Courts, not President, to decide on Arroyo case, Duterte told

ILOILO CITY—Senatorial candidates of the ruling Daang Matuwid coalition twitted Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte for saying he would free former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo from hospital detention should he be elected as the country’s next president.

“It’s for the courts, not the sitting president, to decide,” former Justice Secretary Leila de Lima told reporters before the proclamation rally of Liberal Party standard-bearer Mar Roxas here on Tuesday.

“If he wins, he would be the president and as chief executive, he [should be] the first to enforce the law and the first to respect the independence of our judiciary,” she said.

De Lima, who had been at odds with Duterte for promoting extrajudicial killings of alleged criminals in Davao, argued that only the Supreme Court and the Sandiganbayan have the authority to decide on Arroyo’s fate.

De Lima, also a former Commission on Human Rights chair, joined Roxas, his running mate Camarines Sur Rep. Leni Robredo and the rest of the LP-led coalition’s senatorial aspirants in wooing voters in Capiz and Iloilo provinces on the first day of the three-month campaign period.

Arroyo, 68, had been in hospital detention at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center in Quezon City since October 2012, after she was indicted for plunder over the purported misuse of P366 million in intelligence funds of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office.

The high court recently ordered a temporary stop to her trial pending the resolution of her certiorari petition.

In his visit to Pampanga last week, Duterte said he would work for Arroyo’s release from detention if he wins the May elections because the evidence against her was weak.

But former Sen. Panfilo Lacson, a longtime tormentor of Arroyo and her family, reminded the Davao City mayor that the custody of an individual undergoing trial should be with the judiciary and not the executive department.

Lacson, who is trying to regain his Senate post, said a detained person’s freedom “should not be made a campaign promise or a commitment of a presidential candidate.”

“We need to respect the jurisdiction of the court trying the case of anyone, be it Arroyo or my former fellow senators who are detained now,” he said.

“It should be the court which should decide if they could be temporarily or permanently freed,” he added.

Reelectionist Senate President Franklin Drilon said Duterte being a former state prosecutor himself certainly knew that only the court may grant Arroyo’s liberty.

“But because Duterte said that during his campaign in Pampanga, it’s expected,” said Drilon, who is also a former justice secretary.