Motivation behind De Lima’s prosecution

The allegation of former police officer Arturo Lascañas—that President Duterte, when he was mayor of Davao City, ordered the killing of several people—even makes more urgent the need for an independent United Nations investigation into the more than 7,000 extrajudicial killings in Mr. Duterte’s “war on drugs.”

The disclosures suggest possible motivations for the Duterte administration’s moves to launch a politically motivated prosecution of Sen. Leila de Lima who, as chair of the Commission on Human Rights in 2009, launched the only official investigation into the Davao Death Squad killings. The authorities should immediately drop all charges against Senator De Lima, cease their harassment of her and cooperate fully with a UN probe.

PHELIM KINE, deputy Asia director, Human Rights Watch