Court junks De Lima’s petition to join Senate proceedings online

A regional trial court has rejected Senator Leila M. De Lima’s petition to join Senate proceedings via teleconferencing from her cell in Camp Crame.

“Allowing De Lima to participate in the Senate sessions, committee hearings and meetings via teleconferencing from within her place of detention is no different from allowing her to attend there physically. Allowing her to do so today would be tantamount to allowing her to participate even after the state of public health emergency,” Presiding Judge Liezel A. Aquiatan said in a six-paged decision dated June 17.

Ms. De Lima argued that she is “not a convicted prisoner, that she continues to enjoy the presumption of innocence, that she has no civil interdiction, and that she fully possessed all her civil and political rights… to perform the mandate given to her by Filipino people.”

The court dismissed the senator’s argument, saying that the “presumption of innocence does not carry with it the full enjoyment of civil and political rights.”

The Senate has shifted to “hybrid” sessions and committee hearings due to the lockdown triggered by the coronavirus pandemic.

Ms. De Lima has been detained since 2017, accused of having been involved in the narcotics trade inside the national penitentiary during her stint as Justice Secretary. — Genshen L. Espedido