Robredo welcomes US Senate panel ban on De lima jailers

MANILA, Philippines — Vice President Leni Robredo yesterday welcomed the approval of a US Senate panel of an amendment seeking to ban entry of Philippine government officials involved in the detention of Sen. Leila de Lima.

“The (approval of the amendment) gives the statement that they are serious in their campaign against human rights violations and the use of power of the government to harass political opponents,”Robredo said over dzXL.

The 60-year-old De Lima, a vocal critic of President Duterte, has been detained since February 2017 facing charges of drug trafficking.

US Sen. Richard Durbin lauded the approval of the Senate appropriations committee of the amendment he proposed with Sen. Patrick Leahy in connection with what he dubbed as the politically motivated detention of De Lima.

Under the bill titled “Prohibition on Entry,” the US Secretary of State “shall apply sub-section (c) to foreign government officials about whom the Secretary has credible information have been involved in the wrongful imprisonment of… Senator Leila de Lima who was arrested in the Philippines in 2017.”

Durbin, along with four other US senators, earlier filed a resolution calling for the release of De Lima. The others were Senators Marco Rubio, Ed Markey, Marsha Blackburn, and Chris Coons.

Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said the move smacks of interference of the country’s political affairs.

Guevarra also stressed the proposal to counterban the two US senators would end in a political backlash.

He said the opinions of the two American lawmakers to meddle in the affairs of the Philippines are not shared by the majority of the members of the US Senate.

“These minority senators do not have to bother about what the Philippine government may do in reaction to their public statements; instead they have to deal with the reaction of their own constituencies and the judgment of a whole thinking community of democratic nations,” he added.

Senate President Vicente Sotto III hit the two American lawmakers, saying they violated the US constitution when they pushed to ban Philippine officials involved in the prosecution and detention of De Lima.

Sotto noted Durbin and Leahy authored the amendment in the Fiscal Year 2020 State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill imposing the travel ban. – With Paolo Romero, Evelyn Macairan, Edith Regalado