De Lima thanks minority senators for filing reso seeking her release

Former Senator Leila de Lima on Wednesday expressed gratitude to the minority senators who have filed a resolution seeking her release.

In the resolution, Senate Minority Leader Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III and Senator Risa Hontiveros sought the release of the former senator from "unjust and arbitrary detention.”

They also urged the Department of Justice (DOJ) to drop the remaining charges against the opposition figure.

“Thank you Senators Risa Hontiveros and Koko Pimentel for sponsoring the Senate resolution urging the DOJ to withdraw the remaining cases against me,” De Lima said in a statement.

“I am deeply moved by this most profound gesture of support from former Senate colleagues who continue to remind the world of my unjust detention and my cry for freedom,” she added.

Hontiveros said the resolution, which was filed on July 14, enumerates the experience of the former senator in the past five years and also includes the witnesses' recantation of testimonies against De Lima.

De Lima has been detained at the Philippine National Police (PNP) Custodial Center in Camp Crame, Quezon City since February 2017 over allegations that she allowed the illegal drug trade to proliferate inside the New Bilibid Prison during her term as Justice secretary.

Her alleged complicity in the sale of illegal drugs was supposedly in exchange for funds for her senatorial campaign in 2016, a charge she has repeatedly denied and claimed to have been fabricated by the Duterte administration.

A drug case against De Lima was junked by the Muntinlupa RTC Branch 205 in February last year. The senator is also facing drug cases that are pending before Branches 204 and 256.

Earlier this year, high-profile witnesses recanted their testimony against De Lima: self-confessed drug lord Kerwin Espinosa, who had testified that De Lima was part of the illegal drug trade inside the New Bilibid Prison; and  former Bureau of Corrections officer-in-charge Rafael Ragos, who retracted his claim that De Lima received millions in proceeds from the prison drug trade from him.

Espinosa's bodyguard Marcelo Adorco also recanted his statement against De Lima. A prosecution witness, convicted murderer Joel Capones, also denied in open court that he had transacted with De Lima.

Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla said he would look into the witnesses' recanted statements. — BM, GMA News