Kiko calls for Senate security for De Lima over safety fears

MANILA, Philippines — Sen. Francis Pangilinan appealed to the leadership of the Senate Friday to provide detained Sen. Leila De Lima security citing fears for her safety while in police detention.

Pangilinan, the president of the minority Liberal Party voiced his fear after the Senate pulled out its security personnel from the Philippine National Police Custodial Center.

He said that the Senate should have negotiated with the PNP to allow Senate security to stay nearby.

“Dapat nag-negotiate na makalapit ang OSSAA [Office of the Senate Sergeant-At-Arms], hindi yung 50 meters away,” Pangilinan said.

Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III on Wednesday told reporters that De Lima’s Senate security had been withdrawn from the PNP Custodial Center where the lady senator is detained on drug charges.

Pimentel said that since their OSSAA personnel were stationed far from De Lima’s detention cell, they had already been rendered “useless.”
It was learned that OSSAA personnel were removed on Monday.

Pangilinan’s appeal came amid continuing doubts on the capacity of police authorities to keep De Lima, the most vocal critic of President Rodrigo Duterte, safe and secure while under their custody.

De Lima on Thursday reiterated her concerns for her security. She said that despite assurances from the president and the PNP chief that she would be safe in Camp Crame, she does not feel secure.

She said Duterte "is capable of having me killed."

She also hinted at her vulnerability while in PNP detention.

“Anything can happen to me while in detention. While I have no complaints about my custodians- they are very professional and courteous- I feel complete defenseless here,” she said.

LP, De Lima’s party, seconded her concern for her safety.
 
To show its point, it cited the case of former Albuerta Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr., a drug suspect, who was killed by police officers in a detention center before dawn on Nov. 5, 2016. Another case was the killing of Korean businessman Jee Ick Joo who was kidnapped last October and later killed several meters away from Dela Rosa’s office in Camp Crame.

De Lima is detained in connection with three drug charges filed against her by the Department of Justice. The DOJ alleged that she profited from the trade of illegal drugs at the National Bilibid Prisons during her time as Justice secretary of the Aquino administration.

De Lima denied all allegations against her, saying that all these were part of an orchestrated campaign of Duterte to exact revenge against her following her stinging criticism of the chief executive’s drug war that has left more than 7,000 people dead.

Following the release of an arrest order against her and two others by Juanita Guerrero, presiding judge of Branch 204 of the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Muntinlupa City, De Lima turned herself in to authorities at the Senate on Friday.
 
Vice President Leni Robredo, the Liberal Party and various international groups condemned her arrest and branded it as “political harassment.”

LP said that her arrest was illegal because of weak of evidence, lack of due process and a lack of jurisdiction of the RTC that ordered her arrest over her case.