“ARREST me now! Jail me now, I’m here!” a visibly distraught Senator Leila De Lima exclaimed, breaking into tears as she dared President Rodrigo Duterte to keep his vow to put her behind bars.
In a trembling voice, she also told the Vietnam-bound Duterte: “Do what you want with me, Mr. President. I’ll wait for you.”
“I wasn’t raised by my father to be a coward. That’s enough!” said De Lima, who asked Duterte to stop, saying he was hell-bent on destroying her at all cost.
Despite being persecuted and harassed by the President and his allies, De Lima said she would not flee the country, despite advise from “some well-meaning friends” that she seek asylum abroad.
“I want to fight here in my country. I’m not a coward. Because I did nothing wrong,” De Lima said.
The President had earlier announced that De Lima would surely go to jail due to her involvement in illegal drugs.
De Lima admitted that she has been spending sleepless nights due to her current predicament. She said the grave accusations have taken a toll on her health and her well-being.
“It has a toll on my family. My family is suffering. If you only knew. If you ask me, how do you feel? Please ask me how do I feel? You know how I feel? No one in this room can imagine what’s inside me. I do not know why me? Do I deserve this? I certainly do not,” De Lima said.
“I’m just here, I’m just trying to do my job. I’m so distracted. Friends would ask me if I am still able to sleep, or eat… I am still able to eat… I still get to sleep, three to four hours, out of sheer exhaustion,” De Lima said.
“This is the worst challenge in its sheer brazenness… it’s almost surreal. It is unprecedented that a sitting President is doing this to a sitting senator,” she said
She likened the concerted attacks on her as a war.
“What they’re doing to me, because of the intense anger of one person who is now our President,” she said. But she reminded the President anew: “Do not blame me later when, all of a sudden, it all blows up in your face, Mr. President, and you will realize that all these are wrong, all these are not true.”
“They are harassing me. it’s too much. I am the one being attacked here and yet they do that? They blame everything on me. And they call themselves men…Are men like that? They are fools, cowards and liars. Are these the bunch of officials we have now?” said De Lima.
She also said that in seeking to destroy her, Duterte never considered how he would look in the eyes of the public and the world.
“You are the laughing stock, not me. I am innocent,” she said.
She took potshots at the people around the President who were aware of and took advantage of his anger toward her.
De Lima said these “shady characters,” some of whom can been seen during the House probe on illegal drugs, were instigating the President against her.
“They are taking advantage.. They are capitalizing on the personal vendetta on the part of the President…. They are provoking the President, feeding him with wrong information and lies,” she said.
Because of “a factory of lies,” she is suddenly known as the “Bilibid Drug Queen,” De Lima said.
She added that inmates at the NBP were being pressured to testify against her.
She called on the President and his allies to stop this madness and asked who will be their next victim.
“Who will be the next to be harassed? Who will be their next subject of a fabricated story, whose lives will they destroy… whose privacy will they destroy? “ De Lima said.
She said even former members of her staff were being approached to testify against her.
De Lima also said Duterte’s apology to Pangasinan Rep. Amado Espino Jr., Board Member Raul Sison and former provincial administrator Rafael Baraan, whom he had falsely accused of being involved in the drug trade, proved that he was not infallible.
“The President’s apology is a clear admission that there is really nothing in that ridicilous drug matrix that links me to the illegal drug trade. It is tragic that the highest official of the land has not only been fed lies and wrong information but also has listened to rumors and intrigues,” De Lima said.
Following De Lima’s emotional speech at the Senate, the President advised his most vocal critic to take a break to avoid a nervous breakdown.
“I would suggest that she takes days off… I am afraid that if she continues yakking… she will have a nervous breakdown,” Duterte said at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport before embarking for a two-day state visit to Vietnam.
“In all sincerity, as a human being, honestly, I am not trying to derogate her. She’s a lawyer. She’s bright. She’s breaking down,” he said.
