MANILA, Philippines—Justice Secretary Leila de Lima defended before international law experts the government’s controversial decision to stop former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo from leaving the country last month despite an order by the Supreme Court allowing her to do so.
Speaking during Friday’s Regional Forum on the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in Makati City, De Lima said the case of Arroyo being prevented to leave the country on Nov. 17 by immigration authorities should not have happened had the high court listened to the executive branch’s reasons.
“We, the vanguards and pillars of the criminal justice system in the executive branch, thought long and hard about our options and considered all the consequences. Foremost in our minds was not to let the Filipino people down, who expect justice to be done regardless of who the personalities involved are,” she said.
It will be recalled that Arroyo secured a temporary restraining order (TRO) from the Supreme Court, but the Department of Justice (DOJ) refused to comply with it, saying that Arroyo was possibly trying to escape prosecution and the government would be unable to acquire jurisdiction over her once the cases against her were filed in court.
“We looked to find relief from what we believed was an untenable situation for a separate and coequal branch of government to have been placed in. Unfortunately, there was no other tribunal we could seek relief from, because the Supreme Court itself issued the TRO,” De Lima said.
“The state had not even had its day in court [when the TRO was issued],” she added.
Arroyo was eventually arrested after being charged by the Commission on Elections with electoral sabotage, a heinous crime. She was ordered detained by the Pasay City Regional Trial Court at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center in Quezon City.
De Lima, who has been asked by the high tribunal why she should not be fined or jailed for contempt, said the Aquino administration could have easily let Arroyo leave but didn’t.
“We ought to have simply thrown our hands up and been contented with laying the blame at the feet to the Supreme Court should the former president succeed in evading justice. [But] our duty was to ensure that justice is administered, that crimes are prosecuted and punished. We could not have accomplished that if we had been content with acting like Pontius Pilate, by washing our hands of responsibility and passively allowing the wheels of justice to ground to a halt,” De Lima said.