House Deputy Minority Leader and Mamamayang Liberal Rep. Leila de Lima criticized defense lawyer Nicholas Kaufman’s presentation of Rodrigo Duterte’s case during the former Philippine president’s confirmation of charges hearing before the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Monday, Feb. 23.
In a social media post following Day 1 of the week-long pre-trial proceedings, De Lima slammed Kaufman for romanticizing Duterte’s reign of terror to justify his words and actions that had real-life consequences for his alleged victims.
“His romanticized litany of Duterte’s life is something we have heard before from sycophants of strongmen who, like Duterte, justified their crimes as the necessary evil that only they dare to undertake for the cleansing of society,” said De Lima, a former Department of Justice (DOJ) secretary.
According to De Lima, “Kaufman cannot hope to fool the judges with that presentation which was clearly crafted for the people paying him and their DDS [Duterte Diehard Supporters] followers.”
“Making out Duterte to be an anti-rich crime buster action hero is Kaufman’s strategy to present the case as political persecution,” De Lima added. “In his effort to do so, he put conspiracy theorists to shame.”
Duterte, who has opted not to appear during the hearing, is facing charges of crimes against humanity for his bloody war against illegal drugs policy during his administration as mayor of Davao City and later as president.
In her privilege speech on Monday, De Lima said “for years, during the so-called “war on drugs,” thousands of Filipinos—overwhelmingly poor, urban, and marginalized—were killed in police operations and vigilante-style executions.”
She noted that “official figures acknowledged more than 6,000 deaths,” although “independent human rights groups estimate far more.”
“These deaths were not isolated incidents. They were not random acts of rogue officers. They were accompanied by public pronouncements encouraging lethal force,” De Lima emphasized.
On Tuesday, De Lima followed up her comments with an appeal to all Filipinos closely monitoring developments at the ICC.
“This is not a moment for triumphalism. It is not a moment for vengeance. It is a watershed moment for reckoning… For too long, the drug war was framed as a battle between order and chaos. But the real divide has always been between impunity and accountability,” she pointed out.
