US lawmakers visit De Lima in detention

A delegation of US lawmakers led by Senator Edward Markey visited former Senator Leila De Lima on Friday. 

The eight-man delegation spent over an hour at the Philippine National Police Custodial Center in Camp Crame, Quezon City. They arrived around noon and left around 1:15 p.m. 

“I am very much grateful to Senator Markey, Congressman Alan Lowenthal, Congressman Don Beyer and Congresswoman Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen for their utmost concern about my plight and their support for my struggle as a prisoner of conscience,” De Lima said in a statement. 

“I was very much uplifted and filled with a renewed strength and sense of purpose by their show of warm and gracious solidarity. I wish them safe travels in their other missions to come to the aid of and offer support to all human rights defenders the world over,” she added.

The visit was scheduled for Thursday, but due to a lack of court authorization, the delegation was unable to enter the detention facility. 

On Friday, the two Muntinlupa courts hearing De Lima's drug-related cases granted her plea to let the American legislators see her in detention. 

According to court documents, government prosecutors did not object to the request. 

The courts prohibited recording the visit on audio or video. 

“Since the PNP leadership was already notified well in advance of the planned high-level visit of US lawmakers, I was deeply frustrated and felt unjustly treated when the PNP announced on the very day of the scheduled visit that it cannot push through without a court order," De Lima said. 

“I felt that it was clearly a case of unfairly changing the rules in the middle of the game. As far as all PUPCs (persons under PNP custody) are concerned, the PNP rules on visits by foreign nationals has not changed to additionally require a court order since PNP Memorandum Circular 2018-027 was issued in 2018,” she added.

De Lima also said that "somebody even in this administration is still worried about me meeting with high-level foreign delegations concerned about my plight as a prisoner of conscience, more than a month after Duterte has already left Malacañang."

“That this administration or somebody in this administration would unnecessarily risk a minor diplomatic fray just to continue Duterte’s policy of persecution is beyond me. It simply makes no sense. It has accomplished nothing but to embarrass the Marcos Jr. administration for no reasonable gain at all, except perhaps to endear itself to my persecutors,” the former senator said.

In May, Senators Markey, Marco Rubio, Dick Durbin, Marsha Blackburn, Chris Coons, and Patrick Leahy called for the immediate release of De Lima after some key witnesses recanted some allegations against her. 

“Clearly, the bogus charges against her were, as we suspected all along, politically-motivated and based on false information. That she has lost five years in jail due to these spurious charges is a travesty,” they said.

De Lima has been detained since February 2017 after the Department of Justice filed three separate cases against her for allegedly abetting the illegal drug trade in the New Bilibid Prison during her term as Justice Secretary.

She has since denied the allegations. 

One of her three cases was dismissed by a Muntinlupa court last year. 

She marked her 2000th day in detention on August 16, 2022. —VBL, GMA News