MANILA, Philippines — Now on her third Christmas spent in detention, Sen. Leila de Lima called the United States Congress bill that sought to bar her detainers from entering the country a "most wonderful Christmas blessing."
A staunch critic of the Duterte administration, particularly the president's so-called "war on drugs," De Lima has been in detention since 2017.
Related Stories
She has long held that the drug-related allegations against her are trumped-up and politically-motivated.
'Better days are coming'
“I hope that this is my last Christmas in detention so that my normal life as a mother, grandmother, daughter, sister and as a duly-elected Senator be now restored,” she said.
According to a press statement released Wednesday, the former Commission on Human Rights chair enjoyed a simple Christmas lunch with family and friends in the Custodial Center of the Philippine National Police, in Camp Crame, Quezon City.
“I wish that more and more patriotic men and women and pro-democracy forces join the ranks of those persistently working for a return of a just, humane and decent Philippine society,” she said in her press statement.
“Despite the struggles Filipinos continue to endure under an anti-human rights government, I hope that we can all remain optimistic that better days are coming if we choose to fight for what is right."
Throughout her detention, De Lima has had the vocal support of the international community. The United Nations Human Rights Council, for instance, has also tagged De Lima's arrest as "politically motivated" owing to her vocal criticisms of the Duterte administration.
Human rights defenders in particular have drawn the ire of the administration. Data from rights monitor Karapatan recorded 89,534 counts of threat, harassment, and intimidation of activists and rights advocates between July 2016 and June 2019.
Most wonderful Christmas blessing
On Monday, US President Donald Trump signed the country's 2020 budget which included a provision banning officials implicated in the arrest of De Lima, along with other foreign world leaders they say were involved in the illegal detention of United States nationals.
The provision recognized these as wrongful human rights abuses and invoked the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, which gives the executive branch of the US government the ability to impose travel and financial restrictions on those deemed to be human rights violaters anywhere in the world.
READ: 2020 US budget includes ban on people behind 'wrongful imprisonment' of De Lima
In response, the Philippine Embassy called on the United States to respect the archipelago's domestic laws.
“More than denying travel visas to subject PH officials, GloMag also imposes the freezing and forfeiture of their US assets, properties, and bank accounts,” she said of this in a separate statement on Wednesday.
"Once this is also implemented, we will witness how the world of human rights violators in the Philippine government increasingly shrinks."
“This will teach them that human rights is not a domestic concern, but a universal interest that affects the security of all nations, regardless of where the violations occur,” she added.