/ THOUGHTS AND EPHEMERA /

/ Arroyo’s pleas political, not human rights issue

“It would be the supreme irony to allow GMA (Gloria Macapagal-Aroyo) to invoke our most sacred human rights protections to escape justice. That would be her supreme, final perversion of our democratic institutions. While countless voices have correctly quoted human rights law, our democracy must recognize GMA’s pleas as a political, not human rights, issue.

“…Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has been portrayed as the victim boxed into a corner and fighting for her survival. Lest we forget, the supposed underdog here is a former President and now a member of the Philippine Congress, with loyal allies and appointees in high places, with a formidable war chest at her disposal, much of it our own money, the criminal complaints say. She is not a political nobody by any stretch of the imagination.

“…Her own versions of her health condition raise many questions. Her list of destinations are mostly (not all, it turns out) nonextradition states. And finally, even if she finds herself in an extradition state, she can still claim asylum as a refugee, or at the very least, invoke the state’s duty of ‘non-refoulement,’ to not return a person to the country of origin where she faces the risk of persecution. When she applies for asylum, videotapes of the airport drama of Tuesday night will be Exhibit A.

“…various voices have warned us that to defy the Supreme Court is to imperil the rule of law that we regained at Edsa I. By defying the court, De Lima calls the bluff, as if to say: The court is damaged goods. It is they who jeopardize our rule of law by lending their imprimatur to impunity…What De Lima is really doing is, beyond the Constitution’s explicit text, asking people to recognize that this is really a political issue.

“…Faced with GMA as human rights victim, this is not the best time to demonstrate our commitment to rule of law, to grant a reviled former President her fundamental right to travel, but the worst time, to allow her to escape with impunity in a final, irreparable mockery of the rule of law.”

/ Arroyo’s pleas political, not human rights issue by Raul C. Pangalangan, Philippine Daily Inquirer, 18 November 2011