The Philippine Embassy in the United States said Tuesday all countries had the right to decide who should be allowed or denied entry into their borders.
However, the embassy urged Washington to respect Manila’s laws and its judicial processes after President Donald Trump signed the 2020 national budget containing a provision banning the Philippine officials responsible for the detention of Senator Leila de Lima.
In a post on its official Twitter account, the embassy reminded the US to respect Philippine laws and processes, and obviously in reference to the judicial proceedings involving the cases filed against De Lima for her alleged violations of Philippine laws.
“All countries have the sovereign prerogative to allow or ban individuals from entering their borders,” the embassy said.
“We strongly advise the United States to respect our own laws and processes in the same way that we respect theirs.”
But Senator Francis Tolentino says the United States has every right to bar the entry of any foreigner into it territory.
“We should respect the immigration laws of the United States,” Tolentino said.
Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. said Trump’s ban on the entry of Filipino officials behind the detention of De Lima “has to do with sovereignty.”
“Yes, it has to do with sovereignty, which if we waive here we may as well waive it to China and give Subic and Clark,” he said in a tweet.
The 2020 appropriations bill that Trump signed Friday includes a provision that allows the US to apply the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act and sanction the Philippine officials involved in De Lima’s arrest and detention on drug charges since 2017.
The law authorizes the US government to sanction those who it sees as human rights offenders, freeze their assets, and ban them from entering the US.
Among those may be banned from entering the United States are President Rodrigo Duterte, his spokesman Salvador Panelo, Solicitor General Jose Calida and Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission chairman Dante Jimenez, among others.
Malacañang, however, remained unfazed, saying the provision could not be imposed without “credible information” in De Lima’s supposed “wrongful imprisonment.” With Macon Ramos-Araneta