De Lima back in the fray —minus the standee
Voters should no longer find her to be such a “stiff” on the campaign stage.
Former Sen. Leila de Lima, who in 2022 waged an election campaign from a Camp Crame jail, officially began her bid for a House seat on Tuesday, again as part of a lineup backed by the so-called pink crowd and former Vice President Leni Robredo.
A highly energized De Lima, 65, joined senatorial candidates Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan and Paolo Benigno “Bam” Aquino IV for their kickoff rally at Dasmariñas Arena in vote-rich Cavite province.
At first, however, the audience thought that the ex-senator—who is vying as first nominee of the Mamamayang Liberal (ML) party list—could not make it to the event.
This was after fellow ML nominees Erin Tañada and Teddy Baguilat appeared first onstage, carrying a life-size De Lima standee.
It was the same image that served as De Lima’s proxy in her May 2022 senatorial campaign. Three drug trafficking cases filed against her in 2017 during the Duterte administration kept De Lima in detention for almost seven years, before she was eventually cleared of all the charges.
“Hey!” she exclaimed as she finally made her entrance, cheered on by the crowd.
“That is now a thing of the past,” she said of her crude body double. “How I missed this. How I missed campaigning and not being represented by a standee.”
‘I’m still here’
In her speech, De Lima said that since regaining her freedom, she had been asked many times if she still had the energy and courage for a political comeback.
“But what could they do to me?” she said, alluding to those responsible for her past ordeal. “Humiliate me? Put me in (back in) jail?”
“They’ve already done that. But guess what—I’m still here,” De Lima said, sending the audience roaring.
“When I was still in jail, I always thought: I cannot, should not, bow. I cannot be silenced. I cannot allow the liars to win,” she said. “And finally, after six years, eight months and 21 days, they finally dismissed the cases against me, and I was finally set free.”
Running for party list seats with De Lima are Baguilat, ML’s second nominee and a former Ifugao congressman mainly known for representing indigenous peoples in the province; and Tañada, the third nominee and a lawyer who served as Quezon representative and House deputy speaker during the Benigno Aquino administration.
