MANILA — House of Representatives Deputy Speaker Prospero Pichay Jr. on Wednesday slammed the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) for “political partisanship” after it remained mum when former president and now Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo suffered from years of detention.
Pichay said the group of global lawmakers was quick to defend opposition senators Leila de Lima and Antonio Trillanes IV but was quiet when the rights of the former president were violated “as ruled by no less than the United Nations.”
“Where was the IPU when Speaker Arroyo was unjustly jailed for five years without any valid charges? Are they playing political partisanship?” Pichay said.
“Why is the IPU interfering in the cases involving senators de Lima and Trillanes when the same judicial processes as what used had been used against Speaker Arroyo are the ones being applied in their cases. Unlike the IPU, our laws and judicial processes do not discriminate,” he added.
Arroyo, who faced plunder charges, was detained at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center (VMMC) from 2012 until 2016.
De Lima is detained in Camp Crame over drug trafficking charges, while the amnesty granted to Trillanes has been declared as void.
Pichay backed Arroyo’s recommendation to withdraw the Philippines’ membership from the Geneva-based organization over its “interference” in the country’s judicial processes.
He noted that Arroyo was only upholding the country’s sovereignty when she proposed the IPU pullout.
“Sovereignty of a country should be beyond the reach of any international body or organization. If the Speaker of the House of Representatives feels that our sovereignty has been violated and has moved to defend it, that should be respected,” Pichay said.
“I fully support the Speaker’s call to withdraw from the IPU because it serves no serious purpose but to interfere in the legal and judicial processes of member-parliaments while doing nothing on the real injustices committed on many of its members,” he added. (Filane Mikee Cervantes/PNA)
