De Lima tells Duterte to present plans instead of peddling lies

Previous Department of Justice secretary and senatorial aspirant  Leila de Lima on Wednesday scored presidential wannabe Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte for saying that the organization neglected to control the illegal drug trade in the New Bilibid Prisons (NBP) in Muntinlupa City. 

Responding to Duterte's announcement amid the second presidential debate in Cebu last Sunday, De Lima, who is running under a Liberal Party-drove coalition, trumpeted the assumed institutional changes in the state prison that she started when she was DOJ chief. 

De Lima said in a statement, “Rather than peddling lies and hurling baseless attacks, Mayor Duterte will be better appreciated if he can present a better proposal for improving our correctional system and sustaining the reforms.”

“It is not true that the Aquino administration did not do anything in fixing the correctional system,” De Lima added.


In the second presidential debate authorized by the Commission on Elections at the University of the Philippines Cebu, the intense talking Duterte blamed the legislature for permitting syndicates to produce illegal drugs in the Bilibid. 

As remembered, Duterte hit Roxas during the second debate about illegal drugs. “This administration allowed shabu to be cooked inside a national penitentiary.  Is that your performance?”

Attempting to demonstrate her point, De Lima refered to "Oplan Galugad" which she began as DOJ chief that "set a pattern in controlling debasement in the state detainment facilities." 

“Given the number of times Oplan Galugad was conducted, it should be clear to everyone that there is no shabu laboratory at the NBP,” De Lima said. “During my term as DOJ Secretary, we instituted reforms in the correctional system. I personally went to the NBP to crack down on these illegal activities.”

De Lima added, “We also demolished the kubols (private quarters) they set up. We then had a new security facility for these high profile inmates.” 

De Lima, who additionally served as seat of the Commission on Human Rights, conceded that debasement stays to be the offender behind drug trade and different issues bothering the NBP. 

“Other reforms are still on the way and I intend to fill some of these gaps in the legislature,” De Lima said, adding that she additionally proposed to assemble another remedial office in Nueva Ecija.

De Lima already said she will battle Duterte's presidential offer in the event that he proceeds with his iron-clench hand style of initiative and way to deal with wrongdoing. As head of DOJ, De Lima started the examination on reports about the presence of an asserted Davao Death Squad, to which the neighborhood official has been connected.

Source: Inquirer

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