FORMER senator Leila de Lima said women must find the courage to confront injustices, especially at a “chaotic” time in the country following former president Rodrigo Duterte’s arrest.
Speaking before an audience joined by women religious, priests and seminarians, De Lima — one of Duterte’s staunchest critics who was jailed on trumped-up drug charges during his administration — praised the strength of the mothers of extrajudicial killing (EJK) victims, calling them some of the “most courageous” women she had met.
De Lima recounted the story of Emily Soriano, whose 15-year-old son Eme was shot dead in an anti-drug war operation in 2016.
She also mentioned the case of Mary Jane Veloso, a trafficking victim sentenced to death in Indonesia but later repatriated to the Philippines in 2024, and Reina Mae Nasino, a human rights worker jailed for alleged illegal possession of firearms and whose infant daughter’s death while in custody sparked public outcry in 2020.
In all these stories, De Lima said, women showed a “depth of resilience.”
“I have learned in the most painstaking way that what happened to me is but a fragment of the larger struggle that many Filipinos face every single day — the fight to live freely with dignity and with justice,” De Lima said in her keynote address for the “Women and Justice” forum organized by the UST Central Seminary on March 31.
“Justice is about every Filipino who has been forgotten,” she added.
De Lima, who is running for Congress under the Mamamayang Liberal party-list group, maintained her innocence on the politically motivated charges in a 2017 interview with the Varsitarian from her jail cell.
In the exclusive interview, she urged Filipinos to rise against the culture of death promoted by the Duterte government.
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De Lima, who was released from detention in 2023 after multiple key witnesses recanted their testimonies, called Duterte’s recent arrest a “surreal” example of justice finally catching up in the end.
She emphasized that the fight for justice is not merely political.
“It is about the mother whose child was killed without due process or the wife whose husband was mercilessly killed also without due process — victims of the former president’s murderous and sham war on drugs,” she said.
“Justice is about being seen, being heard, and being treated with dignity. As women, we are no strangers to injustice.”
De Lima has had a wealth of experience in dealing with Duterte’s EJK cases, beginning during her time as chair of the Commission on Human Rights when the former president was still mayor of Davao.
In 2017, Amnesty International listed her among the women human rights defenders under threat, and in 2018, named her the Most Distinguished Human Rights Defender for Individuals.
Borrowing the adage, De Lima said that the youth — especially young women — are not only the future of the nation, but also its present.
“Your voice matters now. Your courage matters now,” she said. “Your choices, what you study, what you believe in, what you stand up for — those things shape the country we are becoming.”
“Do not wait for permission to lead, to care, or to fight for what is right. Justice begins with empathy. And women, Filipino women, have never lacked that.”
