DILG chief seeks legal advice on police deployment if Arroyo tries to leave anew

MANILA, Philippines — Interior and Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo said on Thursday that he would be seeking legal advice on what the police would do should the Supreme Court seek its assistance to implement the order stopping the Department of Justice from enforcing its watch list order against former President and now Pampanga Representative Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Interior and Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

At Villamor Air Base in Pasay City, where he had just sent off President Benigno Aquino III who left for Indonesia, Robredo said he must get a clarification in a situation where the executive and the judiciary held opposing views on the bid of Arroyo to leave the country and seek treatment for her bone ailment.

“Because of their opposing positions, it’s also important that we also take a stand that is according to the law,” he told reporters.

Robredo said the government could not afford to have the police in a legal dilemma.

He said a group of lawyers of the Department of Interior and Local Government have been looking into the issue.

“Give us a day or two,” he said.

Robredo said tapping legal expertise was his own initiative based on “my reading of the situation.”