KEY MOMENTS

MARCH 2009

Ms De Lima, then head of the government’s Commission on Human Rights, flies to Davao and begins a public inquiry into the alleged death squads. “I am bothered by statements attributed to him [Mr Duterte] ... which tend to condone this phenomenon of illegal or vigilante-style killings,” Ms De Lima says at the inquiry.

Mr Duterte responds, “If there is an iota of evidence that we are involved in the killings, I will submit to you, at the end of the day, my resignation as city mayor.”

JUNE 2012

The commission, after Ms De Lima has stepped down to become justice secretary, finds that “there was a systematic practice of extrajudicial killings” in Davao. Ms De Lima orders the National Bureau of Investigation, which is part of her justice department, to launch a probe into the alleged death squads.

MAY 2016

Mr Duterte is elected president after pledging to kill 100,000 criminals. Ms De Lima separately wins a seat in the Senate. Days after the election, the justice ministry announces it has closed its investigation into the death squads because the last witness had fled a safe house run by the ministry’s witness protection programme.

AUGUST 2016

Mr Duterte accuses Ms De Lima of running a drug trafficking ring with criminals inside the nation’s biggest prison to help fund her Senate election campaign.

Ms De Lima, as head of the Senate justice and human rights committee, launches public hearings on alleged extrajudicial killings in Mr Duterte’s drug war.

A self-declared Davao Death Squad assassin testifies that he and others killed about 1,000 people from 1998-2013 on Mr Duterte’s orders. Mr Duterte’s allies in the Senate depose Ms De Lima as committee head days later.

SEPTEMBER 2016

Several gang leaders at the country’s main prison testify at the House of Representatives and repeat Mr Duterte’s allegations Ms De Lima and her driver-bodyguard engaged in drugs trafficking.

DECEMBER 2016

The Senate drug war inquiry, now chaired by a Duterte ally, concludes the president and the state are not responsible for extrajudicial killings.

FEB 17, 2017

The justice department files drug trafficking charges against Ms De Lima. Four days later she brands Mr Duterte a “serial killer” and calls for people to show courage and oppose him.

FEB 24, 2017

Ms De Lima is arrested.