Malacañang leaves it to court to decide on de Lima’s furlough

FILE: In a statement released on Tuesday, De Lima, the president’s fiercest critic, said that Duterte believes women are only useful if they can give birth and raise children and that it is manly to promote sexual violence. (Photo: Senate of the Philippines/Facebook)

MANILA — Malacañang said it will leave to the court to decide on detained Senator Leila de Lima’s request to visit her ailing 86-year-old mother in Camarines Sur.

Presidential Spokesperson and Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo said President Rodrigo Duterte has never meddled with cases that are already pending in the courts.

“The President does not interfere with any case involving anybody,” Panelo told reporters in a media interview on Monday.

Panelo, however, refrained from commenting on the remark made by Department of Justice (DOJ) Secretary Menardo Guevarra that he would not object to the senator’s request for humanitarian reasons.

“Ayaw namin mag-comment diyan. Ang problema kasi pag nag-comment ka diyan baka misinterpreted (We don’t want to comment on that. The problem is, if I comment on that, it might be misinterpreted),” Panelo said.

In her urgent motion for furlough, de Lima asked the Muntinlupa Regional Trial Court to allow her to visit her mother, Norma Magistrado De Lima on August 15 or sooner.

She explained that she wanted “to be able to see and, perhaps, hold her mother close for the last time.”

De Lima said her mother was taken to the Villanueva Tanchiling General Hospital in Iriga City for “body malaise, altered level of consciousness, hyponatremia.”

She said her mother is in critical condition.

According to the detained senator, she has only seen her mother twice since she was arrested in Feb. 24, 2017 over alleged link to the drug trade in the New Bilibid Prison when she was Justice chief.