The Philippine government is requesting the Beijing administration to allow a lawyer to visit the three Filipinos it is currently detaining for alleged espionage in China.
Chinese state news agency Xinhua recently identified the three as David Servañez, Albert Endencia, and Nathalie Plizardo.
In an interview yesterday, Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Undersecretary Eduardo de Vega said that arrangements have been made for a Filipino lawyer to represent the three detainees, whom he insisted were not involved in spying.
“We already funded the lawyer. A local lawyer is taking on their case funded by the DFA Legal Assistance Fund and we’re strongly requesting the Chinese authorities for this lawyer to at least see them in their detention in Hainan,” he told reporters.
“But for that, we also need the approval of the [Hainan] provincial governor. So we’re working on that,” he added.
Before this, the DFA reminded the Chinese government that the three Filipinos should be accorded due process and full respect of their rights under domestic law and the Philippine-China Consular Agreement.
Article 13 of the consular agreement made in 2009 states: “A consular officer shall be entitled to visit a national of the sending State who is under detention, arrest or deprived of freedom by any other means, to converse or communicate with him in any language or dialect known to the detained national relating to his condition and his case and to arrange legal assistance for him.”
It was reported that the three alleged spies were part of 50 Filipinos from Palawan province who received scholarships to the Hainan Normal University from 2018 to 2022 under a sister province agreement.
They went home after completing their studies but returned to Hainan to accept job offers.
Earlier, the National Security Council (NSC) suggested that their arrest was done in “retaliation” for the rounding up of several alleged Chinese spies in the Philippines.
“A portion of one of the Filipino’s statements, while expressing regret [for alleged spying], also notably portrayed China in a positive light. There was also mention of a ‘Philippine Intelligence Agency’ or ‘Philippine Spy Intelligence Services’ which is a non-existent government agency,” NSC spokesperson Jonathan Malaya said in a statement.
“The ‘confessions’ appear to be scripted, strongly suggesting that they were not made freely,” he added.
Similarly, Col. Xerxes Trinidad, chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ Public Affairs Office, also pointed out that the intelligence agencies mentioned by Chinese authorities as supposedly employing the three Filipinos do not exist.
“Again, I think it was, as we heard from other news in social media, they’re claiming to be reporting to the Philippine Intelligence Agency… but we do not have that,” he said in a mixture of Filipino and English.
