Senators criticize De Lima over ‘high drama’ at Manila airport

MANILA, Philippines—The high drama that attended former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s arrival at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport’s Terminal I Tuesday night and her being barred to leave the country despite a Supreme Court temporary restraining order (TRO) might have given her enough reason to claim political persecution and seek political asylum elsewhere, an administration senator said.

“With what (Department of Justice [DoJ] is doing to her), they might be giving former President Arroyo the ammunition to seek political asylum because in the view of other countries—from the outside looking in—there’s order by the court, the Supreme Court, but the administration is not following it,” Senator Francis Escudero told reporters in Filipino.

Opposition Senator Joker Arroyo, for his part, said the issue of the ex-President’s medical condition and right to travel was “merely incidental when compared to the executive branch’s move to emasculate and damage the Supreme Court, as it insidiously asserts its supremacy over the Supreme Court.”

“The trend would transmogrify into an autocracy, with the President a virtual dictator, with a supplicant Congress and an inutile Supreme Court. That would make our Constitution a paper Constitution,” Seantor Arroyo told the Inquirer, recalling that Malacañang earlier tried to impound a significant portion of the Supreme Court’s 2012 budget and those of other constitutional agencies.

“The public, fully trusting P-Noy (President Aquino), has its guard down. They do not see the undercurrents of the creeping authoritarian bent of the current administration. They are consumed by the high drama involving the image of a sick and forlorn GMA (Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo)  being barred from leaving,” the senator added.

“The stakes are high in what appears to be another one of the predictable confrontations between PNoy and GMA. Let us not be misled. The real aim is to upend the structural balance between the executive, legislative and judicial branches provided for in the Constitution to ensure executive dictation, legislative abdication and judicial submission.”

Escudero criticized Justice Secretary Leila de Lima for continuing to disallow Arroyo to fly abroad despite the high court’s issuance of a TRO on the DoJ’s department’s watch-list order against Arroyo, now a Pampanga congresswoman, and her husband, Jose Miguel “Mike” Arroyo.

Escudero, a practicing lawyer before joining the government, warned that De Lima’s defiance was bringing the country into “the brink of a constitutional crisis.”

“I heard the braggadocio of the DoJ secretary that even if she was cited in contempt, she would still do this,” he said. “I don’t care if she is cited in contempt. The question is: Why is she taking us to this point?”

“I don’t want to see the situation where the Supreme Court orders the police or military to implement its order, but no one will follow. We have no right—whether you’re the DoJ secretary or a former president—to choose which decision you would follow and which one you would not,” Escudero said.

He added, “When the Supreme Court decides, right or wrong, we should all follow.”

Sen. Franklin Drilon, however, downplayed the fear of a constitutional crisis. “I think that’s overblowing the issue. I don’t see any constitutional crisis happening,” he told reporters.

Senator Arroyo assailed De Lima for “openly defying” the SC order.

“I don’t want to call a fellow lawyer stupid, but this is so stupid,” Senator Arroyo said, rejecting De Lima’s position that Arroyo could not be allowed to leave unless the Office of the Solicitor General had received an actual copy of the TRO.

“When the Supreme Court issues an order, it’s immediately executory,” he said, pointing out that De Lima, supposedly with a copy, already alerted airport and immigration officials to bar the former President from leaving.

The senator said the TRO was “not a decision favoring Gloria, but simply meant status quo or that no one moves to give the Supreme Court a time to study the case.”

“Everybody is mesmerized with this single issue. This is really exasperating. This time, it’s like whatever Noynoy (Aquino) says, we’re okay with it. They’re playing blind. It’s crazy,” Senator Arroyo said.

Escudero said Arroyo’s camp also contributed to the problem by insisting on leaving Tuesday night when it could have waited for the DoJ to actually receive an official copy of the TRO.

“On the part of the DoJ, now is not the time to invent new theories of law to be experimented in at the Supreme Court, which would only sow more confusion and lead us to the (crisis) that I’m talking about,” Escudero said.

“Testing the limits of her power within the bounds of the law, yes, but not when it comes to coming up with a noble and sometimes absurd interpretations of the law,” he said.