Senators ask PNP to remedy De Lima’s ‘solitary confinement’

Opposition senators have questioned the Philippine National Police’s move to hold detained Sen. Leila de Lima in incommunicado status or solitary confinement since April 25 at the PNP custodial center in Camp Crame, Quezon City.

In a letter dated May 23, Minority Leader Franklin Drilon and Senators Risa Hontiveros and Francis Pangilinan asked PNP chief Gen. Archie Gamboa for “remedial action” for De Lima, a vocal critic of President Duterte who has been detained since February 2017.

The senators described De Lima’s incommunicado status as “unconstitutional, illegal … and universally outlawed.”

De Lima is not allowed visitors or physical meetings, an incommunicado detention and solitary confinement that is contrary to the Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the senators said.

They said the custodial center had denied De Lima’s request to lift the restrictions on the pretext of enforcing a modified enhanced community quarantine within the facility.

De Lima is facing what she described as trumped-up charges of facilitating the drug trade in the national penitentiary.