Senator Leila de Lima. Noy Morcoso/INQUIRER.net File Photo
MANILA, Philippines — Sen. Leila de Lima on Thursday reiterated her denial of drug claims heard in high drama before Congress in a lengthy inquiry on the drug trade at the national penitentiary, as she scored the House Committee on Justice for failing to uncover the truth behind the racket.
In a statement, De Lima said the House committee’s decision against recommending her prosecution was “a Pontius Pilate act, where the Congressmen washed their hands of the despicable act of casting the fate of an innocent person to the judgment of a rioting mob, demanding a blood sacrifice for their entertainment.”
“In any case, it simply vindicates what I have been saying all along: I am not complicit in the illegal drug trade, whether inside the New Bilibid Prison or elsewhere,” said De Lima.
On the contrary, De Lima cited how she had “done everything I can” to clamp down on prison drug operations during her time as Justice Chief, including leading raids in the facility.
What is clear for De Lima is that the House inquiry had failed to find out the truth.
READ: De Lima: So what was the House inquiry for?
“The inquiry has missed the opportunity to unearth the true extent and reason for the drug problem by being so myopic in scope, as it was obsessively focused solely on my alleged involvement,” she said.
“They allowed to prevail Lord Duterte’s agenda to shame, destroy and pulverize a woman who dared to criticize human rights abuses against Filipinos,” she said.
In its report on the inquiry, the House Committee on Justice had on Wednesday said there was “sufficient evidence” that De Lima was involved in the Bilibid drug trade, yet in the same breath did not recommend her prosecution and instead ordered the Department of Justice to undertake further investigation.
READ: House justice panel OKs Bilibid drug trade report; no raps vs De Lima
De Lima said the inquiry, where several convicts and even a former aide testified against her alleged drug involvement and romantic entanglements in graphic detail, were clearly meant to pillory her for stand against President Duterte’s war on drugs.
It was Mr. Duterte who had first bared drug allegations against De Lima, just as she launched a Senate inquiry into possible cases of extrajudicial killings among slays of drug suspects in police operations.
De Lima was ousted as chair of the Senate committee on justice and human rights midway into the inquiry, removed by the President’s allies and relegated into a member.
The new committee chair, Sen. Richard Gordon, said the six-session inquiry failed to establish Mr. Duterte’s hand in the slays and gathered no proof on the alleged operation of the Davao Death Squad during the President’s more than 20-year reign as as Davao City Mayor.
“Any allegation to the contrary is a brazen falsehood motivated by nothing else but a grossly undemocratic desire to shame me into silence about other critical issues, such as the spate of extrajudicial killings. Anyone who has seen how events have unfolded in the past three months would readily see that,” De Lima said. JE
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