No one is above the law — Loren

Loren Legarda has always led an exciting and dramatic life — topping elections, meeting with rebel leaders and brokering hostage releases in the jungles.

Yesterday, she unexpectedly found herself in the midst of another dramatic episode. The former news reader and reporter was drawn to the eye of the news again.

When news spread that former Batangas Gov. J. Antonio Leviste was a suspect in the fatal shooting of his aide, the most common reaction was what would happen to Loren Legarda.

Legarda, Leviste’s estranged wife and mother of his two sons, took the news seriously, but calmly.

"That’s tragic. Every killing is tragic," she told The STAR.

Legarda immediately said that justice must be given Rafael delas Alas.

"No one is above the law," declared the former senator, who is topping surveys on the forthcoming May senatorial polls. She said she has always taken up the cudgels for victims of injustice.

But she told The STAR she was clueless about what really happened in the LPL condominium unit where Delas Alas was shot by Leviste, who claimed self-defense before the police.

"I am in the dark just like all of you because Tony and I have been estranged for years. We have led separate lives for many years," Legarda, a top broadcast journalist before she ran for the Senate in 1998, said. Rumors of her estrangement from Leviste began to surface when she unexpectedly reverted to her maiden name "Loren Legarda" midway through her term. But it was only last year that she confirmed rumors of their separation.

Leviste and Legarda, 46, were married in Muslim rites almost 20 years ago. She ran for the Senate in 1998, garnering the most number of votes that year and becoming, at 38, the youngest woman elected to the chamber. She ran for vice president in the 2004 polls and is protesting its outcome, which saw Noli de Castro proclaimed as the duly elected vice president.

Legarda has not officially announced her bid for the May polls, but is widely expected to run anew for senator.