Senator Leila de Lima.
INQUIRER FILE PHOTO / NINO JESUS ORBETA
Senator Leila de Lima will be spending her 57th birthday in detention for the first time on August 27.
And her birthday wish? To be vindicated from what she called “trumped up” charges the Duterte administration filed against her.
“My vindication to come soon, that’s my birthday wish,” De Lima said in an ambush interview after attending a hearing at the Muntinlupa regional trial court on Friday.
Less than a year after she was elected as senator, De Lima was put in detention at the Philippine National Police (PNP)’s Custodial Center last February for allegedly benefitting from the illegal drug business in the New Bilibid Prison (NBP).
Former Bilbid convicts and her ex-security aides have testified in earlier hearings that De Lima ordered inmates to sell drugs at Bilibid to raise funds for her senatorial campaign kitty, an allegation she vehemently denied.
De Lima, a former Justice secretary and Human Rights commissioner, is one of the staunchest critics of President Duterte, particularly his brutal war against drugs that had reportedly claimed the lives of over 12,000 people since he took office July last year.
Also in the interview, the senator chided Duterte anew after the latter admitted he was mistaken when he claimed in his campaign that he could solve the country’s drug problem within three to six months after his election.
READ: Duterte admits he was wrong on 3-6 months drug war deadline
“I always thought and I said it a few times noon nu’ng campaign period, imposible ‘yan. Ilan pa po ang papatayin niya? Na kahit ilan ang patayin nila, hindi po maso-solve ‘yung droga na ‘yan kasi maling approach,” she said.
(I always thought and I said it a few times noon during the campaign period that that is impossible. How many more would they kill? No matter how many they kill, they would not be able to solve the drug problem because they are using the wrong approach.) IDL