In an open letter to Senator Leila de Lima, former presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda told the senator to keep the faith.
Lacierda posted the letter on his Facebook page after President Rodrigo Duterte called de Lima an “immoral woman” who has an affair with her married driver.
“I know how deeply offended you are that one as high as the president would go so low as to launch an ill-concealed personal attack against you,” he said.
He added that he expected Duterte to talk about his policy in his anti-illegal drug campaign, instead of letting loose a “cannon of personal tirade against you (de Lima).
Citing Duterte’s campaign slogan, Lacierda said, “Maybe this is the new ethics that pervades our land. Change has come, among others, where women are insulted, or threatened or made a subject of personal canard.”
Lacierda then went on to wonder if Filipinos would “approve disrespect for women or again justify this as his demeanor.”
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He touched on previous circumstances showing Duterte’s attitude to women, proving that de Lima is not the first woman he has ‘disrespected.’
“This vacuum of respect is not the first time it has happened. It has been uttered regarding a dead female Australian missionary, to the female presiding Chief Justice, and now to you, a sitting female Senator of the Republic. That you are in good company is the only charitable thing I can say,” Lacierda wrote.
Then, the former spokesperson quoted the First Lady of the United States.
“Leila, just remember what Michelle Obama uttered in the Philadelphia DNC (Democratic National Committee) Convention – “when they go low, we go high”,” Lacierda said.
Obama made the speech to condemn “the hateful language that we hear from public figures on TV,” which seemed to be a shot at the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, and said that “our motto is, when they go low, we go high.”
He encouraged de Lima to “keep strong” and do her job, while hoping and praying for respect and decency to not be lost or extinct, as he said “not go the way of the dinosaurs.”
Lacierda continued to cheer the senator on, while citing two other prominent female government officials – former Commission on Audit (COA) Chair Grace Pulido-Tan and Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales.
“In closing, there are two things I wish to remind you: always remember I described you, along with COA Chair Grace Tan and Ombudsman Chita Carpio Morales as “The Three Furies” and therefore, however difficult your task is, you have a responsibility to always fight for the people and for the law,” he said.
In a shot to Duterte’s ‘personal’ attack against de Lima, Lacierda said, “And second, let me part by leaving with you a quote from the Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher – “I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.”
He ended his letter to de Lima with, “Keep the faith!”
Aside from Lacierda, Vice President Leni Robredo and Senators Risa Hontiveros and Francis Pangilinan also made a statement on Duterte’s remarks against de Lima, among others.
Sources: (facebook.com, newsinfo.inquirer.net, fox2now.com, kikopangilinan.com)
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