{"id":240710,"date":"2019-12-23T14:43:06","date_gmt":"2019-12-23T19:43:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=240710"},"modified":"2019-12-23T14:43:06","modified_gmt":"2019-12-23T19:43:06","slug":"palace-not-bothered-by-us-entry-ban-on-de-lima-jailers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/12\/23\/palace-not-bothered-by-us-entry-ban-on-de-lima-jailers\/","title":{"rendered":"Palace ‘not bothered’ by US entry ban on de Lima jailers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said the Philippine government \u201ccannot interfere on [sic] the process of US legislature.\u201d (File Photo:<\/a> Office of the Presidential Spokesperson\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0— Malaca\u00f1ang is \u201cnot bothered\u201d by an American law that contains a provision banning Philippine government officials involved in the imprisonment of Senator Leila de Lima from entering the United States.<\/p>\n

On Dec. 20, US President Donald Trump signed into law the 2020 State and Foreign Operations (SFOPs) appropriations bill which included an amendment to ban the entry to the US of Philippine government officials involved in jailing Dde Lima.<\/p>\n

Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said the Philippine government \u201ccannot interfere on [sic] the process of US legislature.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s their process; we cannot intrude, in the same way that we react when they intrude into our processes,\u201d Panelo said in a Palace briefing.<\/p>\n

Panelo, also Chief Presidential Legal Counsel, emphasized that despite this provision, the US Secretary of State must be presented with \u201ccredible information\u201d on de Lima\u2019s supposed wrongful imprisonment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt (the law) cannot just be imposed, because there is a colatilla there, there must be a credible information; if the information is not credible, then the US Secretary of State will not impose such sanction,\u201d Panelo said.<\/p>\n

He insisted that de Lima was not wrongfully detained because she was accorded due process and that there is \u201cprobable cause\u201d to issue a warrant of arrest against her.<\/p>\n

De Lima, one of Duterte’s staunchest critics, has been in detention since February 2017 for her alleged involvement in the illegal drug trade. However, she denied these charges.<\/p>\n

The Palace official said that if the charges filed against De Lima were trumped up, then the prosecutor could have noticed it.<\/p>\n

He also shrugged of de Lima\u2019s claim that he and the President are among those behind her political persecution saying that she and other critics and detractors were \u201cnot credible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Citing survey results showing Duterte\u2019s high trust and approval ratings, Panelo said these were enough to disprove de Lima\u2019s allegations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe statements of De Lima has [sic] been completely repudiated by surveys after surveys conducted by credible organizations,\u201d Panelo said.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, he said he will leave it to Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. to communicate with the US government to clarify the circumstances of de Lima\u2019s arrest.<\/p>\n

Reports showed that a provision in the US\u2019 2020 budget on \u201cProhibition on Entry\u201d allows US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to \u201capply sub-section (c) to foreign government officials about whom the Secretary has credible information have been involved in the wrongful imprisonment of\u2026Senator Leila de Lima who was arrested in the Philippines in 2017.\u201d<\/p>\n

The provision in the US budget classifies unjust or wrongful detention as part of \u201cgross violation of human rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democrat Senators Dick Durbin and Patrick Leahy authored the amendment which the US Senate Appropriations Committee passed in September.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0— Malaca\u00f1ang is \u201cnot bothered\u201d by an American law that contains a provision banning Philippine government officials involved in the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":186205,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-240710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-azer-parrocha","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240710","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=240710"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":240711,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240710\/revisions\/240711"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}