The candidate's top five accomplishments and contributions for the last 15 years or so

Public Office

As a first-time senator, De Lima has authored at least ten laws. She also principally sponsored two landmark laws, namely the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) Act and the Magna Carta of the Poor.

Since her arrest and detention in February 2017, she has been unable to participate in Senate hearings and sessions. When the Senate shifted to holding hybrid sessions due to the pandemic-induced lockdown, she again petitioned the courts to allow her to participate via videoconference but her request was denied in June 2020.

While detained, De Lima has received a slew of international awards and recognitions, including Liberation International’s highest Prize for Freedom which was awarded to only one Filipino before her: President Corazon Aquino. Liberation International, a global federation of liberal parties, also nominated her for the Nobel Peace Prize. She was named one of the 50 World Greatest Leaders in 2018 by Fortune magazine, among the world’s 100 Most Influential People along with president Duterte by Time Magazine in 2017, and included in Foreign Policy Magazine’s 2017 list of 100 Global Thinkers.

Though De Lima is viewed by many as a political prisoner, the Duterte administration maintains that the drug cases filed against her – essentially accusing her of sanctioning and profiting from the drug trade inside New Bilibid Prison when she was justice secretary and using the money to fund her senatorial bid – are in the hands of independent courts.

De Lima was acquitted in one of three conspiracy to commit drug trading cases by Muntinlupa Regional Trial Court Branch 205 Judge Liezel Aquiatan on Feb. 17, 2021, who was acting on the demurrer to evidence or request to dismiss the cases for lack of evidence filed by the senator. The other two cases are still ongoing. Some five judges have inhibited themselves from the cases and two drug convict witnesses of the prosecution, Jayvee Sebastian and Vicente Sy, died amid the pandemic.

De Lima maintains that the cases are fabricated and points to her long history of seeking to hold Duterte accountable as motivation for his alleged persecution of her.

As early as 2009, she had been trying to prove the existence of the Davao Death Squad as Commission on Human Rights chairperson. She first clashed with Duterte, who was then Davao City mayor, in a public inquiry on the summary executions where Duterte denied the existence of the local killing squad but acknowledged that “unexplained [and] unresolved” killings were taking place.

At that point, the CHR had recorded some 742 unsolved killings, 206 of which were attributed by the commission to the DDS. Duterte denied involvement with the killings but took responsibility for their happening under his watch as mayor.

Despite the CHR's 2012 recommendation that the ombudsman probe Duterte's possible liability for the killings, no charges were filed and the ombudsman's probe was "closed and terminated."

De Lima continued to pursue the investigation as justice secretary following her appointment in 2010. After she was elected senator and Duterte elected president in 2016, De Lima opened a probe as head of the powerful Senate justice committee on the extrajudicial killings linked to the new administration's flagship anti-drug campaign.

After just three hearings and De Lima's September 2016 presentation of witness Edgar Motabato, a self-professed former member of the DDS who linked Duterte to the local killing squad, she was ousted as justice panel chairperson by Duterte's allies in the Senate. Senator Manny Pacquiao moved to declare De Lima's seat vacant and Senator Richard Gordon took her place.

The House justice panel opened its own probe on De Lima where convict witnesses alleged that they paid De Lima millions when she was justice secretary in order to continue their drug trade. The witnesses also claimed that her driver Ronnie Dayan was her bagman and lover. Both De Lima and Dayan have since confirmed that they had a relationship but both deny participation in the drug trade and his alleged role as her bagman. The house panel in its final committee report on the matter linked De Lima to the drug trade inside the national penitentiary but did not recommend any charges against her.

A warrant for her arrest was issued by a Muntinlupa Regional Trial Court on Feb. 23, 2017, for violation of the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002. She was arrested and detained four days later.

Gordon is now running as part of the same Senate slate as De Lima under the tandem of Vice President Leni Robredo and Senator Francis Pangilinan. De Lima in a statement said she had no objection to running under the same slate as Gordon who she believes experienced a supposed change of heart after nearly five years of supporting the Duterte administration.

The International Criminal Court in September 2021 opened a probe on both the Davao Death Squad killings and the Duterte administration's bloody campaign against illegal drugs for crimes against humanity. Three months later, the ICC agreed to halt its probe upon a deferral request filed by the Philippines which cited the capacity of local institutions to investigate the killings.