JAILED Sen. Leila de Lima “will probably remain in jail” for as long as President Rodrigo Duterte remains in power, said lawyer Phillip Sawali, the senator’s chief of staff.
“The drug charges against De Lima are based on the fabricated testimonies of these drug lords and other convicted criminals serving time at the Bilibid prison,” Sawali told reporters in a press conference on Friday.
There is no documentary evidence or object supporting the government case against the senator, said Sawali.
De Lima’s staffers visited Cebu City and gave Cebuanos updates on the senator’s case, as well as her present situation inside the police camp.
De Lima was arrested on Feb. 24, 2017, and is currently detained at the Philippine National Police Custodial Center in Camp Crame, Quezon City because of her alleged involvement in the illicit drug trade in the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa City when she was then Justice Secretary.
She is facing three counts of drug charges filed before separate courts in Muntinlupa City.
During Duterte’s first months in office, he accused De Lima of being the “highest government official” involved in the drug proliferation inside the national penitentiary.
De Lima has maintained her innocence and called herself a victim of the current administration’s “political persecution.”
In a statement, Sawali said that simultaneous attacks by Duterte, and pro-administration bloggers and social media personalities even resorted to slut-shaming and other grave forms of sexist verbal assaults.
“De Lima was publicly attacked, personally demolished, character-assassinated, slut-shamed, and imprisoned by Duterte for being one of his most vocal critics and the leading opponent of his violent war against drugs,” the statement read.
Nilda Lagman Sevilla, chairwoman of Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearances, said they are grateful for the passage of the human rights defender bills introduced by the Makabayan bloc.
“We really feel the importance of the bills due to the continued attack on human rights in the country,” said Sevilla.
From September 2013 to September 2016, they recorded at least 76 cases of human rights defender attacks and abuses, affecting more than 100 rights defenders, including extra-judicial killings and enforced disappearances and unlawful arrests, said Sevilla.
The international group on human rights defenders also tagged the Philippines as one of four countries in the world that is very dangerous for human rights defenders, said Sevilla. The three other countries are Columbia, Mexico, and Brazil. GMD