De Lima’s Statement on Calls for Her to Explain Proliferation of Illegal Drugs

Senator Leila De Lima issued a statement on 21 December 2016 on calls for her to explain proliferation of illegal drug trade during her days as Secretary of the Department of Justice.

It’s saddening and frightening that even high-ranking public figures have swallowed hook, line and sinker the fantasy that the Duterte administration has been weaving: that a single person was single-handedly responsible for the proliferation of drugs in our country, and that it took place only over the course of my term as Secretary of Justice.

It is frightening because buying into that fallacy exposes us to the dangerously myopic oversimplification of the problem, which will prevent us from truly solving it because we can’t even admit that the problem is systemic. It will not be solved by forming a lynch mob to gang up on a scapegoat. It will not be solved by denying facts, including about the source of the drugs that flow into our country and complicity of law enforcers on the ground—the very same law enforcers who are now given license to kill and plant evidence on those killed.

You can call me High Priestess of all that is evil and corrupt all you want, but repeating it will not make it true, or succeed in ferreting out the true problems and real, lasting solutions to solving them. It will not change the fact that people are dying either.