COME on, Senator Leila, stop titillating half the population with juicy tidbits like “Napalapit po siya sa akin. . . personal na bagay na po iyan” (we became close. . . it’s a personal matter) and the “snippets of facts, snippets of truth” inserted among the bigger “distortions, exaggerations, and lies” that she said accounted for the presidential tirades against her. Add this one, still in her own words: “Wala na po siya sa akin pero may komunikasyon pa rin kami” (he’s no longer with me but we’re in touch).
No offense meant, Madam Senator, but look at the Chief Justice. When she refused to engage President Duterte in a war of words when he tried to pick a fight with her, he backed off and even apologized to the lady. Not that the world’s gossips and rumormongers are expecting the senator to clam up and give up the fight, but words like the ones she uttered publicly during a media conference could only fan the flames and provoke curiosity. We were close? How close?
Snippets of truth? Which ones?
In the practice of public relations, they’ll tell you there’s a time to shut up and there’s a time to answer back, but when you choose the fighting stance, you must choose your words and never ever say more than you should.
Interestingly, what the tsismoso public is not talking about is the simultaneous conduct of separate probes in both the Senate and the House on the same issue of corruption in the national penitentiary, where drug lords continue their lucrative trade of “cooking” and selling shabu by means foul and fouler.
The two-day hearings in the Senate (yesterday and today) are on the initiative of none other than Senator De Lima, who wants to investigate the extrajudicial killings that she avers have been committed in the name of the war on drugs. Right on cue, there’s a clamor in the House to find out why drugs proliferated in Bilibid supposedly when the senator was justice secretary. Come on, gentlemen, ladies first, plus first come, first served. (Jullie Y. Daza)