Column: ABOVE THE LAW

By: ATTY. AYIN DREAM D. APLASCA

The Prosecuted Parliamentarian

The election polls are already closed. The unofficial results are on its final wave to
being official. All of these are on the hiatus for the past few months up to today.
Everyone will move on once official results are out.

While many are busy fussing about the local and national elections, the
international community is also busy fussing about how to resolve cases of persecuted
members of the parliament worldwide.

This issue caught my attention because one of its official missions is to focus on
one of our senators – detained Senator Leila de Lima.

The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) is concerned that the lady senator is still in
detention despite the absence of any corroborated evidence to justify the charges against
her. Accordingly, there are a total of 187 persecuted parliamentarians and of which are
members of the opposition.

Actually, the IPU already asked the government to allow it to observe during
court trials. In this way, it can monitor the legality and fairness of any trial proceedings.

There may be a lot of questions as to the mission and jurisdiction of the IPU, but
it should be noted that the purpose of this investigations and monitoring is to ensure
that human rights is well protected.

The IPU has the mission to promote, protect, and strengthen democracy around
the world. Besides, the Philippines is a member state of this organization. As a member,
it has the obligation to work together with the IPU to promote democracy, equality,
human rights, development and peace.

Unfortunately, it was reported that the Philippines has not responded to IPU
requests regarding its concerns. The latter simply wanted to request for information and
to closely observe the legal proceedings if it complies with international fair trial.

This is an immediate concern that I am also disturbed on how the rule of law is
being manipulated. The Senate has the responsibility to help its members speak the
truth and participate in the discussions. I may not have taken any sides of this issue, but
it is also of my concern that Senator Antonio Trillanes IV may soon be arrested to
silence him.

The deficiency in the rule of law is at stake. And we don’t want the nation to
suffer from this reality.

It is high time that we should always be mindful on the contents that we receive
as information regarding these issues. It may be presented to us in a sound manner.
However, we may not realize that we are already receiving false information that makes
us protectors of violators of the rule of law.

High hopes to all prosecuted parliamentarian!