Minority senators call for immediate release of De Lima
Sen. Leila de Lima (Photo from her Facebook page)
Minority senators have filed a resolution to call for the “immediate release” of opposition Senator Leila de Lima, who will mark her first year of “illegal arrest and unjust detention” on Saturday, Feb. 24.
Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon, Senators Francis Pangilinan, Antonio Trillanes IV, Bam Aquino, and Risa Hontiveros filed Senate Resolution No. 645 late Wednesday.
“As her colleagues at the Senate, we are pained by the reality that a member of this Chamber is locked up in jail on trumped-up charges when she should be here with us, engaging in productive discussions, legislating laws, and serving her constituents and our country,” the senators said in a statement Thursday.
They noted that De Lima’s continued “unjust detention” was instigated by her investigation of the Davao Death Squad as then chairperson of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), and later investigation of the spate of extrajudicial killings (EJKs) in the country as a senator — which earned the ire of then Davao Mayor and now President Rodrigo Duterte.
De Lima’s colleagues nevertheless lauded her spirit, which they said remains unbroken despite “Duterte’s effort to tarnish her reputation and oppress her.”
“The road to her incarceration was tormenting—revealing in public her intimate relationships, publicly shaming her by threatening to screen in the House of Representatives her alleged sex videos, and branding her an immoral woman,” they said.
READ: Senate ethics body junks complaints vs De Lima
“Only a tenacious person with an unshakable resolve like Senator De Lima can withstand all these, unbowed, unbent, and unbroken,” they added.
The five senators said they acknowledged the increasing number of organizations and human rights advocates who have launched petitions seeking her freedom from incarceration.
They cited a March 2017 resolution by the European Parliament in Strasbourg calling for “the immediate release of Senator De Lima” and the Geneva-based Inter-Parliamentary Union’s call for her freedom in a report prepared by its human rights committee, among others.
The same senators filed SR No. 505 in September 2017 asking the Senate leadership to allow De Lima to participate in the sessions and deliberations of important legislative measures. The resolution, they said, has not been acted upon. /jpv
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