Former Philippines senator and outspoken critic of ex-President Rodrigo Duterte sees hope for freedom.
Manila, Philippines – For the previous six years, Leila de Lima has been detained within the Philippine Nationwide Police headquarters, the place she has endured the isolation of a worldwide pandemic, been taken hostage throughout an tried jail break, and mourned the loss of life of a number of stray cats that she adopted as her pets and companions.
However she stays defiant.
“I can't give the chief oppressor the satisfaction of being overwhelmed,” de Lima, 63, instructed Al Jazeera in an interview, referring to former President Rodrigo Duterte.
The previous senator has all the time been an outspoken critic of Duterte and his state-sanctioned crackdown on unlawful medicine that rights teams say left hundreds of, principally poor, younger males useless.
She discovered herself detained shortly after saying a Senate investigation into the drug warfare. Accused of taking drug cash whereas she was justice secretary, de Lima was arrested on non-bailable fees and positioned in police custody in Manila.
Now, de Lima’s defiance is marked by a relaxed optimism. Wearing a vivid pink shirt, beige trousers, with a light-weight pink scarf round her neck and a small cross wrapped round a handkerchief in her palm, the previous senator exudes decided hopefulness — with good purpose.
As Duterte wrapped up his time period final 12 months, key witnesses started retracting testimony that they had made in opposition to her.
Final April, self-confessed druglord Kerwin Espinosa issued an affidavit and apology saying that his statements in opposition to de Lima had been the results of “stress, coercion, intimidation and severe threats to his life and his household”.
Later, prosecution witness Rafael Ragos, who was an officer-in-charge of the Bureau of Corrections in 2012, additionally retracted earlier courtroom testimony by which he stated he had delivered cash from drug lords to de Lima. Ragos claimed that his testimony was “false” and coerced by Duterte’s justice secretary Vitaliano Aguirre.
Chatting with Al Jazeera, Aguirre dismissed the allegations in opposition to him as “trash” and solid doubt on Ragos’s motives. “He already testified in opposition to her eight or 9 occasions, even on nationwide tv. Then he abruptly adjustments?”
“Nothing can destroy the energy of the proof. Our case in opposition to de Lima is not going to crumble,” Aguirre insisted.
New bail petition
The witnesses’ retractions of their testimony are each validation and vindication for de Lima. In a 2020 interview with Al Jazeera, de Lima known as the costs in opposition to her “bulls***” and expressed doubt that she may ever get a good trial whereas Duterte was in workplace.
“I've forgiven them already. However I'll by no means forgive the chief oppressor — possibly simply not but. However I'll always remember,” she stated.
“This [witness retractions] helps our narrative that the witnesses had been bribed, coerced, or pressured and that the costs in opposition to de Lima are manufactured,” stated Filibon Tacardon, a lawyer for de Lima.
With Ragos’s testimony retracted, de Lima’s defence crew can now petition for bail, pending decision of the case. A earlier petition for bail was denied in June 2020.
De Lima’s detention and the bloody crackdown on unlawful narcotics proceed to be condemned by a number of human rights teams and overseas governments.
Diplomatic relations between the Philippines and america and Europe turned strained because the nation’s human rights observe file dramatically deteriorated throughout Duterte’s six years in energy.
In 2019, the US handed a decision invoking the International Magnitsky Act, demanding de Lima’s launch and people accountable for her detention to be banned from getting into the US.
Final 12 months, the European Parliament warned that it'd withdraw commerce privileges with the European Union beneath the European Generalized Scheme of Choice Plus (GSP+) due to the Philippines’s noncompliance with its human rights obligations.
Greater than 6,000 Philippine merchandise profit from the GSP+ preparations, which embody decrease taxes on exports.
The GSP+ standing of the Philippines will expire in 2023.
Earlier this month, supporters known as on present president and son of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos Jr to launch de Lima. Marcos Jr received the presidential election in Could final 12 months.
“Marcos Jr’s primary agenda is to cleanse the Marcos title of its darkish historical past. He could also be extra inclined to curry favour with the worldwide neighborhood, in contrast to Duterte,” stated Carlos Conde, senior researcher for Human Rights Watch (HRW).
In a state go to to Brussels final 12 months, native media reported Marcos Jr to be sending alerts to the worldwide neighborhood that he “will adjust to human rights requirements”.
Private grudge, political vendetta
De Lima first earned Duterte’s wrath in 2009 when she was head of the Fee on Human Rights within the Philippines and investigated drug-related killings within the southern metropolis of Davao, the place Duterte was mayor.
When he turned president in 2016 and corpses of alleged drug sellers started turning up on the road, de Lima opened a Senate investigation to look into the killings, which she felt resembled the operations of the so-called Davao Demise Squad.
Duterte unleashed a verbal tirade, relentlessly attacking de Lima and belittling her in his televised speeches.
His legislative allies uncovered particulars of her private life and intimate relationships. Throughout a livestreamed listening to, her dwelling tackle and cellular phone quantity had been learn out loud. The following harassment drove de Lima out of her dwelling.
“It makes one marvel what sort of pleasure Duterte derived from the general public torment and personal detention he made de Lima undergo all these years. It was a private grudge that ran deep,” stated HRW’s Conde.
Teresita Deles turned shut buddies with de Lima once they each served as cupboard officers beneath a earlier administration and “had been the one two ladies within the safety council”.
She and de Lima additionally shared a love for dance. “The 2 of us usually began the group dancing throughout socials. We'd invite the others to hitch, but it surely was often solely the ladies officers who would,” Deles stated with amusing.
When de Lima was arrested, Deles was a daily customer. Other than the friendship they shared, Deles stated that what occurred to de Lima “hit me in ways in which I nonetheless haven't gotten over”.
“First was the blatant assault on human rights defenders. When defenders themselves are beneath assault, the place do you go? Then there was the very public assault on her womanhood and the Filipino folks didn't stand up,” stated Deles, who started her profession as a ladies’s rights activist.
“I believed the misogyny, that type of public hatred and assault on ladies would by no means be accepted once more. However folks had been even laughing. I believed to myself, ‘the place did we go unsuitable?’” she added.
When lockdowns pressured everybody into their houses, the 2 exchanged letters delivered by de Lima’s employees. Deles, 75, who's immunocompromised, visited de Lima final December and was comfortable to see her buddy in excessive spirits.
“They by no means acquired to her soul. She has discovered her centre. She is going to have the ability to stand as much as anybody and something. We want her now greater than ever,” stated Deles.
Undeterred by her extended detention, de Lima hopes to return to human rights advocacy, beginning with serving to out within the Worldwide Prison Courtroom (ICC) investigation of the drug warfare.
However first, she needs to make up for misplaced time along with her household, specifically, her mom, who's in her 90s and affected by dementia, and her two sons, Israel and Vincent.
Some have expressed fear that if she is granted launch, she might discover herself at risk.
However de Lima is unbowed. She shakes her head vehemently. “There may be merely no substitute for freedom.”
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