Senator Leila De Lima claims that anonymous persons have started harassing her since Tuesday night and that she was unable to go home for fear of her safety after her address and cell phone number were made public during probe on illegal drugs in the House of Representatives.
“I condemn and vehemently protest the sheer indecency and foulness of allowing my cell phone number and home address to be publicly disclosed,” the senator declared.
De Lima said that allies of the administration have basically destroyed her right to privacy and security in her home and in her communications.
“I have no adequate words to express my utter dismay about the lack of foresight and/or utter lack of sheer humanity displayed today during what I can only describe as a blatant exercise in harassment and persecution that is the so-called House of Representatives inquiry,” expressed De Lima.
De Lima added she is now a persecuted person displaced from her home. “Worse, they have turned people into weapons of destruction,” she said.
De Lima has repeatedly alleged President Duterte as being behing the efforts to harass and pressure her after she launched a Senate probe into the drug-related extrajudicial killings that now exceeded 3,000 cases, based on her count.
“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,” said De Lima.
Human Rights Watch deputy director for Asia, Phelim Kine, yesterday accused lawmakers investigating the drug problem in the New Bilibid Prison of endangering the safety and security of De Lima by revealing her home address and mobile phone number on national television.
“Since that disclosure during the hearing, which was broadcast live on national television, De Lima has reported that she’s been besieged by hundreds of threatening phone calls and messages,” Kine said.
“We are aghast that the lawmakers presiding over the hearing, who are political allies of President Duterte, conducted it in a way that grossly violates the privacy and the rights of a sitting legislator. Her fellow legislators in both houses of Congress should denounce this attempt to silence and intimidate her.”
Kine added that since De Lima launched the Senate inquiry into the surge in killings related to the President's "war on drugs," she has been the target of the administration's nonstop campaign of harassment, intimidation and vilification that appears to designed to politically destroy the senator.
Source / Image: The Philippine Star
Share It To Your Friends!
