• GILBERT P. BAYORAN
Former senator Leila de Lima yesterday said that she is determined to press counter charges against former President Rodrigo Duterte and former Justice secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II.
De Lima, who spent almost seven years in jail for trumped up illegal drug charges, said her lawyers are already working on it.
In a press briefing in Bacolod City, De Lima said her lawyers are in the process of determining the exact cases to be filed against Duterte and Aguirre, whom she claimed had a hand in accessing Bilibid prison inmates that were forced, coerced, and pressured into falsely testifying against her.
Duterte is now at The Hague Penitentiary Institution or the Scheveningen Prison in Netherlands, awaiting trial by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged crimes against humanity during his administration’s war on drugs.
De Lima was acquitted last year of the three drug charges filed against her in court. She is now the first nominee for the partylist group Mamamayang Liberal (ML), with former Representatives Teddy Baguilat and Erin Tanada as second and third nominees, respectively.
“It is easy to file cases, or craft complaints. But whether, or not it will stand in court, we need to prepare thoroughly,” said the former Justice secretary and senator.
It has to be an air tight case, de Lima stressed.
Asked if she had already achieved justice for what Duterte and his administration did to her, De Lima said the issuance of an arrest warrant against Duterte and his detention indicated that justice is taking its course.*
