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MANILA, Philippines — Sen.

Leila de Lima claimed that the reported riot at the New


Bilibid Prison (NBP) on Wednesday morning was a tactic of the administration to
persuade prisoners to testify against her.

Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II confirmed that one inmate, Tony Co, was killed in
the incident while three other inmates, Jaybee Sebastian, Peter Co and Vicente See
were injured.

"The official version of the DOJ said this was a riot. Of course, we do not know yet at
this point," De Lima said in a televised press conference.

"I'm not discounting the fact that this is another way of the government persuading the
Bilibid 19 to testify against me and that this incident should serve as a lesson to those
who refuse to cooperate with the government and do Aguirre's and Malacañang's
bidding," the senator said.

De Lima stressed that the prisoners at Building 14 of the NBP were isolated from the
general prison population as a result of a raid in December 2015.

The so-called "Bilibid 19" were cut off from the drug trade and luxurious living quarters
inside the prison.

The former Justice secretary added that the Bilibid 19 were also the ones who filed
cases against her before the Office of the Ombudsman due to their alleged persecution
after being isolated at Building 14.

"I am not discounting the possibility that this so called riot is Malacañang's way of
sending messages to prisoners who refuse to implicate me in the Bilibid drug trade as
part of Aguirre's and Malacanang's teleserye drama projecting me as the Bilibid drug
queen. If this is the truth, I plead to Malacanang to stop this tragic, desperate and
despicable actions," De Lima said.

De Lima said that the government's tactic of threatening prisoners with violence and
murder who refuse to testify against her "is the height of mafia tactics and gangster-
style operation that makes this government worse than a narco state."

"It makes this government an assassin state, a state that promotes murder and
summary execution as policy and as weapon against its perceived enemies," De Lima
said.

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