A longtime critic of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was arrested on drug charges

(Image credit: Ted Aljibe/AFP/Getty Images)

published 24 February 2017

Leila de Lima, a senator in the Philippines and one of President Rodrigo Duterte's most vocal critics, was arrested Friday on drug-trafficking charges.

On Thursday, de Lima was indicted over allegations that from 2010 to 2015, during her tenure as justice secretary, she allowed the drug trade to thrive in the national jail, Bloomberg reports. Before surrendering to authorities, de Lima told reporters she is "innocent" and there is "no truth to allegations that I benefited from the illegal drug trade, that I took drug money, that I protected drug convicts — these are all lies." The current justice secretary, Vitaliano Aguirre, denied that de Lima's arrest was politically motivated, saying probable cause had been established.

De Lima has led the opposition to Duterte's war on drugs, which he launched last year after he took office. While Duterte was mayor of Davao, de Lima was in charge of the Commission on Human Rights, which investigated how he was handling drug use and dealing in the city. If convicted, de Lima faces life in prison and a fine. "It is my honor to be jailed for the things I fight for," she said, defiantly adding that she won't stop "fighting for truth and justice against the daily killings and other abuses of the Duterte regime."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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