Unbroken: the Philippine senator opposing Duterte’s drug war, from behind bars
Senator Leila de Lima was an outspoken critic of the Philippine president’s crackdown on drugs that has killed more than 7,000 people. Now languishing in a cell on drug charges of her own, she refuses to be just another victim
The police mugshot of Senator Leila de Lima may be a little grainy, but her expression is clear. It says: I am not afraid.
It’s a stoicism the former secretary of justice of the Philippines has kept up since she was arrested last month on drug-related charges many believe are a thinly veiled attempt to silence the outspoken critic of President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs. That war has claimed the lives of more than 7,000 people since Duterte took office in June, many of them in extrajudicial killings that have horrified human rights campaigners who say he is steamrolling the rule of law.
Against such a background, De Lima has plenty of reasons to fear for her safety – not least among them the fact she now resides in a 120 sq ft cell at the national police headquarters alongside 25 male detainees – some of whom she herself investigated and indicted.
Yet De Lima is a fighter, and isn’t afraid of bringing her fight to the world. When a press scrum surrounded the police van taking her into custody on February 24, she wore that same calm expression she would later use for the mugshot, staring into the cameras and signing an “L” for laban (fight).
“My arrest is an appalling sign of the return of a power-hungry, morally bankrupt and abusive government. As we expected, the Department of Justice filed criminal cases against me based on manufactured stories accusing me of involvement in the drug trade,” the senator said before her arrest.
“I have long prepared myself to be a political prisoner of this regime.”