A member of the Philippine Senate has been forced into hiding because she had the temerity to stand up to President Duterte. Leila de Lima is sitting at a square table sharing a meal with some of her political allies in a meeting room in a Manila hotel.
Two young male aides stand guard outside the room; they ask that her hotel not be named. Since 20 September, when her address and cellphone number were read out at a congressional hearing, De Lima, 57, has moved between the homes of friends and relatives. She has received death threats and is now too afraid to spend the night at her own house, where she lives alone. Since Duterte assumed office on 30 June, he has followed through on his pledge to pursue a war on drugs.
In his first days, roughly 3, Filipinos were shot dead in police operations or vigilante-style executions. The crackdown has sparked outrage overseas: politicians and officials in the US, the United Nations and Europe have all slammed the Philippine leader. De Lima first publicly stood up to Duterte in August, when, as the chair of the Senate justice committee, she launched hearings into the surge of killings. He also suggested she should hang herself.
Matobato also said Duterte had shot dead a federal investigator with a machine gun. Political allies, led by Manny Pacquiao, the boxing superstar who became a senator in May, ousted her as committee chair. Around the same time, she started receiving death threats. The video would purportedly help establish how close she was to the driver, they argued.
The President has also said he loses his appetite every time he views the purported sex tape. He has not explained why he has watched it more than once. De Lima says she does not know if she is featured in the sex tape, if it exists. She acknowledges previously having a relationship with the driver but insists that is a private matter, irrelevant to bribery claims that she denies.
