PNP DENIES REQUEST TO ALLOW DE LIMA TO HOLD SENATE HEARINGS AT CRAME

The Philippine National Police has denied the request of Senate President Vicente Sotto III to allow detained Sen. Leila de Lima to preside over Senate inquiries at Camp Crame in Quezon City.

“It is with regret that the PNP cannot appropriately act on the matter considering Senator De Lima’s status as a detention prisoner with restricted right to exercise profession and hold public office,” PNP Director General Oscar Albayalde said in a July 11 letter to Sotto.

Albayalde said the PNP relied on a “controlling precedent” in which the Supreme Court denied a petition by Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV in 2008 to attend sessions at the Senate and set up a working area while detained at Fort Bonifacio in Taguig City on coup charges.

The PNP chief was refer- ring to the high court’s June 2008 decision that “all prisoners whether under preventive detention or serving final sentence cannot practice their profession nor engage in any business or occupation, or hold office, elective or appointive, while in detention.”

Trillanes hearings

Trillanes, however, was allowed to hold Senate hearings from detention in the latter half of his term.

On July 2, Sotto asked Albayalde to allow De Lima to hold committee hearings inside the camp, where she has been detained on illegal drug charges since February last year.

Sotto noted that similar arrangements were made when Trillanes was detained during the presidency of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.