Ex-President Arroyo, husband ask SC to declare DoJ watch list order unconstitutional

Congresswoman Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and husband Mike Arroyo. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—Former President and now Pampanga Representative Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her husband, Jose Miguel “Mike” Arroyo, separately petitioned on Tuesday the Supreme Court to declare as unconstitutional the order of Justice Secretary Leila de Lima placing them on the Bureau of Immigration watch list.

Mrs. Arroyo asked the High Court to declare as unconstitutional the Department of Justice  (DoJ) Circular 41, which De Lima cited as basis for prohibiting her from leaving the country.

She also asked the Supreme Court to issue a temporary restraining order on the implementation of the watch list order issued by the Department of Justice (DoJ) against her and 38 others.
Mrs. Arroyo had asked the DoJ to issue an Allow Departure Order (ADO) for her to seek medical treatment abroad but De Lima has yet to issue one.

De Lima said she needed more documents from the Arroyo camp such as medical records and the specific country where she would seek medical treatment.

But the lawmaker said she had complied with the demands of the DoJ and submitted additional documents detailing her trip abroad.

Mike’s petition

In a petition for certiorari and prohibition, Mr. Arroyo asked the high tribunal to issue a temporary restraining order to prevent De Lima and two of her subordinates—Chief State Counsel Ricardo Paras III and Immigration Commissioner Ricardo David Jr.—from enforcing the watch list order.

“The watch list order collides with Article III, Section 6, of the 1987 Constitution guaranteeing the liberty of travel,” Arroyo said in a 36-page petition filed by his lawyer, Ferdinand Topacio.

“The watch list order is violative of the equal protection clause of the 1987 Constitution in view of the various public pronouncement of (De Lima) portraying the petitioner as guilty of committing the crime of electoral sabotage,” the petition added.

Arroyo argued that one’s right to travel could only be “impaired in the interest of national security, public safety or public health.”

“In the present case … none of the three grounds enumerated by the Constitution are present. The grounds stated in the circular do not exist in the Constitution. Does the circular intend to supplant the Philippine Constitution?” he pointed out.

De Lima placed the Arroyo couple on the watch list on October 28 after they were named respondents in two electoral sabotage cases separately filed by the joint Department of Justice and Commission on Elections, and Senator Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III.