Palace hits 5 US senators for ‘interference’

DAVAO CITY, Philippines — Malacañang slammed yesterday five US senators who called for the dropping of charges against Sen. Leila de Lima and Rappler CEO Maria Ressa, saying they should mind their own business.

Presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo said the resolution is “an unwelcome intrusion to the country’s domestic legal processes and an outrageous interference on the nation’s sovereignty as the subject cases are now being heard by the courts.” 

“No government official of any foreign country has the authority or right to dictate on how we address the commission of crimes,” Panelo stressed, adding that the US has enough problems of its own and that the American lawmakers should focus on those.

On Friday, Senators Edward Markey (Massachusetts), Marco Rubio (Florida), Richard Durbin (Illinois), Marsha Blackburn (Tennessee) and Chris Coons (Delaware) filed a bipartisan resolution condemning alleged human rights abuses in the Philippines, citing De Lima and Ressa’s cases.

They denounced the government’s efforts to arrest and detain “human rights defenders and political leaders who exercise their rights to freedom of expression” amid the ongoing war on drugs in the Philippines.