Detained Sen. Leila de Lima is making a desperate bid to turn her fate into a political circus which can be of great use for the yellow candidate who suffer from poor prospects come May.

During her arraignment, De Lima, in government custody since February 2017, refused to enter a plea insisting the drug trafficking charges against her were fabricated.

The cases against her were filed by the Department of Justice (DoJ) which accused her of conspiring with Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) officials and New Bilibid Prison (NBP) inmates to benefit from the narcotics trade.

To pursue her defense, De Lima’s lawyer said those being considered as witnesses were former President Noynoy Aquino, former police and BuCor chief and now administration senatorial bet Ronald “Bato” de la Rosa and former Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre.

De Lima’s counsel Boni Tacardon said Aquino will be tapped as a character witness while De la Rosa and Aguirre will be asked to explain reports of bribing inmates and other justice department employees in a conspiracy to pin down the senator.

De Lima’s contention was that all the allegations made on her happened during the term of President Rody Duterte who led a conspiracy to persecute her. Not true.

It was jueteng whistle-blower and now Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office director Sandra Cam who made public the shabu factory inside the NBP.

In January 2015 which was still more than a year before the 2016 presidential polls, Cam said the NBP raids led by De Lima were all staged and that the narcotics operations inside the supposed maximum security penitentiary happened under De Lima’s watch as justice secretary.

Cam revealed huge amounts of money moved in and out of the facility courtesy of the drug lords who were allowed to turn the facility into their “safe haven with a 24-hour security detail” provided by prison officials who are in the drug lords’ payroll.

The bribe money goes well up to officials of the BuCoR and the DoJ, Cam claimed.

The supposed DoJ-National Bureau of Investigation raids were led by De Lima in an outlandish cowboy outfit to highlight the phony operations that targeted “the drug lords’ villas.” Cam noted the anomalies that allowed convicted drug lords to live a lavish lifestyle have not been touched after De Lima took over the reins of the DoJ.

Noynoy did nothing about Cam’s revelations.

De Lima cried persecution after charges were pressed against her when Rody assumed the presidency.

At a House hearing, NBP inmate Herbert Colanggo admitted remitting an average of P3 million a month since October 2013 to De Lima.

Colanggo said the monthly “PR Payola” was in exchange for the smuggling of contraband items and other dirty deals inside the national penitentiary.

The yellow line was that trade-offs were made with the NBP inmates to pin De Lima due to his unrelentless attacks on the war on drugs.

She also tried to block the House probe on the NBP drugs operations by hiding her driver and bodyguard Ronnie Dayan.

House leaders led by then Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez trooped to the DoJ to file charges against De Lima for blocking the smooth conduct of the House probe. Shortly after that move of Alvarez, Dayan had to be arrested and hauled to the House proceedings.

Since the start of his term, Rody had made clear that he will expose all high officials who are involved in the narcotics trade while frequently mentioning a woman in government whom he intends “to destroy” because of her deep involvement in the drugs trade.

After Rody identified De Lima as a chief proponent of narco-politics, the intense criticism on Rody’s supposed human rights violation in the war on drugs started.

The yellow media then launched a running tally of fatalities in the drugs war that was then termed as extrajudicial killings.

If anything was staged, that should be the efforts related to the grand plan of ousting Rody to stop his unrelentless drive against the narcotics syndicates.