Ronnie Dayan, the confessed lover and former driver of Senator Leila de Lima, ignored summons from the House of Representatives and instead went into hiding upon the advice of the lady lawmaker.

He revealed this yesterday at the resumption of the House hearing on the illegal drug trade at the New Bilibid Prison (NBP). His testimony was corroborated by his 23-year-old daughter, who saved her exchange of text messages with De Lima.

After hearing Dayan’s revelation, congressmen said that De Lima’s acts has put her in further trouble and may face criminal and administrative charges that could remove her from the Senate.

Deputy Speaker Fredenil Castro said the House leadership expects the Senate to conduct a moto propio investigation on De Lima’s action, saying the Justice Committee will try to reach a decision on whether or not she will be cited in contempt.

TEXTING LEILA — As her father, Ronnie Dayan, watches anxiously, Hannah Dayan holds up the mobile phone which she said she used to text Senator Leila de Lima. Dayan and his daughter testified on Thursday at the House inquiry on the drug trade inside the national penitentiary. (Mark Balmores | Manila Bulletin)

TEXTING LEILA — As her father, Ronnie Dayan, watches anxiously, Hannah Dayan holds up the mobile phone which she said she used to text Senator Leila de Lima. Dayan and his daughter testified on Thursday at the House inquiry on the drug trade inside the national penitentiary. (Mark Balmores | Manila Bulletin)

In his opening remarks at yesterday’s re-opening of the congressional inquiry into the alleged drug trafficking operations at the NBP, Justice Committee chairman and Mindoro Oriental Rep. Reynaldo Umali chided De Lima for turning down several times invitations for her to attend the hearings and shed light on allegations of her involvement in the illegal narcotics deals.

“It shows lack of respect to a co-equal chamber. Her refusal to attend the inquiry is inconsistent with the mandate given to her by the Constitution, Article 11, Section 1 which states that public office is a public trust and that all public officers must at all times be accountable to the people and this is the house of the people,” he stressed.

In his testimony yesterday, Dayan said that he followed the senator’s advice that was given through his daughter, 23-year-old Hannah Mae Dayan. The young Dayan was presented in the hearing to confirm her father’s claim. She showed to committee members two De Lima text messages that she saved in her cellular phone.

Hanna Mae confirmed that when her father received the House subpoena last month, she was asked to inquire from her “Tita Lei,” referring to De Lima, on what he must do. She quickly sent the inquiry to De Lima and received a quick response.

“Pakisabi sa kanya magtago na lang muna sya. Kagagawan yan nila Speaker Alvarez at dikta ni Digong. Pagpipiyestahan lang siya at kaming dalawa kapag nag-appear sya sa hearing na yan [Please tell him to gop into hiding. That is just the handiwork of Speaker (Pantaleon) Alvarez upon the dictates of Digong (President Duterte). They will just toy with him and put us in an awkward position if he appears in that hearing ),” the text message coming from De Lima’s assigned phone number read.

‘SERIAL LIAR’

Earlier, De Lima slammed Alvarez for calling her a “serial liar.” Alvarez called De Lima a “serial liar” for her continued denial of allegations she had benefitted from drug money despite revelations by suspected drug lord Kerwin Espinosa that he delivered P8 million to the senator when she was still Justice secretary.

Asked by Majority Leader Rodolfo Fariñas whether there was another text message from De Lima, Dayan’s daughter said that on the same date, October 1 at about 6:15 p.m., the senator responded to her query whether her father will be arrested if he fails to show up in the House hearing.

“Hindi ba nagtatago naman sya (Isn’t he’s into hiding)?” De Lima allegedly responded, also in a text message.

Reacting to the information given by the two witnesses, lawyer Ferdinand Topacio of the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption (VACC) said De Lima should be held liable for obstructing proceedings of the Lower House.

While Topacio doubted that De Lima could be held criminally liable, she may, however, be dismissed as a lawyer.

Topacio said the new information and De Lima’s romantic relationship with Dayan, a married man, may be included as grounds for her disbarment.

The VACC had put up a P1-million reward for information leading to arrest of Dayan, who was ordered arrested for failing to show up in the Justice Committee hearing despite several invitations, the last one, being a subpoena. The reward money was awarded yesterday at the House of Representatives to the informant – a famer from San Gabriel, La Union. The farmer, who happened to be in Dayan’s hiding place to buy goats, was clearly shaking as he received from leaders of the House of Representatives and VACC officers 10 bundles of P100,000 in P1,000 bills.

Misamis Occidental Rep. Henry Oaminal, committee vice chairman, said the House panel may take action on De Lima for giving the wrong advice to Dayan.

On the other hand, Fariñas described De Lima’s advice as a “contemptuous act” of interfering in the House proceedings.

‘ENGINEER KERWIN’

In the same hearing, Dayan claimed that he never knew Kerwin’s true identity – suspected drug lord in the Eastern Visayas – in the four months that he received “money” from him in 2014.

“I didn’t know he was a drug lord when he was handing me money, I thought he was an engineer,” Dayan said in his four-page affidavit.

“I told myself, maybe this was the engineer that Ma’am was talking about. Ma’am said an engineer gave her a Starex,” he said.

By “Ma’am,” he was referring to De Lima, whom he admitted to be his former lover.

Dayan, 44, and De Lima, 57, are being accused of complicity in the illegal drug trade within the NBP, the subject of the congressional inquiry.

“Mayaman, akala ko engineer siya (He looked rich, I thought he was an engineer),” Dayan said of Espinosa, who gave his own testimony on the local drug trade Wednesday at the Senate hearing.

Dayan previously told House reporters that he took money from Espinosa five times and delivered it to his “Ma’am.” These meet up took place in 2014 when De Lima was still Department of Justice (DOJ) secretary.

Dayan resigned as De Lima’s driver-security aide in 2015 after getting wind that the latter had a new boyfriend.

‘SALAT’

During his interpellation by Committee members, Dayan clarified that he never actually saw the money that Espinosa had been giving him, thus he couldn’t give an amount.

But he could tell that it’s actual cash by using his “sense of touch.”

“Ang perang inaabot sa akin, nasa paper bag na maliit. Hindi ko binibilang sina-salat lang (The money that’s given to me, it’s inside a small paper bag. I don’t count it, I just feel it with my hands).”

Dayan described the paper bags as “folded up and stapled closed.”

Dayan said that he wouldn’t have met with Espinosa during those instances if he wasn’t ordered by De Lima to do so.

“Kapag inuutusan niya ako, ginagawa niya sa text (Whenever she orders me, she does so via text),” he said. However, the witness, who went into hiding for over a month, said he no longer has his mobile phone.

KERWIN’S TESTIMONY

On Wednesday, Espinosa claimed that he gave a total of P8 million to De Lima. He said he met Dayan four times from 2015 to 2016.

This was inconsistent with Dayan’s affidavit, which says that the two had five meetings with the last one occurring on November 22, 2014.

On the same document, he said he acrimoniously resigned from the employ of De Lima  in February 2015. “Wala napo ako noon sir (I wasn’t around anymore),” Dayan said, pointing to Espinosa’s claim.

Of the five meetings with Espinosa, Dayan said that the first, third, and fourth took place at a Pasay City mall. The second meet up took place at Seaside Macapagal Boulevard also in Pasay, while the fifth and last meeting was in Baguio.

Espinosa said he delivered the money to Dayan at Burnham Park during the Baguio meet up. Dayan, however, said it took place outside their hotel.

Another part of Espinosa’a testimony which Dayan denied was the drug lord’s alleged introduction to him and Albuera, Leyte police head, Chief Inspector Jovie Espenido.

“Hindi ko kilala si Espenido (I don’t know Espenido),” Dayan said.

Other people that the witness claimed not knowing were NBP inmates Rodolfo Magleo, Engelberto Acenas Durano, National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) agent Jovencio Ablen, and Hebert Colanggo’s talent manager Renante Diaz. Incidentally, all four implicated him in the NBP drug trade during previous House hearings.

As for high-profile inmate Colanggo, Dayan said that he only knew him by name, and not personally.

Dayan denied receiving any sort of payoff from the NBP.

RAGOS

Dayan also said that fellow witness NBI deputy director Rafael Ragos’s allegation that he received nearly P10 million worth of drug money wasn’t true.

“It’s not true that I received that kind of money from Sir Ragos.”

“If a transaction occurred, maybe it happened twice. The first one, I saw him hand over an envelope to Ma’am, but I don’t know if it contained money. And on his second delivery to Ma’am, it involved a plastic bag containing what seems to be a shoebox. I also don’t know the contents of it.” (With a report from Hannah L. Torregoza)

Source:
courtesy of MANILA BULLETIN

by Ben R. Rosario and Ellson A. Quismorio

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