De Lima's reelection bid gains support from different sectors, regions

Prominent personalities and groups and individuals from different sectors have affirmed their support for Opposition Senator Leila M. de Lima's reelection bid during the launching of #LabanLeila2022 campaign volunteer network in Cebu, Iloilo, Bicol and NCR this month.

In a Manifesto translated and read in the local dialects during the respective launchings of #LabanLeila2022 campaign volunteer network ahead of De Lima's birthday (Aug. 27), the volunteers vowed to spread the truth about De Lima and share her story of brave resistance against a strongman to the Filipino electorate.

"Senator Leila M. de Lima fights for us. We will stand by, with and for her in the 2022 senatorial elections. As she has been fighting for us, we are fighting alongside her to secure a renewed mandate from the Filipino people. We are forming the #LabanLeila2022 Campaign Volunteer Network," they said.

"As volunteers, we wholeheartedly commit our energy, time and resources in mobilizing the Filipino electorate here and abroad, online and offline, to support Senator de Lima's re-election with her impeccable public service record, moral courage and integrity."

"In our families, neighborhoods, workplaces, social networks, and organizations, we pledge to share Senator Leila de Lima's story of brave resistance against authoritarianism and message of hope for transformative change," they added.

#LabanLeila2022 Campaign Volunteer Network is comprised of artists, LGUs leaders, journalists, and supporters in the women, LGBTQI, youth, PWDs, elderly and urban poor sectors, among others.

In the four and a half (4 ½) years of her unjust detention and relentless political persecution, #LabanLeila volunteers said that De Lima remains the "beacon of our democratic struggle and the indefatigable defender of human rights."

"Senator Leila de Lima has been the face of injustice, yet she is transcending victimization and has been valiantly embracing the causes of truth and accountability for the innumerable cases of human rights abuses, oppression and marginalization," they said.

"Her legislative agenda and advocacies lend voice and give hope to the oppressed, marginalized and vulnerable among us," they added. "Her message of justice, freedom and democracy reverberates loudly throughout the nation and around the world."

In her message read during the events, De Lima said she became more determined to run a reelection campaign even from her detention quarters in Camp Crame because there are people "who continue believing in me, who soldier on in our shared causes so that my story will not be reduced to irrelevance and obscurity."

It may be recalled that De Lima confirmed that she would seek reelection in the 2022 national elections in an indictment letter addressed to Mr. Duterte last July 21, where she stressed that the political persecution she has been subjected to by the Duterte administration only strengthened her resolve to fight for her advocacies.