Respect PH laws, US told amid entry ban provision

The provision in the US Fiscal Year 2020 State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill directs the State Secretary to “apply subsection (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.” (File Photo: Leila de Lima/Facebook)

MANILA— Although sovereign nations have the right to bar persons from entering their territory, the Philippine government advised the United States to respect its laws and processes amid its recently signed 2020 national budget that includes a provision banning the persons involved in Senator Leila de Lima’s detention in the US.

“All countries have the sovereign prerogative to allow or ban individuals from entering their borders,” the Philippine Embassy in Washington DC said in a statement on Tuesday.

As Manila respects Washington’s laws, the embassy also urged for reciprocity.

“We strongly advise the United States to respect our own laws and processes in the same way that we respect theirs,” it said.

The provision in the US Fiscal Year 2020 State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill directs the State Secretary to “apply subsection (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.”

On Dec. 20, US President Donald Trump signed into law the said bill.

In his recent tweets, Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. dismissed the provision as a reaffirmation but with “careful restrictions” of Washington’s “incontestable and long used sovereign power” to ban and deport aliens.

“So it is not a ban but the reaffirmation of a general authority to exclude aliens. But for grounds yet to be proved to specify those who refuse to drop charges against de Lima. That’s our highly educated Supreme Court. So it actually relaxes entry which can be whimsically denied,” he said.

Prior to the law, Locsin noted that the entry “was at the whim of any immigration officer abroad and port of arrival”.

Earlier, a US Senate resolution calling for her immediate release was also approved at the committee level, a move the embassy said may translate to “undue interference” in the country’s domestic affairs.