It was her idea: Dayan says De Lima hatched plan to collect funds
Ronnie Dayan, the alleged bagman of Senator Leila de Lima, on Monday backed the testimony of self-confessed drug lord Kerwin Espinosa that he received P8 million in funds allegedly for De Lima's electoral campaign.
In his testimony during the Senate inquiry on extrajudicial killings, Dayan said it was the lawmaker who hatched a plan to collect funds for her electoral campaign in the 2016 polls.
"Si Senator De Lima. Inuutusan lang po ako. Doon sa unang pag ano namin, kailangan mag ano tayo ng pondo, ganun lang ang sinabi niya," he said.
He said he received instructions to get funds from self-confessed drug lord Kerwin Espinosa but denied getting money from other drug lords. He also claimed it was De Lima who gave him Espinosa's cell phone number.
Asked how much money he collected from Espinosa for De Lima, he said: "P8 million."
This is the same amount that Espinosa said he handed to Dayan in several transactions.
While both Dayan and the younger Espinosa’s claim that money from the illegal drug trade reached De Lima, their previous statements had glaring contradictions.
One of the biggest inconsistencies between their testimonies was the one-year difference in the time they supposedly met each other.
Kerwin said he met Dayan four times in 2015, while Dayan said his exchanges with Kerwin happened five times in 2014.
Dayan earlier admitted that he had a seven-year relationship with De Lima, starting in 2007 when he was accepted as driver-bodyguard of De Lima's law firm.
He said he broke up with De Lima in 2014, after learning of De Lima's alleged relationship with another aide named Warren Cristobal.
