SEN. LEILA M. DE LIMA'S STATEMENT ON PRESIDENT DUTERTE'S THREAT TO SUSPEND WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS VS ILLEGAL DRUGS AND REBELLION IN MINDANAO

President Duterte should stop toying with the idea of suspending the writ of habeas corpus in his desperate attempt to legitimize his administration's flawed war against illegal drugs. To concede to this temptation would result to more innocent blood gushing, human dignity desecrated, and the basic human rights being blatantly violated.

Instead, the President should review what his administration has so far achieved when it placed the entire country under state of lawless violence against illegal drugs and terrorism for more than two months now. For one, it'd also do well to cure first the defects of its all-out campaign on drugs and curb its abuses to prevent extrajudicial killings and summary executions.

As I have repeatedly said there is no compelling reason(s) to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus because there is no perceived or actual threat of rebellion and invasion, which are the only cases allowed by our Constitution to justify the writ's suspension. The government's so-called 'war on drugs' does not fall into the category of either rebellion or much less, invasion.

The President has spent a lot of time talking about his sheer determination to stop illegal drugs in the country for the rest of his term. However, if he could just spend more time talking with the families of the victims, he'd understand what is fundamentally and dreadfully wrong with his war on drugs and why the planned suspension of the writ of habeas corpus sends dangerous message to the public.