Justice system failed victims of drug war – De Lima

MANILA, Philippines — Despite her acquittal from all the drug charges against her, former senator Leila de Lima said yesterday that the justice system did not work for all the perpetrators and victims of the drug war of former president Rodrigo Duterte.

In an interview with “Storycon” on One News, De Lima said that seven years was a long time to be vindicated from the “politically motivated and manufactured charges” filed by the Duterte administration against her.

“It worked in the end for Leila de Lima. But not in the case of the thousands killed during Duterte’s war on drugs,” De Lima said in reaction to the statement made earlier by President Marcos that her acquittal indicates that the justice system in the country works.

“Mine is an entirely different case. The justice system may have worked for me in the end. But not in this sense, so far as my cases are concerned because it took seven years before the third case against me was dismissed,” she added.

Citing a Palace report into the second year of the previous administration, De Lima said the thousands of victims killed during Duterte’s war on drugs were clearly understated.

“I think we can safely say that there are more than 20,000… because the duration of the 2017 yearend report of Malacañang is only one and a half years. What about the remainder of the Duterte term?” de Lima said.

De Lima said the Duterte administration has conveniently “misused and abused the justice system.”

“We will only know the truth and the innocent through the justice system. But I should not have been jailed and all my cases should have been dismissed a long time ago,” she said.

Despite the acquittal of his Liberal Party colleague, Rep. Edcel Lagman said the justice system still fails to work against perpetrators of the drug war whose victims ran into the thousands during the administration of former president Duterte.

Lagman said De Lima’s “much-belated acquittal of all the Duterte-fabricated drug charges against (her) does not evince that the Philippine justice system is working for all drug offenders and victims.”

“As long as former president Rodrigo Duterte, the principal instigator of the drug-related extrajudicial killings, is not indicted before the proper Philippine court, the Philippine justice system still fails to work for all the perpetrators and their victims,” he noted.

Lagman explained that the complementarity of a “working justice system” cannot be invoked by the Philippines for exemption from jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court in the case of the complaint for alleged crimes against humanity committed by Duterte and his principal cohorts. — Cecille Suerte Felipe