Leila de Lima elected to Congress: 'The truth finds a way'
After 2,454 days unjustly behind bars, the former senator and minister of Justice is back in Congress, in the House of Representatives this time. With the opposition party, Mamamayang Liberal (ML), she will challenge the political oligarchies of the Duterte and Marcos clans. For the families of the victims of the war on drugs, she represents hope for justice. Hers is “A fragile mandate that carries the weight of people’s hopes”.
Rome (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Leila de Lima celebrated her return to the Philippine Congress after the results of the midterm elections on 12 May were confirmed.
“They tried to take everything away from me: my freedom, my voice, my dignity, even my right to serve. But here I am. Because truth finds a way. Justice finds a way. And the people, when given a choice, know how to fight back,” De Lima said celebrating her win.
Elected with the Mamamayang Liberal party (ML), she plans to be part of the opposition minority bloc in the House of Representatives, where she could play a leading role.
An activist and former senator and minister of Justice, she was one of the main opponents of Rodrigo Duterte, now in the detention at the International Criminal Court in The Hague for his heinous "war on drugs”.
The 65-year-old was unjustly imprisoned in 2017 and held for 2,454 days on slanderous charges of complicity with drug trafficking.
Commenting on the results of this month’s midterm election, she said that "the universe aligned" to enable her historic win, and thanked all those “who believed in this journey, who took a chance on me and on us.”
She also took the opportunity to announce a meeting with other opposition groups of progressives and liberals allied with the Mamamayang Liberal to plan the next moves in Congress.
The midterm vote strengthened the Duterte clan, whose main political representative is Vice President Sara Duterte, Rodrigo's daughter. However, last February, the House of Representatives voted to impeach her for the misuse of public money and a plan to assassinate President Marcos Jr.
De Lima will be a member of the panel of prosecutors in the impeachment trial against the vice president, which now moves to the Senate.
The midterm has been a test for incumbent President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, whose mandate will end in 2028, when the next presidential election is scheduled.
The results seem to boost the Duterte clan, shaking up Marcos’s leadership; nevertheless, the president holds a reduced majority in the House, but one that still guarantees his hold on power, despite internal tensions in the Marcos-Duterte alliance, which won the last presidential election in 2022.
On 9 May millions of Filipinos voted for 12 of the 24 seats in the Senate, all 317 seats in the House of Representatives, and over 18,000 national and local positions. The latter were largely won by supporters of the Duterte clan.
The 80-year-old former president, who is the Netherlands waiting for trial, was elected mayor of Davao, his fiefdom which he had led in the past, and from where the wave of killings at the hands of paramilitary death squads began (about 30,000 according to human rights organisations).
Against this backdrop, Leila de Lima’s election represents hope for those Filipinos who oppose the country’s political oligarchies, providing an opportunity to continue to demand justice for the families of the victims of the war on drugs.
As de Lima pointed out to AsiaNews, justice, in her country, is not guaranteed by its institutions.
Indeed, “let’s be clear: this is only a chance. A narrow opening. A fragile mandate that carries the weight of people’s hopes and the urgency of the change they demand. It will take more than one seat. It will take more than one voice,” said the newly elected congresswoman.
“And so, I am asking as early as now: please, don’t leave us in this fight. We need you with us as we push back harder, louder, braver,” she added.
Now de Lima plans to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the minority bloc to figure out which commission is most suitable for her, possibly one to chair.
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24/11/2023 17:14
11/12/2023 18:37
