SENATOR Leila de Lima should not have been ousted, but instead, should have inhibited herself from being chairman of the Senate Justice Committee even before any hearing started. After all, she has also been accused of being part of the drug syndicate while she was still justice secretary during Pres. Benigno Aquino III’s term.
This writer presents this opinion not because of what the pro-Duterte senators who voted to strip De Lima of that power, which she allegedly used to smear President Rodrigo Duterte’s name and leadership. De Lima should have inhibited herself from presiding over any hearings and investigations in the Senate Justice Committee because of delicadeza.
Even before the presentation of the star witness Edgar Matobato — a self-confessed hitman who testified last week that Duterte ordered death squad killings when the latter was still Davao mayor — there were already doubts about De Lima’s impartiality in presiding over drug-related cases in the Senate. Especially so, since she could be the subject of the investigation because of her alleged involvement in the drug cartels inside New Bilibid Prison while she was DOJ chief.
De Lima’s inhibiting herself in presiding over these cases would not mean she was guilty of the accusations fired against her by no less than Pres. Duterte himself, as she had been among the most outspoken critics of the president. She was, after all, the one who initiated the probe into Duterte’s savage campaign to kill drug users and drug dealers with little, if any, due process.
De Lima should be presumed innocent until proven guilty in court, a principle stipulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights — which she has been fighting for on behalf of those 3,000+ people who could have been killed without due process and in violation of the rule of law.
But this writer believes the integrity of the Senate should supersede De Lima’s right to be chairman, if only to keep the Filipino people’s faith in it as an august body investigating these cases. This would even earn the respect of doubters who think she is already guilty.
HOWEVER, on the flip side of this issue, critics of the Duterte administration believe this move of “demoting” De Lima could have just robbed the Senate of its independence in objectively hearing cases against Duterte’s alleged human rights violations in his war against drugs.
An international human rights group already spoke out against the ouster of Lima.
As ABS-CBN News reported, New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the Senate should seek de Lima’s reinstatement as chair of the committee on Justice and Human Rights.
“The Senate vote to remove the chair of the Committee on Justice and Human Rights is a craven attempt to derail accountability for the appalling death toll from President Duterte’s abusive ‘war on drugs,’” said Phelim Kine, deputy Asia director at HRW.
Kine contended that the Senate “is imperiling the Philippine public by covering up allegations of state-sanctioned murder rather than exposing them.”
THE BOTTOM LINE IS: the truth should come out of the hearings for the good of the Filipino people. Should De Lima be reinstated as chair of the Senate Committee on Justice and Human Rights?
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Gel Santos Relos is the anchor of TFC’s “Balitang America.” Views and opinions expressed by the author in this column are are solely those of the author and not of Asian Journal and ABS-CBN-TFC. For comments, go to www.TheFil-AmPerspective.com, https://www.facebook.com/Gel.Santos.Relos
