A Muntinlupa City judge on Thursday ordered the arrest of Senator Leila De Lima for one of the three drug trafficking cases filed by the Department of Justice in relation to her alleged participation in the proliferation of illegal drugs inside the New Bilibid Prison. Judge Juanita Guerrero of the Muntinlupa City Regional Trial Court Branch 204 issued the arrest warrants for De Lima and her co-accused, former Bureau of Corrections officer-in-charge Rafael Ragos and her former driver-bodyguard Ronnie Dayan. De Lima is also facing separate cases for violations of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act or Republic Act 9165 at the Muntinlupa City RTC Branches 205 and 206. The cases hinge on the testimony of several detainees at the national penitentiary that the lawmaker accepted money from drug syndicates and facilitated a drug-trading operation while she was justice secretary. The embattled senator has dismissed the cases as politically motivated which she said was a result of being openly critical of President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs, which has claimed more than 7,000 lives since he took power in June last year. She also said only the Office of the Ombudsman has jurisdiction over the cases since she is an elected official - See more at: Muntinlupa RTC orders arrest of De Lima, two others
I don't know about that. As recent as yesterday she was still attacking President Duterte, not the right enemy to have. It will be interesting to see if her witnesses are considered credible enough to convict her.
Maybe but you don't become Justice Secretary( Minister) without making friends to call things in (watch this space so to speak) If speaking out against a President is bad, half the US would be in Court but of course we know where we are
The Filipino Führer will certainly try his damnedest to make it stick. Gotta get rid of the vocal opposition leadership first, then you can go after the little people who talk smack. If the man-child could somehow make that happen (luckily he can't) he would certainly be all for it. The little man can't take any type of criticism without crying about it on Twitter. Note: talking about the führer-wannabe in the US. (He does not have the military's support and is not competent or popular enough to ever make that happen.)
Wouldn't it be easier just to shoot her and then prosecute her in absentia. If there is one thing I'm learning, it's that people in prison make very good witnesses in the Philippines.
I'm not sure how I should search for these statistics. How do I find out what an individual journalist was killed for? What if they were killed investigating corruption of a clan in some obscure province and were killed by members/allies of that clan. What would the president at the time have to do with those murders? Sure, there might be some indirect (or even direct) connection between that clan and the President but that doesn't mean the President had any sway or ability to order/stop the murder. There might also be some direct connections to previous presidents....I just don't have the time to read the story of every journalist murdered in the Philippines (and that's pretty sad). Killing or locking up direct political opposition on the other hand, that's a bit more visible and concerning. How many political opponents have been murdered, thrown in prison or accused of crimes since he has taken office? (Of course we have no way of knowing if these charges are legit or not, and many could be guilty...but when a police special unit (directly under the control of the President) raids a jail cell and murders a political opponent chances are there is something fishy going on there. I personally feel that he is using this drug war as an excuse to take down political opposition. Sure, some of them could have been involved in the drug trade but this "drug problem" isn't nearly as big of a problem as Duterte makes it out to be. His initial claims were that 1 million Filipinos were involved with drugs in some way. That is a small percentage of the population. He later came back and raised the number to 2-3 million, but to my knowledge he has never produced any statistics to back up these claims.
