MANILA – The release on bail of former senator Leila de Lima following the retractions of state witnesses should pave the way for the release of other political prisoners who are also victims of political persecution, according to a support group of political prisoners.
“The wrongful detention of Sen. de Lima for nearly seven years would not have happened had the Department of Justice upheld the rule of law from the beginning and rejected the filing of false cases against the fiercest critic of former President Duterte and his failed drug war,” Kapatid spokesperson Fides Lim said in a statement.
“There are 777 more political prisoners who likewise face utterly baseless charges like illegal possession of firearms and explosives that were in fact planted to deny them the right to bail,” she added.
She cited the case of her husband, longtime activist Vicente Ladlad, and the husband-and-wife couple Alberto and Virginia Villamor. The three political prisoners marked their fifth year of “unjust detention” at Camp Bagong Diwa, in Bicutan, Taguig City.
Ladlad, a peace consultant of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), and his two companions were arrested on Nov. 8, 2018, in Quezon City for illegal possession of firearms and grenades. The case of illegal possession of explosives is nonbailable.
NDFP is the political arm of the Communist Party of the Philippines. At the time, President Duterte scrapped the peace talks between the government and the communist rebels.
Lim and other progressive and human rights groups, however, claimed the guns and grenades were planted by the police.
“Kapatid calls on the Department of Justice to stop from allowing itself to be used as an instrument of political persecution by concocting cases to keep dissenters and activists in prolonged detention,” Lim said. (Dexter Cabalza © Philippine Daily Inquirer)
