Speaker 1: From Schwartz Media. I'm Daniel James. This is seven am.
Speaker 1: What happens when you have a democratically elected leader who
Speaker 1: takes it upon themselves to prosecute their political opponents, as
Speaker 1: US President elect Donald Trump has vowed to do. The
Speaker 1: Philippines is a far more corrupt system, but its former president,
Speaker 1: Rodrigo de Turte, is someone who did exactly that. One
Speaker 1: such opponent was Lylah de Leima, lawyer, politician and human
Speaker 1: rights activist who opposed to Turta's death squads and corruption
Speaker 1: before she was falsely tired as a drug lord and
Speaker 1: locked up for nearly seven years. Today, Walkley Award winning
Speaker 1: journalist Margaret Simon's a Lilah de Lema and why the
Speaker 1: Philippines is the canary in the coal mine for democracy.
Speaker 1: It's Wednesday, December four, Margie. You've reported extensively from the Philippines.
Speaker 1: Can you take us back to twenty sixteen when Dette
Speaker 1: had just become president. What was it like in the
Speaker 1: country at that time?
Speaker 2: So De Tourte was a classic populist politician. He had
Speaker 2: been a mayor. He had a support base in that
Speaker 2: region of the Philippines, and he came to political prominence nationally,
Speaker 2: promising to clear up corruption.
Speaker 3: President of that Rodrigo de Erte promised to crush crime
Speaker 3: and illegal drugs in six months. The goal, he said,
Speaker 3: is to create an investor friendly environment that would spur
Speaker 3: economic growth.
Speaker 2: Promising to end crime through the war on drugs. He
Speaker 2: promised that if necessary, he would personally kill drug dealers.
Speaker 1: I'd prefer to feut them in the heart for in behead.
Speaker 4: If you insist on a drug war, I will.
Speaker 2: So people knew what they were getting. He didn't hide
Speaker 2: what he was planning to do, and he did, in fact,
Speaker 2: of course, carry that out.
Speaker 1: And one of the most vocal opponents against the Turta's
Speaker 1: drug war was Lola Delima. Tell us about who she
Speaker 1: is and how you first heard of her.
Speaker 2: Well, she's a key figure and her story is an
Speaker 2: extraordinary one.
Speaker 5: Mister President, my dear colleagues, I rise on matters of
Speaker 5: personal and collective privilege concerning a number of issues that
Speaker 5: not dominate the news and divide our people. Our nation
Speaker 5: is in crisis, this crisis.
Speaker 2: And I think I've been aware of her ever since
Speaker 2: I first started reporting on the Philippines, which would be
Speaker 2: back in about twenty fifteen. She's been a prominent lawyer,
Speaker 2: bureaucrat and also one of the main critics of Rodrigo
Speaker 2: de turte first as head of the Human Rights Commission
Speaker 2: and then as a senator who was in opposition to him.
Speaker 5: We cannot go on being indifferent to the daily executions
Speaker 5: without ultimately becoming a nation bound by a collective sociopathy.
Speaker 2: When she was head of the Department of Justice, she
Speaker 2: oversaw a number of raids on the main prison in
Speaker 2: the Philippines and discovered it's really like an episode of
Speaker 2: NACo's Luxurious Villas, in which the main drug criminals who
Speaker 2: were imprisoned were living with jacuzzi bars and high end
Speaker 2: mobile phones.
Speaker 6: Air conditioning units, hot tubs, sex dolls, and even music
Speaker 6: equipment from inmates room and so called pleasure villains.
Speaker 2: It was really quite extraordinary, all in the middle of thegile.
Speaker 6: Robbery group leader Henley Kolanco has even been able to
Speaker 6: record music videos in hoold weekly concerts inside a high
Speaker 6: security facility.
Speaker 1: A storied career of fighting drug lords, but her battle
Speaker 1: with the Turtei started before all that, when she was
Speaker 1: an anti corruption investigator. Can you tell me about that?
Speaker 2: Well, there were a number of really key investigations, but
Speaker 2: the main one was in Watson known as the Devo's
Speaker 2: Death Squad, which was in the city of Devoo, which
Speaker 2: Deturtay was at the time mayor of that city.
Speaker 4: In the mid nineties, rising criminality in Davao also saw
Speaker 4: an increase in summary executions. Many of them were abducted
Speaker 4: under cover of darkness, only to appear hogtied and dead
Speaker 4: days later.
Speaker 2: And there were allegations that there was a crowd of
Speaker 2: vigilantes who was sponsored by him, who were murdering both
Speaker 2: enemies of his but also straight criminals, homeless children and
Speaker 2: so on, And that was really the beginning of her
Speaker 2: antagonistic relationship with the president.
Speaker 4: The ombudsman did charge more than twenty police officers for
Speaker 4: failure to stop the killings, but that's as far as
Speaker 4: it went. Investigators say witnesses are too afraid to talk.
Speaker 2: Delima investigated that, but in a strange reversal in the
Speaker 2: tourte's world, and it's a great example of misinformation, she
Speaker 2: suddenly became not the person who was persecuting the drug criminals,
Speaker 2: but actually the head of their network.
Speaker 1: So how did Lena go from being an anti corruption
Speaker 1: campaign into being accused of the thing that she was
Speaker 1: fighting against. Can you tell me about some of the
Speaker 1: evidence that was presented against her?
Speaker 2: Well, her reputation has been thoroughly trashed, of course. In
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen, de Turte began a campaign against her alleging
Speaker 2: that she was head of a drug network, that she
Speaker 2: was in fact the king ben of the country's illegal
Speaker 2: drug trade.
Speaker 7: Senator Lailah Delima was arrested at the Senate in the
Speaker 7: capitol early on Friday morning. She's accused of running an
Speaker 7: illegal drug syndicate at the National Penitentiary, which she was
Speaker 7: just as secretary in the previous government.
Speaker 2: One of the drug criminals in the prison and gave
Speaker 2: evidence against her, claiming that he had paid her millions
Speaker 2: of dollars in bribes, which she supposedly is to finance
Speaker 2: her campaign to enter the Senate. Her driver, who was
Speaker 2: also a former lover, gave evidence that he had been
Speaker 2: effectively her bagman. So at the same time as Deturte
Speaker 2: released his evidence, fake videos began to circulate online. Suddenly
Speaker 2: there were numerous copies of a supposed sex video of
Speaker 2: her with this driver circulating online. If it was fake,
Speaker 2: but of course widely believed. She was supposedly shown in
Speaker 2: one video singing at a birthday party alongside a drug lord.
Speaker 2: In fact, she was singing at her own birthday party,
Speaker 2: and the supposed drug award was just one of her
Speaker 2: colleagues that this was again widely circulated widely believe.
Speaker 1: So within a short space of time, we've gone from
Speaker 1: her being one of the most ferocious any corruption investigators
Speaker 1: in the country to being wildly and almost universally acknowledged
Speaker 1: as one of the most corrupt, biggest drug lords in
Speaker 1: the country. How did that happen so quickly?
Speaker 2: It's a real topsy turvy world. But the terrifying thing
Speaker 2: is exactly as you say that it happened with great
Speaker 2: speed and seemingly great ease, And there are good reasons
Speaker 2: for that. Facebook is very cunningly in the Philippines and
Speaker 2: some other developing countries, has done deals with the phone
Speaker 2: companies so that use of Facebook is free of data
Speaker 2: charges which are otherwise prohibitive for the poor. Facebook is
Speaker 2: the Internet. They use the terms interchangeably, and so when
Speaker 2: misinformation began to be used by Dette and others, it
Speaker 2: very quickly infected the popular mindset in the Philippines. The
Speaker 2: legal system in the Philippines suffers from corruption. That's a
Speaker 2: long standing problem. I wouldn't want to say that all
Speaker 2: judges are corrupt, but certainly I think the average citizen
Speaker 2: with some foundation has little faith that they can get
Speaker 2: a fair judgment. In Deleima's case, the Secretary of Justice
Speaker 2: did to Toto's bidding. Several judges did Detto's bidding as well.
Speaker 2: There's enough corruption for people not to be able to
Speaker 2: be confident of the courts.
Speaker 1: So her reputation is trashed. She's framed. What happens next?
Speaker 2: She was then investigated and eventually prosecuted by Detererte's Secretary
Speaker 2: of Justice that the band who occupied the post that
Speaker 2: Dilema had once occupied, and she was jailed. Laila Delima
Speaker 2: was prisoned in Camp Crime in Kazon City, the jail
Speaker 2: for high profile detainees. She had very small quarters there,
Speaker 2: no air conditioning, no electronic devices, very basic living conditions.
Speaker 2: She spent a total of nearly seven years to be exact,
Speaker 2: six years, eight months, twenty one days in those conditions.
Speaker 1: After the break Layla Delema's fight for freedom and their
Speaker 1: warning for democracy, Margaret after being locked up for nearly
Speaker 1: seven years, Laala Delima was finally free. How did that happen?
Speaker 2: Okay? So she was freed on bail last November, and
Speaker 2: the final set of charges against her collapsed. In June.
Speaker 8: Former Philippine Senator A Leila Delimos free and home. A
Speaker 8: small crowd twelve wisher has greeted her as soon as
Speaker 8: she stepped out of the airport.
Speaker 2: Basically, the evidence against her collapse. All the witnesses werecanted
Speaker 2: and said that they had been both bribed and coerced
Speaker 2: and intimidated into giving evidence against her, and so in
Speaker 2: the end there was simply no evidence left.
Speaker 8: Mud said many times before visiting her Ailien ninety one
Speaker 8: year old mother is one of the first things she'd
Speaker 8: do on leaving the tension. Well, she came out of
Speaker 8: her mother's room, she had this to say.
Speaker 5: I feel so good, I feel so great.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us about where you met it? It
Speaker 1: was one of the first media interviews she did after
Speaker 1: her release. What were some of the things that she
Speaker 1: had to say?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I've been obviously trying to get an interview
Speaker 2: with her for some time. I asked to interview her
Speaker 2: in her home. She didn't want to do that. Perhaps understandably,
Speaker 2: that's a very precious face to her. And so in
Speaker 2: the end, we just rented a fairly anonymous Manila office block.
Speaker 2: So I asked her if it would be correct to
Speaker 2: draw comparisons between Donald Trump and Deturte, and she readily
Speaker 2: entered into that. She said that both of them were misogynists,
Speaker 2: both of them were autocratic by instinct, both were liars,
Speaker 2: and both came with criminal propensities. The famous journalist Maria Ressa,
Speaker 2: one of the bravest women in the Philippines, has said
Speaker 2: that the Philippines is the canary in the coal mine
Speaker 2: of democracy if you like.
Speaker 1: Right, And so in the face of all this, what
Speaker 1: is Delima going to do now?
Speaker 2: Well, she has extraordinary resilience because just three months after
Speaker 2: the collapse of the final set of charges against her,
Speaker 2: she announced that she was re entering politics and would
Speaker 2: contest the midterm elections next May. She personally is running
Speaker 2: very much on continuing a law reform campaign. She wants
Speaker 2: to outlaw the family dynasties in politics. She wants to
Speaker 2: give more force to the Human Rights Commission. So she's
Speaker 2: very much a legal and human rights reformer.
Speaker 1: And whatever chances of actually getting elected, or does Detererte's
Speaker 1: populism still resonate.
Speaker 2: Well, I wouldn't want to put money on it. The
Speaker 2: current president is Ferdinand Marcos, who came to power in
Speaker 2: an alliance with the Dette family. His vice president is
Speaker 2: Sarah de Turte, whose daughter of the former president. Things
Speaker 2: I think it's fair to say are a bit better,
Speaker 2: or not quite as bad. There are certainly still drug
Speaker 2: killings by the police, but there aren't as many as
Speaker 2: there were at the height of the killings under Dette.
Speaker 2: The media are a little freer, a little less intimidated
Speaker 2: than they were under Dette. But in terms of the economy,
Speaker 2: there's no real sign that things are improving. And I
Speaker 2: think this is a problem that we face in liberal
Speaker 2: democracy sees around the world. The people who are on
Speaker 2: the left have enormous trouble convincing a in battle population
Speaker 2: that they understand their problems or their issues. They seem
Speaker 2: very remote from the lives of ordinary people. Now, I
Speaker 2: would say this is true of Delema as well. She's
Speaker 2: certainly impressive and an incredible intellect, but she's not particularly charismatic.
Speaker 2: If you put her up against Rodrida Deterto. With his
Speaker 2: coarse language and his extremist words, it's easy to see
Speaker 2: that he has the cut through with the ordinary Filipino
Speaker 2: who's literally worried about getting enough food for the next meal,
Speaker 2: Whereas Lello of Dilema talking about the importance of human
Speaker 2: rights doesn't necessarily resonate, but certainly you can see the
Speaker 2: impact of misinformation. Many ordinary Filipinos either think she's still
Speaker 2: in jail, or if they know she's out of jail,
Speaker 2: they think it must be because she is so powerful
Speaker 2: and corrupt. So it's an upside down world, and it's
Speaker 2: very hard for the truth to win in that sort
Speaker 2: of environment.
Speaker 1: Margaret, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 2: It's a pleasure.
Speaker 1: Also in the news today, Elon Musk is still not
Speaker 1: entitled to receive a fifty six billion dollar US compensation
Speaker 1: package for his work as Tesla's CEO. Aduble Word judge
Speaker 1: is ruled. The decision comes despite shareholders voting in June
Speaker 1: in favor of it. The judge, Chancellor Kathleen McCormick, found
Speaker 1: the pay package to be excessive, the second time she's
Speaker 1: reached that conclusion in the past year. In a statement
Speaker 1: on x, Tesla said the ruling is wrong and the
Speaker 1: company will appeal and Willworth has lodged an urgent application
Speaker 1: with the Fair Work Commission to stop United Workers union
Speaker 1: members from blocking access to its major distribution centers. The
Speaker 1: action has led to empty shelves and a shortage of
Speaker 1: items including nappies, toilet paper and bread. The union says
Speaker 1: to strike involves fifteen hundred staff in Negotiations with the
Speaker 1: supermarket are ongoing. I'm Daniel James. This is seven am.
Speaker 1: See you tomorrow.