‘Stop the madness’

By: Tarra Quismundo - 8 years ago

“STOP the madness,” Sen. Leila de Lima appealed to President Duterte and his allies on Wednesday, saying she believed that a reported “riot” at New Bilibid Prison (NBP) where an inmate was killed and four others wounded was a government warning to prisoners who had refused to link her to the illegal drug trade in the national penitentiary.

Seemingly feeling cornered, helpless and out of options, De Lima laid herself out to Mr. Duterte, daring the President to get it done and over with.

“Enough! Just arrest me now! That’s really what you want to do. Send me to jail now!” De Lima screamed during a news conference in the Senate.

“I’m here! Do what you want to me, Mr. President! I’ll wait for you!” she said.

Mr. Duterte and De Lima have been at odds since 2009 when she, as head of the Commission on Human Rights,investigated extrajudicial killings in Davao City when he was still the city’s mayor.

After being elected President in May, Mr. Duterte warned Congress not to investigate a war on drugs that he planned to launch or there would be a clash between him and lawmakers.

In spite of that warning, De Lima, who had been elected to the Senate and designated chair of the committee on justice and human rights, launched an inquiry into the killing of thousands of drug suspects that had also drawn concern from the United Nations, United States, European Union and international human rights groups.

Angered, Mr. Duterte accused De Lima of raising campaign funds by collecting payoffs from convicted drug lords serving their sentences at NBP, which was under her jurisdiction when she was secretary of justice in the Aquino administration.

Last week, after she presented at the Senate inquiry a confessed hit man who testified that Mr. Duterte ordered the Davao killings, the President’s allies stripped her of her post as chair of the investigative committee.

House probe

Mr. Duterte’s allies in the House of Representatives also launched an investigation of the drug trade at NBP, with Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II himself presenting drug convicts as witnesses against De Lima.

But one inmate, convicted kidnapper Jaybee Sebastian, refused to join the others in linking De Lima to the drug trade in the national penitentiary.

Sebastian, who De Lima had said was a government asset at NBP when she was the head of the Department of Justice (DOJ), was wounded in the reported riot at NBP along with inmates Peter Co, Vicente Sy and former Philippine National Police Insp. Clarence Dongail. Convicted drug lord Tony Co was killed.

After learning about the supposed riot, De Lima called a news conference to express doubt about what really happened.

Gov’t tactic

“The official version of the DOJ is that this was a riot. Absent other available reliable information, I am not discounting the fact that this is another way of the government [to persuade] the Bilibid 19 to testify against me, and that this incident should serve as a lesson to those who refuse to cooperate with the government and do Aguirre’s and Malacañang’s bidding,” De Lima said.

Bilibid 19 refers to 19 high-profile convicts whom De Lima ordered transferred to the National Bureau of Investigation detention center in December 2014 after a raid on NBP that led to the discovery of their continued illegal drug operations while serving their sentences at the national penitentiary.

Once more denying the government’s allegations, De Lima said the Palace should “stop this tragic, desperate and despicable actions” if her suspicion was true.

“These prisoners are supposed to be under the government’s protection. To threaten them with violence and murder simply because they refuse to be used in the ongoing House hearing is the height of Mafia tactics and gangster-style operations that makes this government worse than a narcostate,” she said.

“It makes this government an assassin-state, a state that promotes murder and summary execution as policy and as weapon against its perceived enemies,” she said.

Citing an “A1” source in NBP, De Lima said the two Cos and Sy were among inmates who were forced to testify against her. Another inmate, a “commander of another major gang,” was recently taken and “subjected to psychological torture,” she said.

‘They’re cowards’

“The objective was that the gang leader was being forced to testify against me. Just like Peter Co, Vicente Sy and Tony Co, who were also forced but who they could not convince yet,” she said.

Scoffing at Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez’s statement suspecting that someone might be out to silence Sebastian, De Lima let it all out.

“What is their implication again? That it’s my fault again?” she said.

“They are pressuring me. They are oppressing me too much. And then they do this? They blame everything on me. And they call themselves men? Are men like that?” she said.

“They’re cowards, they’re fools and they’re liars! That is the bunch of officials that we have now,” she said.

She referred to a string of allegations that the Duterte administration, primarily through Aguirre, has thrown at her, including declaring only P1.6 million of P300 million seized during the raid on NBP in December 2014.

“I am innocent! Stop this. You are already committing mistakes on your different versions, you’re [coming out with] different stories! You are just inventing these stories, like on Wednesday that P300 million. That’s enough!” she said, choking back tears and struggling to contain her anger.

“Who will be next? Whose life will you destroy next? Whose privacy will you next violate? My former staff, former officials, their reports [about harassment] reach me and I feel so helpless. I cannot even help them with lawyers. Because they would say I am trying to protect myself,” she said.

Peddled lies

De Lima said the President was being peddled lies by the “shady characters” around him.

She addressed the President: “Do not blame me later when, all of a sudden, it all blows up on your face, Mr. President, and you will realize that all these are wrong, all these are not true.”