Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo and Senator Leila de Lima. FILE PHOTOS
MANILA, Philippines—Detained Sen. Leila De Lima on Tuesday (Dec. 24) said presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo failed to understand the significance of a rider in the US spending law that would deny entry to the United States to Philippine officials responsible for keeping De Lima in jail.
In a statement from jail, De Lima said Panelo was “sorely mistaken” in the belief that Philippine officials could seek reconsideration on the travel ban from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
After reports on the travel ban, which was a rider on the spending measure signed by US President Donald Trump, came out, Panelo played it down saying Malacanang was “not bothered.”
Panelo had said he was confident the US government won’t be able to establish “credible information” that De Lima was wrongfully detained. The senator has been in jail since February 2017 for drug-related cases which she said were trumped up.
De Lima said the rider on the US spending measure that bans her jailers from entering the United States could be reversed only by repeal or amendments by the US Congress.
De Lima said the US State Department’s next step would be to determine the identity of officials or individuals responsible for persecuting her to be covered by the travel ban.
“Malacañang cannot still get over the fact that no one gets away with injustice and violating human rights,” De Lima said.
“No one gets away with impunity and tyranny,” the senator said.
“Duterte, Panelo, and all of Philippine DDS officialdom should realize by now how their happy days are almost at an end,” she added, referring to the initials that were being used for Davao Death Squad and Duterte Diehard Supporters.
De Lima said the US travel ban “has put this regime in its proper place in the world.”
The senator also took aim at President Rodrigo Duterte’s foreign policy.
“It is only fitting that Duterte himself has made it a foreign policy to warm up to those countries to whom he wants his government to belong while repeatedly spurning the EU, US, Canada and other democracies of the world,” De Lima said.
“This is his and his sycophants’ just desserts,” she said.
“If these DDS officials want to be identified with the free world and be treated as its citizens, they cannot act like tyrants and criminals,” De Lima added.
“If they want to be citizens of Rome, they cannot behave like barbarians. It is as simple as that,” she said.
In a statement released last October, De Lima named several individuals and political figures whom she accused of involvement in her persecution.
Among them were Duterte, Mocha Uson, RJ Nieto, Rep. Pantaleon Alvarez, former Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre, Solicitor General Jose Calida, PAO Chief Persida Acosta, Sandra Cam, Dante Jimenez, Rep. Rey Umali and Rudy Farinas.
De Lima also included on the list Panelo for his alleged failure to advise Duterte against violating the senator’s rights.
The US spending law did not list down names of those to be barred entry into the United States.
Edited by TSB