De Lima calls ‘drama’ VP Sara says FPRRD may emulate Ninoy Aquino
Former Senator Leila de Lima insisted that Vice President Sara Duterte’s statement that her father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, may emulate former Senator Ninoy Aquino, to escape accountability, was just a “drama.”

In an X post on Monday, March 24, De Lima emphasized that the situations between Aquino and FPRRD are very different.

“Ninoy Aquino returned to the Philippines knowing it could cost him his life. His courage was for the nation, for democracy, for the Filipino people,” said De Lima.

“Duterte’s drama today is nothing but a desperate attempt to escape accountability. Justice isn’t swayed by melodrama, only by truth. And history will always know the difference,” he said. It will be recalled that in her speech at the meet-and-greet event organized by Duterte supporters in The Hague, Netherlands on Sunday, March 23, VP Sara shared that whenever she visited FPRRD at the ICC detention center, he always asked if he could be brought back to the Philippines. But she warned him that he might do the same as Aquino if he returned to the Philippines.

In August 1983, Aquino, who was known to be an outspoken critic of PBBM’s father, former President Ferdinand Marcos Sr., was shot dead at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) after his 3-year exile in the United States.

Meanwhile, FPRRD is currently in the custody of the ICC after he was arrested on March 11 for “crimes against humanity” in connection with his administration’s bloody war on drugs