By Ryah Sunday Carreon and Jamie Andrea Turalba SEN. LEILA de Lima accused the Malacañang on Tuesday of manipulating the riot inside the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) Building 14 which resulted to the death of convicted drug lord with three injured inmates, along with forcing the inmates to testify against her. “The official version of the DOJ (Department of Justice) is that this was a riot, of course we do not know yet at this point,” de Lima said in a press conference on Tuesday. “I’m not discounting the fact that this is another way of the government persuading the Bilibid 19 to testify against me, and that this incident should serve as a lesson to those who refused to cooperate with the government,” she added.
After being dubbed by Aguirre and the Malacañang as the 'Bilibid Drug Queen’, de Lima eyed the possibility that the ‘riot’ is the Palace’s way of sending a message to prisoners who refused to implicate her. “To threaten them with violence and murder simply because they refused to be used in the ongoing house hearing is the height of mafia tactics and gangster style operations that makes this government worse than a narco-state,” de Lima said. The Building 14 of NBP housed the drug-lords or the so-called “Bilibid 19” including Tony Co who was killed during the riot, and three other injured convicts Jaybee Sebastian, Peter Co and Vicente Sy. Duterte is not Jesus Christ “No amount of apologies from the president will bring back the dead to life,” De Lima reiterated on the problems of extrajudicial killings and death penalty. She added that Duterte is not Jesus Christ who can bring back Lazarus to life in contrary to his fanatic supporters’ beliefs and insisted she had nothing to do with the drug matrix the President came up with which also involved three provincial officers that supposedly protected her linkage to it. “It is tragic that the highest official of the land has not only been fed lies and wrong information but also has listened to rumors and intrigues,” she said. She reiterated that the alleged drug matrix, as she pointed out before, is nothing but trash and should therefore not be given any grain of credibility. De Lima said Duterte’s wrong information casts serious doubts upon the people. “Arrest me now” Before ending her speech, she challenged the president to arrest her now. “Huluhin niyo na ako ngayon. Kung ‘yan naman ang gusto niyo, ikulong niyo na ko ngayon,” she said. De Lima repeated that she is innocent and that stories were made up to discredit her. “I feel so helpless.” She said she will not leave the country because there is nothing to escape from, contrary to the advices from her colleagues and friends. “Do what you want, Mr. President,” de Lima said. “I’ll wait for you.” E
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