De Lima casts doubt on Bilibid riot

MANILA, Philippines — Sen. Leila de Lima claimed that the reported riot at the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) on Wednesday morning was a tactic of the administration to persuade prisoners to testify against her.

Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II confirmed that one inmate, Tony Co, was killed in the incident while three other inmates, Jaybee Sebastian, Peter Co and Vicente See were injured.

READ: Bilibid riot: Jaybee Sebastian, 2 high-profile inmates hurt; 1 dead

"The official version of the DOJ said this was a riot. Of course, we do not know yet at this point," De Lima said in a televised press conference.

"I'm not discounting the fact that this is another way of the government persuading the Bilibid 19 to testify against me and that this incident should serve as a lesson to those who refuse to cooperate with the government and do Aguirre's and Malacañang's bidding," the senator said.

De Lima stressed that the prisoners at Building 14 of the NBP were isolated from the general prison population as a result of a raid in December 2015.

The so-called "Bilibid 19" were cut off from the drug trade and luxurious living quarters inside the prison.

The former Justice secretary added that the Bilibid 19 were also the ones who filed cases against her before the Office of the Ombudsman due to their alleged persecution after being isolated at Building 14.

"I am not discounting the possibility that this so called riot is Malacañang's way of sending messages to prisoners who refuse to implicate me in the Bilibid drug trade as part of Aguirre's and Malacanang's teleserye drama projecting me as the Bilibid drug queen. If this is the truth, I plead to Malacanang to stop this tragic, desperate and despicable actions," De Lima said.

De Lima said that the government's tactic of threatening prisoners with violence and murder who refuse to testify against her "is the height of mafia tactics and gangster-style operation that makes this government worse than a narco state."

"It makes this government an assassin state, a state that promotes murder and summary execution as policy and as weapon against its perceived enemies," De Lima said.