Detained Senator Leila de Lima described a report about policemen allegedly being paid to kill drug suspects as real and not “fiction.”

“The Reuters story, citing sources purporting to be police officers who are in-the-know about the anti-drug operations, is not a fiction. It’s real. It’s the ugly and disturbing truth of what has become of the PNP (Philippine National Police),” De Lima said in a written statement on Thursday.

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“Something tells me that a significant (number) of PNP officers and personnel are as equally shaken and appalled by this tide of lawlessness that has swept their ranks. I say that they, and they alone, can save their beloved institution from further infamy,” she said.

A special report of Reuters news agency quoted a retired intelligence officer and an active senior commander of the PNP as saying that cops had received cash payments for executing drugs suspects.

The report also mentioned a 26-page report, titled “The State-Sponsored Extrajudicial Killings in the Philippines” dated January 26, 2017, detailing how extrajudicial killings (EJKs) in the country are carried out and funded.

READ: Police paid to kill drug suspects, plant evidence—Reuters report

De Lima said the Reuters report bolstered her allegation that the killings were state-sponsored.

“I’m more than morally convinced that the ongoing human carnage targeting mostly the poor is State-sponsored as incited by a blood-thirsty head of state. Ooops… No, I’m not just more than morally convinced. Without any reservation, I KNOW it’s State-sponsored,” she said.

READ: De Lima calls for end to killings

“Matobato and Lascañas have told us the truth about the DDS,” she said, referring to confessed assassins Edgar Matobato and retired SPO3 Arturo Lascañas.

Matobato and Lascañas both testified in the Senate and claimed that they were part of the so-called Davao Death Squad (DDS), whose members were allegedly paid by then Davao City Mayor and now President Rodrigo Duterte to kill criminals and enemies.

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“The cash rewards for the assailants and the planting of handguns and drugs on the slain suspect are the very characteristics of the nightmare called DDS. The DDS, in its monstrous form, has simply been transplanted from a local kingdom to the national sphere. It’s now a nationwide plague,” De Lima said. IDL/rga

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