DoJ says call of US Senate body won’t affect de Lima case

A US SENATE committee resolution urging the government to drop the charges against two of President Rodrigo R. Duterte’s staunchest critics won’t affect their criminal cases, Justice Secretary Menardo I. Guevarra said on Wednesday.

The US Senate foreign relations committee earlier approved Resolution 142, which urged the government of President Rodrigo R. Duterte to release Senator Leila Mr. de Lima, who has been detained since February 2017 for drug trafficking.

Ms. de Lima, a staunch critic of Mr. Duterte’s war on drugs, is a “prisoner of conscience, detained solely on account of her political views and the legitimate exercise of her freedom of expression,” according to the resolution.

The lawmaker was indicted for allegedly conspiring to commit illegal drug trading inside the national penitentiary when she was the justice secretary.

The committee also called the arrest of Rappler Executive Editor Maria A. Ressa for cyberlibel and tax-related charges “part of a pattern of weaponizing the rule of law to repress independent media.”

But Mr. Guevara said the US resolution “is non-existent as far as we are concerned.”

“Their suggestion is against the rule of law because we are following the proper legal and judicial processes,” he told reporters.

The US legislators also asked President Donald Trump to penalize Philippine authorities liable for the killings linked to the war on drugs by having their US visas revoked and their assets froze, among others. — Vann Marlo M. Villegas