Senator Leila de Lima during her 2016 visit to the Inquirer office in Makati for a roundtable interview after releasing an open letter to President Rodrigo Duterte regarding extrajudicial killings.
INQUIRER FILE PHOTO/ KIMBERLY DELA CRUZ
MANILA, Philippines — Opposition Senator Leila de Lima on Wednesday hit President Rodrigo Duterte for “falsely” claiming that the Filipino people benefitted from the alleged killings in his administration’s bloody drug war.
“Pinatayan ka na, gusto pa magpasalamat ka. What a twisted mind!” De Lima, former justice chief, said in a statement.
(They’ve killed our people and they want us to thank them.)
What she finds “absurd, she said, is that Duterte thinks his war on drugs was beneficial to Filipinos “when it is the very reason for their pain, suffering and trauma.”
De Lima noted that most of the victims of so-called extrajudicial killings in the country are from the poor families who do not have the capability to ask for legal assistance, or defend themselves before a proper court.
“This reality should be more than enough to remind us to not allow Duterte to brainwash anyone into believing that his drug war is good for us and that we should tolerate all these violence, because we should not, and we should never,” she then said.
“Kahit ano pang sabihin ni Duterte, hindi na kailanman maibabalik ang libo-libong buhay na pinaslang ng drug war—mga inosente, walang kamuwang-muwang na mga bata at walang kalaban-labang maralita,” she added.
(No matter what Duterte says, he can no longer bring back the lives of thousands people killed by his drug war— the innocent children and defenseless poor)
De Lima herself has been jailed over what she branded as trumped-up drug charges.
During his taped weekly briefing aired Monday, Duterte again defended his drug war from critics.
“Let’s assume that what they say about human rights [violations] is true. [EXPLETIVE]. Who benefitted? Me? Was it me who benefitted? My family? Did they benefit from those [EXPLETIVE] dead? Who benefitted? It’s you, your children. It’s our country that benefitted,” he said in Filipino.
“Who was put in danger? It’s me, my family, their lives. They [relatives of the dead] will seek revenge. I’m not a millionaire who has a squad behind to guard me. It’s me who has a problem now. Those who benefitted, in truth, are you Filipinos.”
Duterte’s statement was backed by Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, who led the anti-drug campaign when he was the police chief.
“For what reason does this gov’t launch a bloody war on drugs if it doesn’t benefit the Filipinos? Who is the No.1 target of the drug lords? Isn’t it the President?” Dela Rosa said in a text message to reporters Tuesday.
It was just “very unfortunate” that he said “politics came into play that resulted to trumped up allegations from the opposition just to get the attention of the international community.”