(Eagle News)–The Palace on Sunday, April 28, slammed the San Francisco Board of Supervisors after it issued a resolution calling out the Philippine government for alleged “state-sanctioned extrajudicial killings by police” and the detention of Senator Leila de Lima.
“The resolution is a toxic and unacceptable intrusion to our legal processes and an outrageous interference with our country’s sovereignty,” Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said in a statement.
Panelo likened the board to the five US senators who denounced the Philippines for the detention of De Lima and Maria Ressa, among others, saying they “have either developed an amnesia or have not outgrown their colonial mentality.”
“They should be shaken from their stupor and wake up to the fact that the Philippines had long ceased to be a colony of the United States and will never be a vassal to it,” Panelo said.
According to Panelo, De Lima and the others who are detained due to charges filed against them “have been afforded their rights to due process.”
He said “their criminal prosecution is anchored on their transgressions of our laws and it has absolutely nothing to do with their being critical of the administration.”
He noted that other critics are not facing any criminal charges because they are only exercising their freedom of speech.
As for the allegations extrajudicial killings were state-sanctioned, he said this was not true, saying those who engage in these were prosecuted and dismissed from the police service.
“Failing in convincing the majority of the Filipinos of their peddled falsities against the President, the few vociferous anti-Duterte personalities turn to foreign politicians or international human rights groups vulnerable to misinformation and gullible to untruthful narrations against this administration who then either unwittingly lend hand to — or ignorantly parrot — the detractors’ pretended patriotism and politically motivated advocacy,” Panelo said.