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Senator Leila de Lima greets members of the press outside the PNP Custodial Jail in Camp Crame, Quezon City on November 13, 2023. De Lima was granted bail by Muntinlupa Regional Trial Court Judge Hon. Gener Gito and will be released after more than 6 years of incarceration. Maria Tan, ABS-CBN News
MANILA -- After languishing behind bars for nearly seven years, Philippine drug war critic Leila de Lima said she "never lost faith" that she would be freed.
De Lima -- a former senator, justice minister and human rights commissioner -- was one of the most vocal and powerful local critics of ex-president Rodrigo Duterte and his deadly drug war.
The 64-year-old paid a heavy price for her unflinching pursuit of justice, as Duterte and his allies sought to silence her.
She was forced from the Senate and into a jail cell on drug trafficking charges she and human rights groups have described as bogus.
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On Monday, de Lima was released from detention on bail, tearfully rejoicing in the freedom she had prayed for since her jailing in February 2017.
De Lima, a mother of two, had refused to be "destroyed" as Duterte vowed.
Instead, she tirelessly campaigned from her cell through handwritten letters and statements on issues she cared about deeply, including her own innocence, human rights and the rule of law.
"I never lost faith," de Lima told reporters after her release.
"This is vindication and I will further work for complete vindication because this case is not yet finished."
De Lima was a highly paid lawyer before she made a mid-career switch to human rights -- a decision that would draw her into the deadly world of Duterte.
In 2008, she accepted her first government post as chairwoman of the independent Commission on Human Rights.
During two years in the job she worked with a small team of lowly paid lawyers, investigating extrajudicial killings, abductions and human rights violations by the Philippines' notoriously corrupt security forces.
Another one of her main targets was Duterte, who had for years faced allegations of running death squads in the southern city of Davao when he was mayor that killed hundreds of drug addicts and petty criminals as part of a ruthless anti-crime campaign.
De Lima opened a probe into the so-called Davao Death Squads.
She left the commission with the probe unfinished in 2010 to become justice secretary in the administration of Benigno Aquino, who swept to power on a pledge to fight corruption.
As justice secretary she prosecuted cases linked to the misuse of huge amounts of legislators' so-called pork-barrel funds, and raided the country's biggest prison to dismantle the perks accorded to inmates convicted of drug offences.
She left the cabinet in late 2015 to run for the Senate, winning a seat the following year at the same time Duterte was elected president.
As Duterte launched a Davao-style anti-crime crackdown across the Philippines that would go on to claim thousands of lives, de Lima was one of the few politicians willing to criticize him.
"I will have to destroy her in public," Duterte said in August 2016, and then proceeded to build a case alleging she was one of the nation's biggest drug traffickers.
"Throughout my entire life, I never imagined myself becoming a victim of a human rights violation myself," de Lima said previously.
As de Lima left the courtroom, surrounded by police and journalists, she thanked President Ferdinand Marcos's administration for "respecting the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law".
But her legal ordeal is not yet over -- she still faces life in prison if convicted of drug trafficking.
De Lima said she was determined that people would know "the truth of my innocence".
"I want people to know what happened. I want the people to know who are behind it in due time," she said defiantly.
Of Duterte, she said: "He knows what he did to me."
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