Drug war now targets lawyers — De Lima

FILE: Opposition Senator Leila de Lima. (Photo: Senate of the Philippines/Facebook)

Opposition Senator Leila de Lima on Saturday, August 18, said lawyers are now the ‘target’ of the government’s war on drugs.

“The message is clear. The police is no longer making any distinction between lawyers defending clients and the target of police operations,” de Lima said in a statement.

“Lawyers are now fair game as targets of the drug war,” she added.

De Lima said this after three lawyers — Jan Vincent Soliven, Lenie Rocel Rocha, and Romulo Bernard Alarcon — were arrested and detained for allegedly committing “obstruction of justice” while monitoring a police search operation at the Time in Manila bar in Makati City which was allegedly selling party drugs to customers.

One of the owners of the Time in Manila bar was represented by Desierto & Desierto law firm where the three lawyers work.

The Southern Police District (SPD) said the lawyers took photos and videos of the inspection without permission from the police, but according to lawyers’ boss, Diane Desierto, the three were merely doing their jobs as their client asked their firm to send lawyers to monitor and watch the authorities as they were conducting the search.

Desierto added that her attorneys ‘respectfully’ told the police that they were the legal counsels of the establishment’s owner; however, one of the police officers “thought they were being ‘arrogant’ and immediately arrested them.”

In her statement, de Lima said by arresting the lawyers who were just defending its client from a raiding team of the Philippine National Police (PNP), “the police were responding in the only manner that they know since they were unleashed like dogs by their master in Malacañang two years ago.”

The former Chief Justice did not only slam the police officers but also President Rodrigo Duterte, who launched the anti-illegal drug campaign.

“Maybe it is only ironic that the mastermind of this breakdown in the rule of law, where even lawyers are no longer safe, is a lawyer himself,” de Lima stressed.

“Tokhang is no longer for the poor and defenseless alone. Lawyers are also now in the PNP’s line of sight. Everyone is now equal, not before the law, but in the breakdown of the rule of law and Duterte’s reign of impunity,” she added.

Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon also described the legal counsels’ arrest not only an “assault to the country’s legal profession,” but also a “blatant display of disrespect against our entire justice system.”