Palace on Arroyo travel ban: So sue us

Former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

Sticking to its guns, Malacañang on Saturday challenged critics assailing the travel ban on former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to go to the courts.

Secretary Edwin Lacierda, President Benigno Aquino III’s spokesperson, brushed aside House Minority Leader Edcel Lagman’s legal opinion that the government had no right to prevent Arroyo from going abroad to seek medical treatment, saying it was a single opinion from a lawyer.

“That’s Congressman Lagman’s legal opinion and that can be better ventilated if a case is filed. Right now, there is no case filed so it’s our legal opinion against the legal opinion of some other people. So we have as many legal opinions as there are lawyers in this country,” Lacierda said over government-run radio station dzRB.

Told that Lagman had invoked the Constitution’s Bill of Rights in bolstering the position of the Arroyo camp, Lacierda replied that the government had its own basis for rejecting the former president’s bid to travel abroad.

“Again, that’s a legal opinion that was posed by Congressman Lagman,” Lacierda said.

He then suggested that the lawmaker was a lackey of Arroyo’s. “Obviously (Justice) Secretary Leila de Lima has a position, bearing with her a memorandum circular issued by Congressman Lagman’s patron,” Lacierda said.

Lacierda was referring to a Department of Justice circular, issued during Arroyo’s administration, listing the requirements for issuing a hold departure order against people facing criminal complaints.

De Lima last week put off for next week her decision on whether to allow Arroyo to travel abroad after she was told by Health Secretary Enrique Ona that there was no urgency in deciding on the matter.

No bone specialist

Moreover, the health secretary supposedly said that Arroyo’s condition was improving.

But Arroyo spokesperson Elena Bautista-Horn countered that Ona was in no position to assess Arroyo’s condition since he was not a bone specialist.

Arroyo is said to be suffering from a mineral deficiency in her bones arising from three spine surgeries in September.

“Let’s wait for the decision of Secretary  De Lima and all these things may be addressed hopefully by the decision. We still don’t know what the decision of Secretary De Lima is, so let’s wait for it,” Lacierda said.

“I just noticed that Congresswoman GMA’s medical spokesperson has yet to speak. It’s always some other spokespersons talking about some medical condition which, as far as I’m concerned, they’re not also fully competent to discuss,” he added.

For his part, Lagman said Saturday that he would ask Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. to expedite the enactment of his proposal that seeks to give the courts exclusive jurisdiction over the issuance of a hold departure order (HDO) against an individual.

Speed up deliberations

Lagman said that he would write to Belmonte, who is abroad, to convince him of the need to speed up deliberations on House Bill No. 5111 titled “An Act Upholding the Constitutional Right to Travel and Granting to the Proper Court the Exclusive Jurisdiction to Issue Hold Departure Orders.”

He also said that he was not inclined to petition the Supreme Court to intervene in the Malacañang-Arroyo dispute but preferred to leave the matter to the former president’s lawyers.

“I will ask Speaker Belmonte to expedite the passage of the bill not only for the sake of Mrs. Arroyo but also of other citizens of the country,” Lagman told the Inquirer.

Lagman blasted the DOJ for giving Arroyo a hard time in seeking medical treatment abroad, saying that “mere executive issuances will not suffice as compliance with the Constitution and the right to travel cannot be restricted by executive fiat.”

Not a question of compassion

He asserted, “It is not a question of compassion, accommodation or even health condition, but a matter of the constitutional right to travel which former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo may exercise without any impediment or restraint.

He said the right to travel as enshrined in the Bill of Rights provides that such right shall not be impaired except “in the interest of national security, public safety or public health, as may be provided by law.”

“Former President Arroyo’s travel does not involve national security, public safety or public health which are the only constitutional limitations to a citizen’s right to travel,” he said.

Up to now, he said, Congress has not enacted the requisite law to comply with the mandate of the Constitution.

Lagman said his bill would comply with the Charter’s prescription that Congress should enact a law protecting the right to travel and imposing the three constitutional limitations.

Lagman also said that the inclusion of a person’s name in the DOJ’s watch order list was not equivalent to an HDO which only the proper court could issue.

Moreover, no criminal information had been filed in any court or tribunal against Arroyo to justify the delay or denial of her right to fully exercise her freedom to travel, he added.