Salvador Panelo
Malacañang on Monday distanced itself from the remarks of Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin slamming the arrest of former lawmaker Satur Ocampo on kidnapping and human trafficking charges.
“We wish to state that his personal position on the matter does not reflect the official view of the Administration on the issue,” Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said in a statement.
In a Twitter post, Locsin vouched for the 79-year old Ocampo, whose arrest he described as “bullshit.”
“Human trafficking? Bullshit, I won’t even bother to get the other side. I know Satur. We protected him in our Congress against warrants of arrest,” he said.
Locsin and Ocampo both served as lawmakers at the House of Representatives from 2001 to 2010.
“We therefore consider the remarks of Sec. Locsin as personal sentiments supportive of a friend being former colleagues with Mr. Ocampo in Congress,” Panelo said.
Panelo, however, said “friendship does not give birth to the conclusive conclusion that a person charged of a crime is innocent nor does a charge sheet automatically make such individual guilty thereof.”
“That is precisely why the Constitution grants every citizen the presumption of innocence and burdens the state to prove the guilt of the accused beyond a reasonable doubt,” he said.
“The request of Ocampo and his group to have a preliminary investigation to rebut the allegations, and to proffer evidence in support of their defense,” he said, “was granted by Prosecutor’s Office in Tagum City.”
Ocampo, ACT party-list Rep. France Castro and several others were arrested in Davao del Norte on November 28 for charges of human trafficking of minors.
Ocampo and his companions were allowed to post bail on Friday.
“Those facts alone show they are being accorded due process. Other legal remedies to which they are entitled are available to them. Let the law take its course,” Panelo said.
He reiterated the government’s call “to all parties to trust the process without hasty and premature judgments.”
“Let the legal mechanism work as it should. That is what the Rule of Law is all about. The law hears before it convicts, and it hears before it acquits as well,” he said. /cbb