Leila de Lima

(born 1959)

“No high concrete walls, barbed wires, or caged environment can silence me. I remain free in spirit and unbroken.”

Years in political office: 2010–present

Position: Philippines senator, 2016–present; secretary of justice, 2010–2015; chair of Philippine Commission on Human Rights, 2008–2010

Party affiliation: Liberal

Hometown: Iriga, Camarines Sur, Philippines

Top causes: human rights, electoral justice, climate change, and abolishing the death penalty

Life Story

Leila de Lima, who would become one of her country’s loudest voices for democracy, was born thirteen years after the Philippines declared its independence from the United States. De Lima comes from a family that is big on the will of the people—her beloved dad, Vicente de Lima, a lawyer, was even appointed to oversee the Philippines’ national elections. But unfortunately for the island nation, when Leila de Lima was still a kid, the twenty-year dictatorial regime of Ferdinand Marcos began. By the time it ended in 1986, Marcos had stolen some $10 billion from the impoverished country and instigated repressive military violence against his fellow Filipinos.

From an early age, de Lima proved to be a bright student, eventually following in her father’s footsteps and going to San Beda College of Law in Manila, the capital of the Philippines. Marcos’s reign ended just as she was waiting to hear whether she had passed the bar exam, and she received the eighth-highest score in the country. De Lima started working for a Supreme Court judge and then became one of the country’s few female election lawyers.

Impressed by her record, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo named de Lima chair of the country’s commission on human rights in 2008. De Lima tore into her duties ferociously, taking on some of the country’s most brazenly corrupt politicians. Perhaps no one concerned her more than Rodrigo Duterte, who spent twenty-two years as the mayor of Davao City. De Lima found that Duterte was enlisting vigilante death squads to kill drug dealers and addicts—and, by his own admission, sometimes even slaughtering them personally.

Fatefully, de Lima was elected to the Senate the same day Duterte was elected president in 2016. He had won by a landslide, powered to the top office by Filipinos who were sick of violence in the country and supported Duterte’s dramatic solutions to combat crime. During his campaign, he made it clear who he would hold responsible for the country’s issues: “All of you who are into drugs, you sons of bitches, I will really kill you.” Soon after his election, the death squads started to kill people—primarily poor people. This violent spree reportedly cost a staggering six thousand lives in the first six months of Duterte’s presidency.

What’s on Her Agenda

Those familiar with de Lima’s tenacious nature were not surprised when the senator dug into Duterte’s murderous campaigns. Her human rights committee investigation scored a real victory when Edgar Matobato testified that he participated in over fifty death squad operations at Duterte’s behest. Matobato even dropped the bombshell that Duterte had ordered him to kill de Lima on one of her trips to Davao City in 2009.

In response to the confession, Duterte publicly exposed a long-running, consensual romantic relationship between de Lima and her driver-bodyguard. At one of his political rallies, Duterte even told de Lima to hang herself. Meanwhile, his allies swung into action. Days after Matobato testified, de Lima was removed from her position as head of the country’s human rights committee in a motion led by senator and eight-time world champion Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao. Charges of drug trafficking came next—the president’s administration claimed that as secretary of justice, de Lima had accepted bribes from gang bosses.

Many doubted the truthfulness of these charges, and throughout the ordeal, de Lima kept her head up. “All of this—the slut-shaming, the threats—it’s unprecedented,” she said. “No one has ever been subjected to this by a sitting president.” She delivered an impassioned speech for justice in the Philippines before being arrested in February 2017 and sent to prison, where she remains. Duterte’s drug war is said to have killed over twenty thousand people.

Incredibly, de Lima continues to serve as a senator from inside her cell, even sponsoring legislation and speaking out against the president’s intention to reinstate the death penalty. She’s become a symbol of resistance to Duterte’s presidency and its most awful crimes. Global human rights groups continue to rally for her release.

Awesome Achievements

Quotables

“My consolation is that I’m living in a prison of truth and conscience, while my tormentors are living in a prison of lies and deceptions.”

“Let us fight for our rights, let us fight for justice, let us fight for democracy.”

“If there is any way that a diamond can compare to a woman, it is in its strength. A woman is resilient, a woman is unbreakable.”

“Slowly, eventually, inevitably, the truth will set me free.”