Click to expand Image Former Senator Leila de Lima waves to supporters after leaving the Muntinlupa City trial court in the National Capital Region, Philippines, November 13, 2023. 2023 Aaron Favila/AP Photo Shortly after he became Philippine president in 2016, Rodrigo Duterte made an astonishing vow: "I will have to destroy her in public." The former president was referring to Leila de Lima, then a sitting senator who, days earlier, opened a Senate investigation into the so-called "war on drugs." On Monday, de Lima finally stepped out of police headquarters in Metro Manila after spending nearly seven years detained there. Out on bail pending a decision on the last of three bogus drug charges against her, de Lima displayed remarkable grace as she faced the media the first night of at least temporary freedom. "God forgive him and God bless him," she said of Duterte. In 2009, as chair of the governmental Commission on Human Rights, de Lima investigated the