A Philippine court has\u00a0granted bail for\u00a0Leila De Lima, one of the most vocal critics of ex-President Rodrigo Duterte\u2019s bloody \u201cwar on drugs\u201d\u00a0after being held in police custody for over six years. <\/p>\n
She was led out of the courtroom with a police escort while cheers of \u201cFree Leila Now\u201d were heard as she exited. The bail conditions were set at roughly $5,300 (300,000 Philippine pesos), and her legal team is expected to file the paperwork later on Monday evening. <\/p>\n
De Lima had been acquitted of two out of the three charges laid against her,\u00a0which all stemmed from allegations made by Duterte that she received payoffs from convicted drug gangs to fund her 2016 senatorial bid. <\/p>\n
Organizations like the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch have criticized De Lima\u2019s detention, calling it \u201carbitrary\u201d and demanding her immediate release. <\/p>\n
Human rights activists have long criticized the detention of De Lima, pointing out that she has been held in a police cell since February 2017 despite not having been convicted of any charges. <\/p>\n
They say her treatment is emblematic of a deteriorating rights situation in a country where political activists and the media often face threats, harassment and even death for\u00a0attempting\u00a0to keep those in power in check. <\/p>\n
Court proceedings against de Lima have been marked by undue delays, including the\u00a0failure of prosecution witnesses to appear in court and changes in judges handling her cases. <\/p>\n
With her long-awaited temporary release, De Lima said she will be prioritizing spending quality time with her family,\u00a0especially with\u00a0her mother who is now 91 years old. <\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s\u00a0waiting for me. I have to be with\u00a0her.\u00a0She\u2019s\u00a0been waiting for me all these years,\u201d De Lima said. <\/p>\n
De Lima\u2019s bail\u00a0\u201cmust lead to dismissal of last bogus charge against her,\u201d Amnesty International said in a statement on Monday. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe court\u2019s granting of Leila de Lima\u2019s bail application is indeed a welcome development. Allowing her temporary liberty should be a step toward justice for Leila, beginning with the dismissal of this last charge against her,\u201d said Butch Olano, section director of Amnesty International Philippines. <\/p>\n
\u201cLeila has been targeted by the government for her criticism of the murderous \u2018war on drugs\u2019 and other human rights violations. She should have never spent even a single day in detention. This last remaining drug case against her must be dismissed expeditiously, and those behind her arbitrary detention and other violations of her human rights must be brought to justice,\u201d Olano added. <\/p>\n
Duterte and De Lima had been facing off for years, dating all the way back to his long reign as mayor of Davao City in the southern Philippine region of Mindanao. <\/p>\n
In 2009, De Lima launched a probe into the suspected Davao Death Squad where members were reported to be \u201croutinely killing street children and others in broad daylight,\u201d according to a report by Philip Alston, a United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions. <\/p>\n
The investigation, led by De Lima, who at the time was the chair of the Commission on Human Rights chair, uncovered a mass grave of human remains near a quarry and hundreds of deaths allegedly linked to members of the Davao Death Squad \u2013 with at least two hitmen publicly accusing Duterte for ordering the killings. <\/p>\n
Years later, De Lima, who had wrapped up her service as Secretary of Justice, was elected to the Senate in May 2016,\u00a0on the same day Duterte won the presidency on a platform of cracking down on crime, particularly illegal drugs. <\/p>\n
Duterte had admitted to killing drug suspects during his time as mayor of Davao City, and openly waged a crackdown on suspected drug dealers and petty peddlers through a vast network\u00a0police allies and vigilantes. <\/p>\n
More than 6,000 people were killed in anti-drug operations between July 1, 2016 and May 31, 2022\u00a0during Duterte\u2019s controversial anti-drug campaign, according to police data. <\/p>\n
Many of the extrajudicial killings of suspected drug offenders have occurred in the poorest areas of the country \u2013 and independent monitors believe the number of those killed could be much higher. <\/p>\n
Murder on the streets of the Philippines were rampant when the war on drugs took off,\u00a0with shocking photographs published in local and international media showing suspected drug dealers shot dead in pools of blood next to labels alleging their crimes. Often the unidentified gunmen have fled the scene. <\/p>\n
Minors were frequently among those killed as well people that locals and rights groups said had nothing to do with the drug trade. Critics of the government were also often named by Duterte as being placed on kill lists, or warned they could end up there. <\/p>\n
Police accounts of how a suspected drug dealer was killed would often clash widely with CCTV and witness testimony later gathered by journalists and rights workers. <\/p>\n
De Lima used her position in the senate to rail against Duterte\u2019s war on drugs and call for an inquiry into extrajudicial killings. <\/p>\n
Duterte rejected criticism over the killings, and warned lawmakers in a speech saying,\u201cBe careful with me because when I say I will do it for my country, I will do it even if I have to kill you or be killed in the process.\u201d <\/p>\n
Despite growing outcry abroad and his divisive ruling style, his war on drugs and\u00a0his administration\u2019s attacks against the free press, Duterte remained popular at home for much of his tenure. <\/p>\n
Last January, the International Criminal Court said it wants to\u00a0revive its investigation into possible \u201ccrimes against humanity\u201d over Duterte\u2019s drug war. The Hague-based court initially announced plans for an investigation in February 2018 but suspended them in November 2021 at the request of Manila after it said it was undertaking its own review. <\/p>\n
However, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. \u2013 who succeeded Duterte last year \u2013 said his country is \u201cdisengaging\u201d from any contact with the ICC, saying\u00a0Manila did not recognize its authority over matters of national sovereignty. <\/p>\n\n
A Philippine court has\u00a0granted bail for\u00a0Leila De Lima, one of the most vocal critics of ex-President Rodrigo Duterte\u2019s bloody \u201cwar on drugs\u201d\u00a0after being held in police custody for over six years. She was led out of the courtroom with a police escort while cheers of \u201cFree Leila Now\u201d were heard as she exited. The bail <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":11558,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11557","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}