Detained former senator, Leile De Lima, says she suffered ‘a near death experience’ when 3 terror suspects tried to escape

Church groups in the Philippines have called for reforms in the justice and penal system after a prominent politician being held in detention was briefly taken hostage in jail by alleged terrorists.

Leile De Lima, an ex-senator, lawyer, and vocal critic of former president Rodrigo Duterte, was held hostage at Camp Crame, the Philippine National Police Custodial Center,  in Quezon City in Manila on Oct. 9.   

A suspected member of the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group reportedly entered her cell and threatened her with a knife while two others attempted to escape the prison. The militants, detained for kidnapping and beheading foreign hostages, were later reportedly shot dead by police.   

De Lima, a former human rights commissioner and justice secretary, investigated Duterte’s alleged death squad, supposedly tasked to kill drug suspects when the former president was the mayor of Davao City.

She was arrested in 2017 during Duterte’s time as president on charges of having links to drug lords. Critics say the charges against her were fabricated.

Talking about her ordeal, De Lima said she had a “near-death experience,” while enduring more than five years of “unjust detention.”

“He was certain he would also be killed and he might just as well also kill me”

“On top of this ordeal, I also had to survive the knife of a fellow detainee who took me hostage in a desperate attempt to make known their grievances to the public,” De Lima said in a statement.

“After being told by the hostage-taker that since his two other companions were already dead, he was certain he would also be killed and he might just as well also kill me, I consider what happened to me as a near-death experience,” De Lima added.

Following the hostage crisis, Interior Secretary Benhur Abalos said the government is sincere about the security and safety of De Lima and other inmates.

“One thing I can say right now and can assure you, our president said the important thing is for everyone and former Senator Leila de Lima to be safe. That’s why he is looking for somewhere De Lima could be safe. We looked for another place, but Senator De Lima said she feels very safe where she is.,” Abalos told reporters on Oct. 10.

Bishop Pablo Virgilio David, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) condemned the incident saying the country’s justice system was “terribly wrong”.

“What happens when the weighing scales in the hand of lady justice are tilted but it is the nation that’s blindfolded?” Bishop David said in a statement.

“When the real criminals who should be in jail are scot-free and the ones who hold criminals accountable are made to languish in jail, then you can be sure that there is something terribly wrong with the justice system,” Bishop David said.

“It was the authorities’ duty to make sure all security protocols were in place”

Teresa Montero, a member of the Catholic group, Jesuit Prison Ministry, called on the authorities to investigate whether the inmates who sought to flee suffered from psychological problems due to harsh conditions.

She said in prison ministry they are taught to pray, to trust in the Lord and fellow men, and to wait, and urged people not to judge the inmates for their misdeeds alone.

“Prisoners were often judged by society as hopeless. But we taught them to believe in themselves, that they can still change for the better because God created them as good,” Teresa Montero told UCA News.

Montero also said that it was the authorities’ duty to make sure all security protocols were in place, so prisoners could not entirely be blamed.

“When you are in a detention facility, protocols must be followed because the assumption is always prisoners will escape. The fact that the three of them did try, most probably out of depression, tells a lot about how our authorities take prison security lightly,” Montero added.

Rights groups say Filipino prisoners suffer from overcrowding and a lack of basic facilities.

In 2019, Amnesty International reported that the Philippines had more than 215,000 prisoners, or 200 prisoners per 100,000 citizens in about 1,000 prisons.

Philippine National Police data showed as of May 2021 about 117,300 people were in prisons across the country.

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