Int’l lawmakers group calls for Leila's release

MANILA — An international lawmakers groups has called for the immediate release of detained Senator Leila de Lima, stressing that her criminal case is a "response" to her "vocal opposition" to President Rodrigo Duterte.

Members of the Geneva-based InterParliamentary Union personally trooped to the Philippines May this year to conduct a fact-finding mission on de Lima's drug cases and detention.

In its report published on October 18, the IPU called on "relevant authorities to release [de Lima] immediately and to seriously consider abandoning the legal proceedings should serious evidence not rapidly be forthcoming."

It added that its mission report "shows that the steps taken against [de Lima] came in response to her vocal opposition to President Duterte's war on drugs, including her denunciation of her alleged responsibility for the extrajudicial killings, and that there is no evidence to justify criminal cases against her."

The monitoring agency noted that the two officials have been in loggerheads since de Lima's stint as Chairperson of the Commission on Human Rights from May 2008 to June 2010. The senator launched a series of investigations to probe the alleged extrajudicial killings under the watch of Duterte, who was then mayor of Davao City.

De Lima became the Secretary of Justice in 2010, and won a senatorial seat in the May 2016 national elections. Two months after she become a senator, she initiated an inquiry into the extrajudicial killings since Duterte became president on June 2016.

It was also around August 2016 that solons from the Lower House of the Congress sought to start a probe on the alleged drug proliferation under de Lima's watch as justice secretary.

Transcripts of the said inquiry were used by groups of complainants who filed drug trading case against de Lima before the Department of Justice — now headed by Vitaliano Aguirre II.

De Lima has maintained her innocence from the allegations and claimed that the Duterte administration is using its full resources to pin her down in trumped up charges.

"Senator de Lima has been subject to a public campaign of vilification by the highest State authorities portraying her as an 'immoral woman' and as guilty, even though a trial has yet to commence," the IPU noted.

It can be recalled that several Congressmen gleefully noted in public interviews that the alleged sex tape of de Lima be shown in their committee inquiries. The solons earlier said that the video will prove de Lima's "connection" with Ronnie Dayan, her former aide and also suspected to be her bagman.

The IPU expressed "shock at the public campaign of vilification by the highest state authorities against Senator de Lima portraying her as an 'immoral woman.'"