(Eagle News)—The Palace on Tuesday, Feb. 20, slammed a United Nations report that blamed President Rodrigo Duterte for the plight of Rappler’s Maria Ressa, Senator Leila de Lima and former Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno.
According to Panelo, the “events that led to the present circumstances of these personalities are products of their own doing which all took place prior to the assumption of PRRD (President Rodrigo Roa Duterte) to the presidential seat.”
Ressa, Rappler, and its former reporter Reynaldo Santos Jr. are facing cyber libel charges filed by businessman Wilfredo Keng over a 2012 article that described him as controversial and with “alleged links” to human trafficking and illegal drugs.
De Lima on the other hand was charged in connection with her alleged role in the illegal drug trading in the New Bilibid Prison when she was justice secretary.
Sereno was ousted via a quo warranto petition for her failure to submit her complete Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth before she was appointed Chief Justice.
“The administration should not be blamed if it enforces the law more rigorously than its predecessors. The administration should likewise not be blamed if its critics have issues following the law,” Panelo said.
He said the “fact that Senator de Lima, Atty. Sereno and Ms. Ressa are critics of the Administration is of no moment and absolutely unrelated to the criminal charges they are facing.”
In his report, UN special rapporteur Michel Forst said the plight of De Lima, Ressa and Sereno was attributed to their being critics of the administration.
“In the Philippines, Senator Leila de Lima has been in detention since February 2017 for denouncing President Rodrigo Duterte’s War on Drugs,” Forst said.
He said Sereno, on the other hand, “objected to President Duterte’s policies on drugs and martial law, after which he publicly pushed for her resignation.”
“When she refused to resign, he pushed for her impeachment, even ordering Congress to remove her…,” Forst said.
“Award-winning journalist Maria Ressa, chief executive officer of the news website Rappler, has been indicted on tax evasion charges, in what is considered political persecution in response to critical reporting on the Government,” he added.