De Lima denounces fake news about her supposed death

Detained Sen. Leila de Lima is set to file charges against a YouTube creator who spread lies that she has died while in detention.

De Lima, one of President Rodrigo Duterte's fiercest critics, said she has instructed her legal team to file the necessary legal action "against those responsible for this fake news."

This, after YouTube channel Banat Trending News released a video entitled: "JUST IN! SAWAKAS PDUTERTE! SEN. DELIMA CONFIRMED! PUMANA4AW NA?”

"Why are my enemies and detractors so afraid of me, that they have to spread the fake news on YouTube and social media that I am already dead? Who is behind this Banat Trending News on YouTube that is still getting views from many viewers despite the blatant lies and fake news that it peddles in all of its posted videos?" she said in a press statement.

She added: "I am as healthy as I need to be and as long as I have to in order to bring all those responsible for my persecution before the bars of justice."

De Lima, 62, was one of the most vocal and powerful local critics of Duterte after he took power in 2016 and launched a deadly drug war -- until he and his allies tried to stifle her.

Before her arrest on February 24, 2017, de Lima spent a decade investigating "death squad" killings allegedly orchestrated by Duterte during his time as Davao City mayor and then in the early days of his presidency.

She conducted the probes while serving as the nation's human rights commissioner, then from 2010 to 2015 as justice secretary in the Benigno Aquino administration that preceded Duterte's rule.

De Lima is running for re-election in the May 2022 elections despite being forced from the Senate and into a jail cell for the past five years on drug trafficking charges she and human rights groups call a mockery of justice.

In her statement, De Lima described the fake news of her death "an abomination of all sense of decency, fairness, and morality."

"It is not enough that I have already been unjustly imprisoned for more than five years. It is not enough that I am running for re-election with the handicap of campaigning from jail, without being able to go out to talk directly to voters about my program of government and convince them why I deserve a renewed mandate," she said.

"It is not enough that I’m not being allowed to conduct live video and audio interviews with the media, or participate in senatorial candidates’ debates and fora as if the mere sight of my face and sound of my voice will cause some instability or be a threat to national security. All of these are not enough, for them to still go on spreading lies to derail my campaign, handicapped as it already is. What these people are doing is already beyond condemnation." With Agence France-Presse