MANILA (SE): Leila de Lima, former senator, justice minister, and human rights commissioner, was finally granted release on bail after seven years of incarceration on November 13, Philippine media reported.
The Muntinlupa City Regional Trial Court allowed De Lima—a staunch critic of the deadly war on drugs of former president, Rodrigo Duterte—to post bail of P300,000, Rappler reported. Her co-accused, former Bureau of Corrections director Franklin Bucayu, former aides Ronnie Dayan and Joenel Sanchez, and alleged bagman Jose Adrian Dera, were also granted bail and conditional freedom.
The former Philippine justice minister was jailed on trumped up narcotics related charges as she criticised the deadly war on drugs of former president, Rodrigo Duterte.
“For more than six long years I have been praying so hard for this day to come. It hurts to be imprisoned when you are innocent. I do not want this to happen to anyone else. I don’t want to be sad or bitter today. This is a moment of triumph and thanksgiving,” she told media gathered outside the Muntinlupa Hall of Justice.
Church and rights groups welcomed the decision of the courts. “This freedom, albeit temporary, is fought for by the former senator and the people who support her despite the repression and culture of impunity,” Father Flaviano Villanueva, mission and Justice, Peace, and Integrity of Creation coordinator of the Society of the Divine Word, was quoted by LiCasNews as saying.
It hurts to be imprisoned when you are innocent. I do not want this to happen to anyone else. I don’t want to be sad or bitter today. This is a moment of triumph and thanksgiving
Leila de Lima
He said the court’s decision is “a victory, not just for her, but for the human rights sector.”
Bryony Lau, the deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said De Lima’s struggle “has inspired a generation of human rights defenders in the Philippines and beyond,” LiCasNews reported
“She never should have been unjustly prosecuted and detained by former President Rodrigo Duterte, whose administration concocted evidence and used the machinery of an abusive state to punish her for performing her duties as a senator and speaking out against the war on drugs,” Lau said.
The 64-year-old De Lima was accused of taking money from inmates inside the largest prison in the Philippines to allow them to sell drugs while she was justice minister from 2010 to 2015.
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However, multiple witnesses, including prison gang bosses, died or recanted their testimonies, resulting in the dismissal of two of the three charges against de Lima.
The drug lord who originally testified against her, Kerwin Espinosa, had recanted statements made to prosecutors on 28 April 2022 [Sunday Examiner, 8 May 2022]..
More recently, in October, Rodolfo Magleo and Nonilo Arile, former police officers told the former senator that they were recanting their testimonies “for several reasons with the primordial objective – to help you both to be set free together with your fellow co-accused,” CNN Philippines reported
“The serious injustice committed against Senator Leila De Lima is an injustice committed against the Filipino people. She was given a mandate by the electorate that voted for her, but she was prevented from carrying it out on account of trumped-up charges that have kept her in jail for the past five years,” said Bishop Pablo Virgilio David of Kalookan, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, on 29 April 2022 [Sunday Examiner, 8 May 2022].
