quezon City aired over dzBB radio.
Duterte, in a speech this week, claimed her former driver Ronnie Dayan got money from convicted drug traffickers at New Bilibid Prisons.
“I’m telling you Mr. President, I don’t want you to be embarrassed. Whatever evidence you have, I am telling you, they’re not real. Fake, manufacture, fabricated,” she insisted.
She said Dayan told her four weeks ago there is a plan to abduct him and turn him into a state witness against her.
De Lima, a former chairman of the human rights commission, is set to hold a Senate hearing on Monday to investigate extrajudicial killings of drug suspects which has reached 899 since Duterte became president in June 30. Emmanuel Tupas
