21 Sep De Lima Reacted on 2,000 Threat Messages and Calls Saying Lawmakers are Victimizing Her
On September 20, Tuesday, lawmakers publicly disclosed the mobile phone number and home address of Senator Leila de Lima during a legislative hearing on the alleged drug trade inside the New Bilibid Prison. The senator then reacted saying that the lawmakers are victimizing her “over and over again.”
During the hearing, convicts and inmates were presented as witnesses against De Lima who asserted that she was using a mobile number provided by the justice department to interact with the drug lords inside the Bilibid. The senator confronted accusations against her about the issue that she was accepting money from the drug syndicates inside the prison during her term as a justice secretary.
During the hearing, the mobile number was publicly broadcasted.
De Lima said in a statement that the House probe was a “blatant exercise in harassment and persecution” and that she censures in what she termed as the “sheer indecency and foulness” of such a ploy.
As of 8pm on Tuesday, De Lima received about 2,000 text messages and phone calls from anonymous people, threatening and harassing her.
The senator said in a statement, “They have basically destroyed my right to privacy and security in my communications and in my abode. I am now literally a persecuted person displaced from my home. Worse, they have turned people into weapons of destruction.”
She added, “They have victimized me over and over again, and just when I thought I could not feel more betrayed, they have once again proven that I have underestimated their audacity and evilness.”
De Lima presented a self-confessed hitman who witnessed claiming that President Rodrigo Duterte planned the extrajudicial killings when he was the mayor of Davao City and this urged De Lima to be expelled as the chairperson of the Senate committee on justice.
The senator reacted on her ouster saying that the ploy against her shows the outcomes of attempting to go against those in power. As she spoke, “They are making me into an example of what will happen to those who dare criticize and call out the abuses of those in power. Who would dare stand up for others now? The real victim here is the people, the oppressed.”
News Source: Rappler
No Comments