Press Release
September 10, 2019

De Lima labels drug charges vs her as 'grandest hoax' in PH

Opposition Senator Leila M. de Lima has branded as "grandest hoax" the illegal drug trading charges leveled against her by the Duterte administration as she denounced anew the government for all the lies and outright falsehoods it made to silence her.

De Lima insisted that Mr. Duterte's directive to transfer to the Marines headquarters the high-profile convicts who testified against her in the trumped-up cases is to "prepare" them for their impending testimony before the Muntinlupa courts.

She said the motive behind the transfer of these high-profile convicts from the New Bilibid Prisons (NBP) has nothing to do with safety issues, but to give prosecutors and non-prosecutors unlimited access to them and "prime" them up for their court appearance.

"Those convicts-witnesses had to be housed in a secluded, more controlled facility in order to 'prepare' them for their impending testimony in the ongoing trial in my drug cases before the RTC-Muntinlupa," De Lima said in her Dispatch from Crame No. 592.

"The Leila de Lima case is the grandest HOAX ever poised upon the country's judicial system. I challenge you, Mr. Duterte, to come clean with your evil designs against me. You cannot escape your day of reckoning," she added.

According to her, the transfer from NBP to the Philippine Marines' Headquarters is also aimed at ensuring that these high-profile convict-witnesses will not turn around or recant their false and perjurious testimonies during the 2016 House inquiry.

"The perfect place for such an operation is a military facility, such as the PH Marines HQ, with its trademark lack of transparency and strict rule of non-access by unauthorized persons other than the Duterte-authorized henchmen," De Lima said.

"The Duterte operators had to make sure that their most valuable prosecution witnesses remain true to the deal they struck with the government during the stint of SOJ Aguirre - the 'Destroy de Lima' deal through their orchestrated lies," she added.

In his recent speech in Cebu, Mr. Duterte admitted he ordered the transfer of the high-profile convicts-witnesses to the Marine headquarters in Taguig City to keep them away from De Lima's alleged "allies" who could inflict harm on them.

The lady Senator from Bicol refuted that Duterte and his allies simply cannot implement their evil scheme against her within the confines of the NBP, a severely congested facility, and with the presence of other inmates and Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) officials.

"You cannot afford witnesses to such an elaborate, insidious scheme. Hence, the convicts-witnesses had to be isolated for a fool-proof illegal operations," she said.

While inside the Marines headquarters, she said the Duterte regime could promise these convict-witnesses good conduct time allowance (GCTA), pardon, commutation of sentence and other forms of executive clemency just to ensure her conviction.

De Lima, the staunchest critic of the Duterte regime's crooked policies, believes that when Duterte is through with these convict-witnesses, "they would be fair game to [Duterte's] death squads, inorder to permanently bury the truth about my innocence."

"You [Duterte] know that I'm innocent. But you and this regime cannot allow that truth to be out there before the whole world," she insisted.

Known as the first prominent political prisoner of the Duterte regime, De Lima is in detention for more than two and a half years now for obvious trumped-up drug charges fabricated by the Duterte regime as part of orchestrated efforts to silence her.

She has repeatedly declared her innocence from the concocted drug charges, expressing belief that the truth will finally come out amid the lies being hurdled at her by the government.

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