Press Release
January 6, 2022

Dispatch from Crame No. 1200:
Sen. Leila M. de Lima on Duterte owing an apology to the victims of the War on Drugs

1/6/22

Since Duterte's days are numbered in Malacañang and as we ache for better days, it cannot be simply "let bygones be bygones" for the people to whom he owes apology:

To the EJK victims of his bloody drug war who never had their day in court;

To the journalists and other media practitioners shot dead as a result of his threats;

To the Local Chief Executives murdered with Duterte's empty allegations and accusations as narco-politicians capitalized on by their opponents;

To all the lawyers and judges slayed in front of their homes or offices and in broad daylight for upholding their mandate as vanguards of justice;

To all women scourging the consequences of Duterte's blatant misogyny;

To all the human rights defenders we lost because he vilified their noble cause and love for every life;

To every life and livelihood lost because of his administration's botched pandemic response;

And to the future generation of Filipinos who might have missed a better future because of Duterte's six dark years of Presidency.

The gavel shall fall, and not even his refusal to own up to his atrocities can cushion the blow of the ramifications of his cruelty. Evil does not reign forever. Soon, justice catches up.

The crime and not the scaffold makes the shame. Probably your resistance to humble yourself with an apology was not unexpected. After all, history's most notorious tyrants and mass murderers never apologized for their crimes either. Not Hitler. Not Stalin. Not Saddam. Not one of them ever did. Truth requires no apology. Their crimes were never erased and neither will yours. History will judge you. ###

(Access the handwritten version, here: https://issuu.com/senatorleilam.delima/docs/dispatch_from_crame_no._1200)

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