Dispatch from Crame No. 714:
Sen. Leila M. de Lima on the Efforts of Ambassador Romualdez and DFA Secretary Locsin to Sanitize her Persecution

PH Ambassador to the US Babes Romualdez and DFA Secretary Teddyboy Locsin are trying hard to convince US officials that I am going through the regular Philippine judicial process. They obviously want to impress upon them that I'm no victim of persecution.

A superficial report by Amb. Romualdez on the status of my cases will not convince the US Senators to change their minds on the questionable character of the charges against me. What they need are answers to questions about my persecution - the intensity of the vilification, slut-shaming, and character assassination, the coordinated assault of a whole government machinery on my person, and Duterte's declaration of my guilt way before any official investigation or trial even started.

As articulated already by the proponent US Senators, they have not seen any credible evidence against me. The fact that there is an ongoing trial does not at all negate the fact of persecution. The trial is based on fake charges and manufactured evidence. The trial is the mere backdrop to the stage of persecution in Duterte's theater of the macabre.

SFA Locsin reportedly told his US counterparts that the Philippine justice system is a mirror image of the United States'.

It's the perfect analogy, Mr. Locsin, because a mirror image is actually a reverse image of reality, even while it superficially replicates it. A mirror image of "justice" is its reverse, in this case injustice and oppression, its mimicry only successful in reflecting the superficial aspects of justice, its window dressings, but all the while its underpinnings epitomize the travesty of justice.

This is the Philippine justice system under Duterte, which only makes sense when understood from the perspective of Lawfare, or the weaponization of the law and the deployment of the strong arm of the State to immobilize and obliterate opposition and dissent.

Unwittingly, Mr. Locsin has made it perfectly clear to the US what justice is in the Philippines in the time of Duterte.