Government officials are not discouraged from traveling to the United States amid the proposal to deny entry to those involved in the detention of opposition Senator Leila de Lima, Malacañang said Monday.
In a press briefing, Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo also said he did not mind being barred from entering because the US was “not the only country” where one could “enjoy sites and the sounds.”
He also said the matter was merely a proposal and only represented the view of only a minority of American senators.
“I think the views of the two senators are in the minority. Otherwise, some senators would have supported that. In other words, that ban will be only effective upon the approval of both Houses of Congress of the United States,” Panelo said.
US Senators Patrick Leahy and Dick Durbin filed an amendment in the 2020 State and Foreign Operations (SFOPs) appropriations bill to ban officials involved in the imprisonment of De Lima, a vocal critic of President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs.
Since then, the administration has slammed the proposal, calling it a “brazen” attempt to intrude into the country’s internal affairs and treats the Philippines as an “inferior state.”
Panelo said the government did not reject criticisms of other countries outright but it should be based on truth.
“The problem with them is that they listen to the critics of the administration and believe what they hear or what they receive as info hook, line and sinker,” Panelo said.
Leahy previously said his country provided large amount of aid to the Philippines.
“I assume President Duterte’s spokesman who defended the wrongful imprisonment of Senator De Lima does not consider our aid to be ‘interfering’ in their sovereignty,” Leahy said.
“Our aid is not a blank check, and when Philippine officials abuse the justice system for the purpose of political retribution, we have a responsibility to respond,” the senator added.
Panelo, responding to Leahy, said aids or grants were not a form of sovereign interference and given by a state for “comity and friendship.”
“Grants or aids with attached conditions are anathema to the very purpose of such generosity and we reject them, for they cloth the donor the authority as well as the gumption to meddle into our internal affairs thereby trampling our sovereign rights,” Panelo said.
“We remind Senator Leahy that the Republic of the Philippines is not a vassal nor a colony of America. It is an independent state that is fiercely protective of its sovereignty and subservient to no other country,” he added.
De Lima has been detained since February 2017 over her alleged link in illegal drug trade when she was still justice secretary. She has repeatedly denied the accusations and dubbed the allegations against her as “political persecution.”
The senator is not entitled to bail and might face a maximum sentence of life imprisonment if found guilty.
At the same time, De Lima maintained the United States had a right to impose entry restrictions on foreigners who are deemed responsible for gross human rights violations and abuses for political retribution in their countries.
She noted that those who can be barred from entering the United States are Philippine government officials involved in her “wrongful imprisonment.”
De Lima issued the statement in the wake of Malacañang and some of her Senate colleagues criticisms’ on the decision of a United States Senate panel to approve the proposed visa ban on Filipino government officials found to be involved in her unjust detention.
“US Senators Richard Durbin and Patrick Leahy’s bill instructs their own State Department to restrict entry to the US of certain individuals involved in human rights violations in their countries,” she said.
“It is the prerogative of the US to impose an ‘entry ban’ on Filipino officials involved in human rights violations and abuses,” said De Lima.
She said this is in no way meddling in our country’s internal affairs. Countries, including the US, are sovereign on who they want to allow or disallow into their territory,” she added.
In a recent tweet, Durbin announced the US Senate Appropriations Committee approved the amendment on Sept. 27, which states that the US Secretary of State shall apply the subsection on the prohibition of entry “to foreign government officials about whom the Secretary has credible information have been involved in the wrongful imprisonment of [Senator De Lima]”.
Aside from De Lima’s case, the amended US Senate bill also referred to other cases of “wrongful detention” in other countries and sought the same prohibition on the entry of certain “officials of the governments of Turkey, Egypt or Saudi Arabia.”
Senate President Vicente Sotto III and Senator Panfilo Lacson deplored the move as a violation of the independence of the Philippine judicial system.
Senator Christopher Go said he would make a parallel proposal to Mr. Duterte banning the American lawmakers here. Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo slammed it as a “brazen” intrusion on Philippine internal affairs.
“US Senators Durbin and Leahy did not propose such visa ban to personally attack Mr. Duterte, our country, and our judicial process. They only want to sanction abusive government officials by preventing them from entering their country,” De Lima said.
De Lima, the first prominent political prisoner under the Duterte regime, said the idea of a visa ban was not entirely new in the US pursuant to the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act signed into law by US President Donald Trump in 2018.
“The ARIA, which focuses, among others, on issues such as human rights and terrorism, especially in Southeast Asia, actually allows for the visa ban and other appropriate sanctions in the United States against foreigners involved in abuses and human rights violations,” she said.
De Lima recalled that, even before the ARIA, such sanctions had existed, particularly under the Obama-era Magnitsky Act which was named after Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian tax lawyer who experienced reprisal after he uncovered a tax fraud scheme that implicated Russian officials. He was imprisoned in Russia and later died in jail.
The Magnitsky Act authorized the US Government to sanction human rights offenders by banning entry into the US and freezing the assets of those involved in his persecution and death.
“The Magnitsky Act has come to be known as a legitimate and powerful tool for enforcing accountability for human rights abuses perpetrated by repressive regimes, and has even inspired other jurisdictions, such as the European Union, to consider adopting similar sanctions for combating impunity,” she pointed out.
The detained senator also thanked Durbin and Leahy, as well as other human rights defenders, for reminding the world that the continued human rights violation under the Duterte administration do not go unnoticed.
“The amended US bill proves that impunity, while remaining unchecked in our country, may find an end in the ‘land of the free and home of the brave’. Thank you, Senators Durbin and Leahy, and many other champions of justice and democracy, for reminding us that the world is still watching,” she said.
Durbin and Rubio, along with fellow US Senators Ed Markey, Marsha Blackburn and Chris Coons, earlier filed US Senate Resolution No. 142 calling for the release of De Lima whom they called as “a prisoner of conscience” who was “detained solely on account of her political views and the legitimate exercise of her freedom of expression.”