(Eagle News) – Malacanang said the resolution of five U.S. senators calling for the immediate release of opposition senator Leila de Lima and the dropping of charges against Rappler CEO Maria Ressa was an “unwelcome intrusion” to the legal proceedings in the country.
Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said that US senators Marco Rubio, Edward Markey, Richard Durbin, Marsha Blackburn, and Chris Coons should also “mind their own business” and described their attempts to interfere with the country legal system as an “outrageous interference with our nation’s sovereignty.”
“The five US senators who called for the release of Senator Leila de Lima and the dropping of charges against Rappler and Ms. Maria Ressa should mind their own business — their country has enough problems and they should focus on them,” he said in a statement which he reiterated in a press brefing on Monday, April 8.
“Their resolution is an unwelcome intrusion to the country’s domestic legal processes and an outrageous interference with our nation’s sovereignty as the subject cases are now being heard by our local courts,” Panelo said.
The Palace official said that it was obvious that the US lawmakers were unfamiliar with the country’s legal processes and the Filipinos’ clamor for “law and order.”
“The US senators’ resort to a reckless and unstudied political exercise only highlights their unfamiliarity with the domestic matters of our country as well as their disrespect to the clamor of the Filipino people for law and order,” Panelo said.
“The Republic of the Philippines is not under the dominion of the United States of America or any of its high-ranking officials,” he noted.
Panelo also stressed that “no government official of any foreign country” “has the authority or right to dictate on how we address the commission of crimes.”
-5 US senators condemn actions of Philippine gov’t –
The US senators in a resolution called on “the government of the Philippines to immediately release Senator De Lima, drop all charges against her, remove restrictions on her personal and work conditions, and allow her to fully discharge her legislative mandate, especially as Chair of Committee on social justice.”
The same resolution also urged “the government of the Philippines to guarantee the right to the freedom of the press, and to drop all the charges against Maria Ressa and Rappler.”
The resolution even “condemned” the Philippine government for De Lima’s continued detention, calling the senator “a prisoner of conscience detained solely on account of her political views and the legitimate exercise of her freedom of expression.”
“The Duterte government in the Philippines continues to chip away at respect for fundamental freedoms and human rights,” said Durbin, one of the five US senators who signed the bipartisan resolution.
The senators also condemned the Philippine government for what they called as “state sanctioned extrajudicial killings by police and other armed individuals as part of the ‘war on drugs.’”
-US senators “naively” believed “false narratives,” says Panelo-
Panelo criticized the US senators for believing “hook, line, and sinker the false narratives fed to them by biased news agencies and paid anti-Duterte trolls” regarding the cases of Senator De Lima and Ressa, and on the alleged instances of extrajudicial killings (EJKs) in the country.
He also countered the US senators’ description of De Lima as a prisoner of conscience.
“De Lima is no prisoner of conscience; rather, a prisoner of no conscience or a prisoner of her own folly,” he said.
“She is charged with illegal drug-related transgressions committed while she was Justice Secretary but thought she could get away from them by virtue of being a member of Congress.”
Panelo also explained that before arrest warrants were issued for De Lima and Ressa, their cases have “passed through administrative and judicial processes.”
He suggests that the US senators should do the probing themselves.
“There are many ways of finding out the truth or the falsity of whatever narrative they receive,” he told reporters on Monday.