Dressed in a colorful pastel kimona, Atty. Leila de Lima was positively glowing as she took the stage to give her Baccalaureate Program message to graduates of the University of the Philippines Baguio last month.
“Today on your graduation day, I am celebrating the first month of my unconditional freedom,” the human rights defender and former senator shared with her audience on July 24, 2024 at the Baguio Convention Center.
De Lima was finally acquitted in the last of the trumped-up drug charges against her on June 24, 2024. This, after spending more than six years in jail at the Police Custodial Center in Camp Crame.
“Nothing beats being free and happy once again with my loved ones,” she said. Freedom has also now allowed her now to take on invitations to speak, saying the occasion to speak in UP Baguio is among the first school invitations she is poised to attend.
“I also like nice clothes, and now I have to build a wardrobe again,” the Bicolana lawyer shared with a laugh recalling how she had to start rebuilding her wardrobe after she was released on bail last year. “I lost a lot of weight, and that is a good thing. But I didn’t have anything to wear for occasions like this” she added.
She apologized while slightly fumbling with the tablet that contained her speech as she took the podium. “Ngayon lang po ako ulit gumamit ng ganitong mga gamit, so nangangapa pa ako,” she admitted as the captive audience roared with laughter.
She relayed how she was deprived of technology: phones, gadgets, and the internet while she was in police custody. All she had was a pen and paper and she used these to write letters with her beautiful handwriting. Eventually, she published these letters in three book compilations: Dispatches from Crame I, Fight for Freedom and Other Writings, and Dispatches from Crame II: Faith, Hope, and Love.
Her powerful writing did not end with letters and books. Despite her detention, she wrote and crafted bills, becoming one of the most prolific senators during her term. Sadly, she lost her bid for re-election in 2022.
She said what led to her incarceration was her choice of serving the country. The same choice which she posed before the graduating class as a challenge: to leave the country or to serve the country. “But you don’t have to make the decision now, today is a day of celebration,” she added.
She then shared five lessons to the graduating class, lessons that she learned from her reflections on six years of being unjustly imprisoned. Lesson 1: “No matter how you feel isolated or lonely in your choices, you are never alone.” She said defeat only comes when you start believing that you are alone.
Lesson 2: “Every human life matters.” She said during the Duterte Drug war this obvious lesson was something a lot of people seemed to have forgotten. “We need to be reminded that every life is sacred,” she added.
Lesson 3: “A single person can always make a difference, no matter the odds.” De Lima referred to this as the Tiananmen Man’s moment, a reference to the unknown protester who bravely stood in front of military tanks after the Tiananmen Square Massacre in China. “Do not forget to go against the tide of public opinion. Your voice matters,” she added.
Lesson 4: “There is hope for this country.” De Lima said this might seem counterintuitive at this moment and given our country’s history, but she added that the same congress that crucified her is now the same one trying former President Rodrigo Duterte.
“Things will change for the better,” she said. “You should know by now that change will be slow, it will not be revolutionary or cathartic. It will not be instantaneous. Social change will not happen overnight. We build it brick by brick in a process called democracy.”
“The key to change is what we see today,” De Lima said, referring to the graduates as she added the final lesson. Lesson 5: “The hope of change for the better largely lies in the choices that the best and brightest of our people will make. The choices that you will make tomorrow.”
In making this choice, she told the graduating class that they might regret choosing to stay and serving the country decades down the road. But if they leave, then that would be a bigger problem. “If you do choose to stay, just remember the lessons we have today. You will make a difference,” De Lima said in closing. By Leia Castro Margate
