{"id":165978,"date":"2018-06-03T00:05:54","date_gmt":"2018-06-03T04:05:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=165978"},"modified":"2018-06-03T00:05:54","modified_gmt":"2018-06-03T04:05:54","slug":"dont-meddle-with-ph-affairs-duterte-tells-un-rapporteur","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/06\/03\/dont-meddle-with-ph-affairs-duterte-tells-un-rapporteur\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t meddle with PH affairs, Duterte tells UN rapporteur"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"FILE:<\/a>
FILE: United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers Diego Garcia-Sayan should not interfere with Philippine affairs, President Rodrigo R. Duterte said Saturday. (Photo By Fabio Rodrigues Pozzebom \/ Ag\u00eancia Brasil, CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA\u00a0— United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers Diego Garcia-Sayan should not interfere with Philippine affairs, President Rodrigo R. Duterte said Saturday.<\/p>\n

Duterte made this remark in response to the UN rapporteur\u2019s concerns on the President\u2019s alleged public threats against ousted Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno.<\/p>\n

\u201cTell him not to interfere with the affairs of my country. He can go to hell,\u201d Duterte said in a press conference before departing for his first official visit to South Korea slated June 3-5.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat’s an internal problem of the country. You should not meddle it — with it, rather,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Duterte said that he neither consider Garcia-Sayan as a \u201cspecial\u201d person nor recognize his rapporteur title.<\/p>\n

He reiterated that he never interfered with Sereno\u2019s ouster and that it was all Solicitor General Jose Calida\u2019s doing.<\/p>\n

\u201cSinabi ko na sa kanya wala akong pakialam diyan sa<\/em>\u00a0(I said I don\u2019t care about that) impeach — ah sa quo warranto. Calida is doing it,\u201d Duterte said.<\/p>\n

Voting 8-6, the Supreme Court (SC) granted on May 11 the quo warranto petition filed by Calida against Sereno.<\/p>\n

Duterte said anyone was free to ask any lawmaker if he had pressured them into impeaching Sereno.<\/p>\n

Malaca\u00f1ang earlier said Garcia-Sayan has been misinformed when he reportedly said judicial independence in the Philippines is under threat.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe find it unfortunate that Mr. Diego Garcia-Sayan has been misinformed on the case surrounding the former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines,\u201d Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said in a press statement.<\/p>\n

Roque reiterated that President Rodrigo Duterte\u2019s \u201cdislike\u201d of former chief justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno is not an attack on the judiciary or an affront to judicial independence.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a reaction to the allegations made by former CJ Sereno against the Chief Executive in many public fora saying the latter is behind her impeachment\/quo warranto petition,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said Malaca\u00f1ang recognizes the SC\u2019s independence and respects the separation of powers among the three branches of government.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0— United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers Diego Garcia-Sayan should not interfere with Philippine …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":165891,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,95],"tags":[34878,13944],"class_list":["post-165978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","tag-diego-garcia-sayan","tag-president-rodrigo-r-duterte","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165978\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}