European Parliament members call for Leila’s release

MANILA, Philippines -  Members of the European Parliament called for the immediate release of Sen. Leila de Lima and for the European Union (EU) to support an independent international investigation on President Duterte’s bloody campaign against illegal drugs.

In a joint resolution, the members of the parliament said De Lima is a human rights advocate who has openly condemned Duterte’s drug war.

“There are serious concerns for the safety of Senator De Lima; whereas there are numerous claims of torture in places of detention that are not giving rise to inquiries,” the resolution said.

The parliament members called on the EU to closely monitor the case against De Lima.

The motion has been submitted for discussion by the parliament and is awaiting “first reading-single reading-budget first stage” on Thursday in France.

De Lima has a long-standing rift with Duterte, whom she accused of leading a vigilante group that carried out summary killings in Davao City when he was mayor.

Duterte in turn accused De Lima of being a narco-politician who used the illegal drug trade to finance her way to a Senate seat.

At least seven motions filed by various political groups in the Parliament were consolidated into a single resolution issued there Wednesday.

The groups strongly condemned the high number of people getting killed by government forces and vigilante groups supporting Duterte’s war against illegal drugs.

They pointed out reports about the Philippine police force falsifying evidence to justify extrajudicial killing, with the urban poor being targeted.

They also called on Philippine authorities to carry out impartial and meaningful investigations into summary killings and adopt measures to prevent further killings.

The Parliament members called on the Philippine government to prioritize the fight against trafficking networks and drug barons over tracking down small-scale consumers.

They also expressed concern over the decision of the House of Representatives to reintroduce the death penalty to punish drug offenders.

Misunderstood

Malacañang said the European lawmakers had misunderstood the situation involving De Lima and the war against illegal drugs.

Presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella maintained the charges against De Lima were not politically motivated.

“You know, they simply have a misunderstanding of what’s happening to De Lima,” Abella said.

“The lady is being charged with crime, not political persuasions. So I think they ought to respect that,” he added.

During a dinner meeting between the President and 15 senators last Tuesday, Duterte mentioned that some of the evidence used against De Lima came from foreign sources.

A senator who declined to be identified said the intel came from the US Drug Enforcement Agency.

De Lima, for her part, called her colleagues “gullible” in believing the claims of Duterte about how the US government provided intelligence reports regarding her alleged involvement in the illegal drug trade.

In her latest handwritten note from detention, De Lima said the foreign intelligence report that was supposedly used by the government as evidence against her was most likely fake.

“Foreign intel??? It might as well be an intel from the planet Mars or Jupiter. I highly doubt whether there is such a US intel. If there is, it must be a spurious one or based from a highly dubious or polluted source or sources,” De Lima said.

De Lima said this was another big lie by the President and part of the incessant black propaganda being spread against her.

“May I assure my gullible colleagues in the Senate and our people that I have absolutely nothing do with the illegal drug trade,” De Lima said.

An outspoken critic of Duterte’s anti-drug campaign, De Lima was arrested last month on charges that she accepted bribes from jailed drug lords. De Lima has denied the allegations and accused the Duterte administration of political persecution.

The senator said Duterte was getting back at her for investigating his alleged involvement in the killing of criminals in Davao City, where he served as mayor for 23 years.

Last August, Duterte accused De Lima of having an affair with her married driver who has links to illegal drug syndicates.

The President said De Lima’s illicit relationship with her driver had impelled her to violate the law and grant special privileges to drug inmates at the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa.

Months after drug-related cases were filed against De Lima, Duterte predicted that the neophyte senator would “rot in jail.” –Alexis Romero, Marvin Sy