‘Save Duterte from hell and save Satan from his potty mouth’

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte gestures as he answers questions from the press at Manila International Airport on March 23, 2017. Duterte warned he may impose martial law and suspend elections for tens of thousands of local posts, fuelling concerns about democracy under his rule. Duterte said he was considering both measures as part of his controversial campaign to eradicate illegal drugs in society, and that martial law would also solve a range of other security threats. / AFP PHOTO / NOEL CELIS

A tit for tat.

After being called  the “queen” of  hell,  detained Senator  Leila de Lima shot back at President Rodrigo Duterte,  saying  she  hopes  the President  would be saved  from hell “so that Satan may be saved from his potty mouth.”

While  Duterte  was in Thailand,  the senator  said, she  was hoping  that the President “during a lucid, Fentanyl-free interval”  would be  enlightened like the way Gautama Buddha achieved enlightenment.

“That might be too much to ask, but miracles do happen. This is my fervent prayer so that he may be saved from hell and so that Satan may be saved from his potty mouth,”  De Lima said  in a handwritten statement she issued from her detention at Camp Crame on Thursday.

“Kawawa naman si Satanas kay Duterte ’pag nagkataon (If it happens, Satan will look pitiful with Duterte),” she said.

But the President was unstoppable as he continued his attack against the senator, this time, calling her  the queen of hell and having a thick-face.

“The President again made libelous statements against my person before the Filipino community in Bangkok. Unsatisfied with the fact that he was already able to imprison me, he continues to destroy me before various audiences like a market fishwife and leaves no dignity whatsoever to the office he holds,” De Lima said.

“I pity the President for believing in his own lies,” said the senator, who was detained for alleged  involvement in illegal drugs, which she has repeatedly denied.

In another statement, De Lima, a former Justice Secretary, warned that those who tolerate and condone  alleged extrajudicial killings (EJKs) in the country might also be held liable.

She pointed out that under international human rights law, including the Rome Statute, the liability for atrocities “extends not only to the actual perpetrators or direct participants in such heinous acts, but also those who tolerate and condone them, more so incite and encourage them as well as those who do nothing about the prevalence of massive EJKs despite knowledge thereof.”

“Yes, failure to act, meaning, failure or refusal to investigate and prosecute, and worse do a cover-up such thru barefaced denials or half-baked, prematurely terminated probes, also gives rise to liability,”  De Lima said.

Sooner or later, she said, the long arm of the law, domestic or international, would catch up “with the chief architect of the mass murders and his enforcers and cheerers.”

“Stop cheering the madman!” the senator said, apparently referring to the President.