Palace: Llamas not ‘indispensable’

Presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda

Malacañang on Thursday said presidential political adviser Ronald Llamas, like any government official, was “not untouchable’’ and “not indispensable,’’ even as it admitted that the latest controversy he found himself in was a “distraction to governance.’’

Llamas himself, however, for a second day remained silent on his having been photographed by an editor of Bandera, a sister publication of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, purchasing a reported P2,000 worth of pirated DVDs at a Quezon City mall.

Presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said Llamas would come out to give his statement “hopefully’’ Friday after he failed to do so on Thursday.

Calls for resignation

Some lawmakers had demanded Llamas’ resignation. But in a statement by the Optical Media Board (OMB), which oversees the war against intellectual piracy, said that buyers of pirated DVDs were “not criminally liable’’ under the Optical Media Act of 1993.

“The purchase of (pirated) DVDs not used for commercial activities does not entail a liability based on the law on optical media. Those in the possession of the same but who do not sell them are not penalized,’’ said lawyer Coco Padilla, chief of the OMB legal division.

“If it’s mere possession, there’s no penalty, that is what is stated in the law. We can only act based on the authority granted us by the law,’’ Padilla said in a statement.

At a press briefing, Lacierda said that as he understood it, there was no penalty against buying pirated DVDs. But he also said that the Palace hoped that “people would be discouraged from buying them.’’

Asked if government officials should not be setting a bad example, Lacierda said: “We are supposed to be role models so I think it is important, it is incumbent on us public officials, to behave in accordance with the law, to behave in support of our drive—whatever drive the government has launched—and one of them being the drive against intellectual piracy.’’

‘No one is indispensable’

Asked if Palace officials were not embarrassed by the controversy, Lacierda replied: “It is one of the distractions… it’s a distraction to governance.’’

Answering reporters’ questions, he affirmed that “no one (in government) is indispensable.’’

“And if you’re going to ask me for calls for resignation, that is a personal decision on the part of Secretary Llamas,’’ he said.

Lacierda maintained that Llamas was “not untouchable.’’

“None of us are untouchable,’’ he said.

Lacierda made it clear the administration fully supported the fight against intellectual piracy after President Aquino the other day said that the issue of Llamas buying pirated DVDs was not on top of his list of priority matters.

“When (the President) said it was not a priority, it was not with respect to the fight against intellectual privacy,’’ Lacierda said, but in the context of other priorities such as the bomb blast in Makati City on Monday, the killing of 15 fishermen in Basilan and the nuclear crisis involving Iran.

In a statement he later issued, Lacierda lamented that some quarters had “misinterpreted’’ the President’s statement on Llamas.

He said President Benigno Aquino III was “categorical’’ in saying that his political adviser would “undergo investigation to determine his culpability, if any.’’

“What the President wanted to emphasize was a proper sense of proportion in issues such as this one. Tasked with ensuring the security and safety of the Filipino people, he clearly and correctly stated that as far as he was concerned there were more pressing matters for him to be concentrating on. One controversy does not equate to the gutting of national commitments,’’ Lacierda said.