‘I vow to continue fighting for my innocence’ – De Lima

Senator Leila De Lima has vowed to continue fighting for her innocence after the Supreme Court (SC) rejected her plea to void her arrest and consequently the illegal drugs trading charges hurled against her.

SC justices, in an en banc session on Tuesday in Baguio City, voted 9-5 to dismiss the motion for reconsideration filed by De Lima to overturn the high tribunal’s previous decision.

READ: SC affirms earlier decision junking De Lima’s bid to quash court arrest order

But the senator, currently detained at the Philippine National Police (PNP) Custodial Center in Camp Crame after her arrest in February 2017, stressed that she is “innocent,” and that “no one can ever change that fact.”

“Nevertheless, I vow to continue fighting for my innocence.  Because I am innocent.  No lie can ever change that fact,” De Lima said in a statement issued on Wednesday.

“Someday I will attain my vindication, and all the lies—especially the lies about the deaths of the thousands of victims of the so-called ‘War on Drugs’—will be exposed, and the butchers, tyrants and oppressors will be brought to answer for their crimes against the Constitution and against humanity.”

“Tuloy ang laban!” she also said.

De Lima, however, admitted she was disappointed with the SC’s ruling.

The senator insisted that her petition was “clearly meritorious,” and that “no one who has read the records and the Information filed by the Department of Justice (DOJ) can make a mistake about that.”

The charges against her, De Lima asserted, were “not about winning the ‘War against Drugs’.”

“All they really want is to detain me indefinitely, in order to prevent me from performing my mandate as a duly elected Senator of the Republic. This is about winning the ‘War against De Lima’,” she said.

She even pointed out that the DOJ amended the charges from illegal drugs trading to conspiracy, claiming that they were “unable to allege, much less prove, the corpus delicti that would qualify the case against me as ‘drug charges’.”

“I would, therefore, be very interested to see why the SC denied it. And I withhold further comments until I have seen and read its ruling,” De Lima said. /kga