Critic wrongly jailed by former president of Philippines hopes to return to politics
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Leila de Lima enraged Rodrigo Duterte when she began investigating killings carried out during his ‘war on drugs’. Leila de Lima, one of fiercest critics of the former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody “war on drugs” who was jailed for more than six years on baseless charges, will try to return to politics in 2025.
![[Sara Duterte speaks from a podium]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/70889b3746f86d571f89a74d382706ad0277f710/0_18_2000_1200/master/2000.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
De Lima was one of the few politicians who criticised Duterte during his time in office, and enraged the former leader when she began investigating killings carried out during his anti-drugs crackdowns. She knew to expect retaliation, she said. “I thought it would just be regular vilification, the slut-shaming, the verbal attacks,” she said. She did not anticipate that she would spend more than six and a half years in prison.
Finally free, and vindicated by the courts in the summer, she hopes to return to national politics next year and will run as the lead party list nominee of Mamamayang Liberal, a new party formed as a wing of the once-ruling Liberal party, in midterm elections in May 2025. The party promises to champion the rights of marginalised groups, including fishers, farmers, women, youth, the poorest communities in cities, and LGBTQ+ people.
De Lima said she remained committed to ensuring justice for victims of the war on drugs. “It’s been more than seven years already, and justice for them has been so elusive,” she said of victims’ families. As many as 30,000 people, mostly men, are estimated to have been killed during the crackdowns.
