{UAH} The spectacle of De Lima’s arrest

Robert Atuahirew,

Below is just a brief history of the bad blood between Senator De Lima and Rodrigo Duterte which as been going on for almost three decades. De Lima was a prominent human rights lawyer before becoming active in politics and chaired the country's Human Rights Commission for a while. During this time, she had identified Duterte as one of the god fathers of death squads in Mindanao who turned Mindanao into a modern day killing fields. Duterte is somehow "credited" with returning peace to Davao City- one of the reasons why his strong arm, law and order message resonated with the Filipino people and got him elected. But if you look carefully at what happened in Davao, you would be shocked because Duterte ordered the murder of thousands of people, a majority of them completely innocent. The war on drugs that he is carrying out now is a mirror image of his reign of terror in Davao in the 1980s and 1990s. He has therefore been on the radar of the human rights movement for a very long time. He is trying to silence Senator De Lima once and for all, but by using the wrong tactics of a judicial stitchup. But this persecution is  making her even more angry and determined to bring back the events of 1989 that were covered up as no perpetrator has ever been punished. Duterte has recently publicly admitted to having ordered extra-judicial executions and of having directly participated in some of them. Senator De Lima wants to put him on trial for these- and also to force him to tell the truth about those who disappeared or were murdered by death squads in Mindanao. I know the identity of people who murdered my wife,  they have long been executed by the communists, but we don't know who gave the orders to murder innocent people like my wife.

Bobby

The spectacle of De Lima's arrest

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BY YEN MAKABENTA ON FEBRUARY 25, 2017OPINION ON PAGE ONE

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YEN MAKABENTA

First read
IS it the media or the event? Do we blame the dancer or the dance?

By the time Senator Leila de Lima was arrested by the authorities yesterday, I was weary of the story and the spectacle.

Philippine media are so adept in covering breaking news blow-by-blow, minute-by-minute, you long for the moment when you can no longer hear or see the thing.

Since O J. Simpson made his mad dash for freedom and was pursued in the streets of Los Angeles in 1994, every happening involving a celebrity (political, cultural, or just plain notorious) has become a media event in this country.

I should not really complain because I probably contributed my share to creating De Lima's celebrity and notoriety (two columns on her in the span of months). Without my two cents, and the two cents of others, De Lima's arrest would have been an event as humdrum as the arrest of anyone who runs afoul of the law.

To De Lima's credit, it was her public persona and melodramatics that impelled the wide-ranging coverage of
her arrest. It's not her fault that every politician and public official sought to have their two cents quoted by the media. She had nothing to do with Vice President Leni Robredo's depiction of her arrest as "political harassment"; nor did she ask Senator Francis Pangilinan to posture on the legality of her arrest.

When a happening becomes a media event, everyone wants their two cents to be quoted. It's an opportunity to land in the media.

Saga of De Lima vs Duterte

The subtext of De Lima's arrest is that it is a continuation of a decade-long joust between Leila de Lima and Rodrigo Duterte.

In an enlightening report, Agence France Presse (AFP) has commendably presented a chronology of a curious relationship between the senator and the President. Until I read the report, I had no idea their evidently licit relationship stretched so far back.

AFP reported that De Lima has waged "a decade-long crusade to expose Duterte as the leader of death squads that have killed thousands of people."

She contends that the Duterte government has manufactured the drug charges against her to silence her investigations into the killings that were allegedly orchestrated by Duterte during his time as mayor of Davao City.

The news service then listed "the key moments" in the battle between De Lima and Duterte, to wit:

March 2009

De Lima, then head of the government's Commission on Human Rights, flies to Davao and begins a public inquiry into the alleged death squads in the city.

"I am bothered by statements attributed to him (Duterte)… which tend to condone this phenomenon of illegal or vigilante-style killings," De Lima says of the inquiry.

To this, Duterte responds: "If there is an iota of evidence that we are involved in the killings, I will submit to you, at the end of the day, my resignation as city mayor."

June 2012

The rights commission, after De Lima stepped down to become justice secretary, finds that "there was a systematic practice of extrajudicial killings" in Davao.

De Lima then orders the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), which is part of the justice department, to launch a probe into the alleged death squads.

May 2016

Duterte is elected President after pledging during the campaign to kill 100,000 criminals. De Lima separately wins a seat in the Senate.

Days after the election, the justice department announces that it has closed its investigation into the death squads because the last witness had fled a safe house run by the department's witness protection program.

August 2016

Duterte accuses De Lima of running a drug trafficking ring with criminals inside the nation's biggest prison to help fund her Senate election campaign.

De Lima, as head of the Senate justice and human rights committee, launches public hearings on alleged extrajudicial killings (EJKs) in Duterte's drug war. A self-declared Davao Death Squad assassin testifies in the Senate that he and others killed about 1,000 people from 1998 to 2013 on Duterte's orders. Duterte allies in the Senate depose De Lima as committee head days later.

September 2016

Several drug gang leaders at the country's main prison testify at the House of Representatives and repeat Duterte's allegations that De Lima and her driver-bodyguard engaged in drugs trafficking.

December 2016

The Senate drug-war inquiry, now chaired by a Duterte ally, concludes that the President and the state are not responsible for extra-judicial killings.

February 17, 2017

The justice department files drug trafficking charges against De Lima. Four days later, De Lima brands Duterte a "serial killer" and calls for the people to show courage and oust him.

February 24, 2017

De Lima is arrested.

For De Lima and Duterte, the idiom "no love lost" is most appropriate.

The idiom means there are "no feelings of respect, admiration, or affection" in their curious relationship. It won't surprise me if each says a prayer every night that the other would die.

Rigor of due process

The De Lima case will now go through the rigor of due process.

The senator's lawyers will demand that De Lima should be brought to a judge by the government official or agency confining her, and that the official justify her confinement.

Under constitutional law, due process provides that "no person shall be deprived of life, life, liberty or property without due process of law, nor shall any person be denied equal protection of the laws."

There are two kinds of due process:

1. Substantive due process—it requires the intrinsic validity of the law in interfering with the rights of the person to life, liberty or property.

2. Procedural due process—this means that the law hears before it condemns, proceeds upon inquiry and renders judgment only after trial.

Assuming that the Department of Justice can justify the arrest and confinement of De Lima, her case will then go to trial.

The contest then becomes a battle of proof and legal arguments

Can the government prove its charge that De Lima engaged in the illegal trafficking of drugs within the national penitentiary (New Bilibid Prisons) and used drug money to fund her campaign for the Senate?

The defense will seek to poke holes and destroy the government's case. De Lima will turn to human rights lawyers to marshal her defense. She will count on the support of her Liberal Party colleagues and the yellows to help her weather her ordeal.

It is a cornerstone of our system of criminal justice that a defendant is "innocent until proven guilty."

The presumption of innocence is essential, because the burden of proof rightly belongs to the party that makes the accusation.

The defendant does not have to prove anything. The defense may even rely on just raising doubts about the prosecution's case.

In the De Lima case, the testimony of inmates (drug lords) will interestingly be crucial for the government's case.

Stakes for Liberals and Duterte

The prestige and standing of many will hang on how the De Lima case is prosecuted and resolved.

The Liberal Party and the yellows have stakes in this legal battle. Their potency and cohesion as the political opposition will be tested during the trial.

De Lima's conviction will enfeeble Liberal opposition in more ways than just removing one voice in the Senate.
The heart of Liberal opposition to Duterte could sustain lasting damage.

Duterte and his administration have equally high stakes in the De Lima case.

For Duterte, De Lima's trial in open court will manifest the effectiveness of his government. It shows that DU30 has seized the engines of power in government. If De Lima is convicted of the charges, it will be a victory of surpassing import for the President and for his war on drugs.

yenmakabenta@yahoo.com

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