US State Department has process to follow in ban on De Lima's jailers — Panelo
MANILA, Philippines — There is a process for the US State Department to determine who is covered by a provision in the US budget for 2020 that bars people behind the "wrongful" detention of Sen. Leila de Lima from entering the United States, the Palace said Thursday.
Presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo said the US State Department will only act when it has "credible information" that a person was involved in De Lima's continued detention, adding that US Ambassador Sung Kim agreed with him.
"You have to follow the process. There is a process where before the US State Secretary can ban any person, which of course is a right on the part of the sovereign state, it has to determine whether the information relative to a person being banned is credible or not," he said.
"I don’t know if I’m at liberty to tell what he made an off-remark statement and he said, 'I read your statement, it’s a very good statement, I agree with it. It’s Congress that passed that law," Panelo, who also quotes conversations and text exchanges with then-Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Zhao Jianhua, said.
The Palace spokesman, who is also chief presidential legal counsel, added the ban should not apply to him: "Like me for instance, what in heaven’s name can I be part of the detention of this woman? I’m not even part of the prosecution."
Standing invitation from Trump
He added a standing invitation from US President Donald Trump for President Rodrigo Duterte to visit the US contradicts the provision in the US budget.
"That is a contradiction. There is a standing invitation. Kung totoo ‘yun eh ‘di sana hindi na," Panelo said in a briefing with reporters on Thursday.
READ: De Lima thanks US Congress for travel restriction on detainers
(If it was true that President Duterte was behind her arrest, then President Trump should have withdrawn his invitation already.)
The Malacañang mouthpiece also maintained that the Palace would not be seeking reconsideration of the provision. This, despite earlier calling the move an act that trampled on the country's democracy.
“Nakay Presidente ‘yun, ‘di ba sabi ni Presidente, ‘Ayoko naman pumunta dun in the first place.' Kung ayaw niya nga pumunta, how can he be worried?” the presidential mouthpiece said.
(It’s up to the President if he will accept the standing invitation. He’s been saying that I don’t want to go there in the first place. If he doesn’t even want to go there, how can he be worried?)
READ: US-Philippines ties still 'perfect' despite travel ban on De Lima detainers — Locsin
Just the day before, though, Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin, Jr said that the ties between the two nations are "perfect." He also defended the arrest of De Lima as perfectly legal, pointing to the Supreme Court decision on the senator's plea to have the charges against her junked.
The provision in the US budget law provision, though characterizes the arrest as "wrongful," saying in an earlier Senate resolution that the opposition senator was "detained solely on account of her political views and the legitimate exercise of her freedom of expression."
Trump invited Duterte to the White House in April 2017 according to a statement issued by the White House that said the two “discussed the fact that the Philippines is fighting very hard to rid its country of drugs.”
The US president has praised Duterte's 'drug war', which human rights monitors say has claimed over 27,000 lives without due process. Government data acknowledges a little over 5,000 "drug personalities" killed for violently resisting arrest during law enforcement operations.
READ: US lawmakers slam Trump's invitation to Duterte
Duterte expressed gratitude for the invitation but said he was too busy.
Both leaders have maintained amicable ties with each other despite Duterte taking on a more pro-China stance in his pursuit of a more "independent" foreign policy.
The chief executive has long been vocal about his desire to distance himself from the United States, a longtime ally and former colonizer of the Philippines, in favor of China and Russia.
Despite the shift in diplomacy dating back to Duterte's inauguration, Washington-based Pew Research Center in a survey released early December discovered that most Filipinos still saw the United States as the country's greatest ally and felt threatened by mainland China and their increasing presence in the country.
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