Malacañang has accused Senator Leila de Lima of playing the “gender card” to deflect public attention away from her alleged involvement in drug operations in the New Bilibid Prison.
De Lima on Monday, November 7, filed a habeas data petition against President Rodrigo Duterte before the Supreme Court for alleged harassment and threats against her, in an attempt to test the president’s immunity from suit.
“Senator Leila de Lima is apparently playing the gender card as a shield against mounting evidence of her ties with high-profile drug lords and the proliferation of drug trade in the Bilibid,” presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella said in a statement. “By portraying herself as a victim she seeks to distance herself from the intimate relationships which were also intertwined with drug trafficking while she was DOJ (Department of Justice) Secretary.”
Abella said De Lima’s case was also “calculated to generate media noise to drown out the accusations against her.”
Justice undersecretary Erickson Balmes, meanwhile, says the Department of Justice “respects the right of Senator de Lima to file cases she believes should be filed.”
Seeking protection
De Lima’s habeas data petition means she is asking the Supreme Court to stop the government from gathering her personal information and using them against her.
In several public engagements, the president accused De Lima of allegedly benefiting from drug money inside Bilibid, saying “she has opened the portals of narcopolitics” in the country. Duterte also repeatedly vilified De Lima for having illicit relations with her former driver, who supposedly alleged money from the jailed drug lords.
De Lima cited several specific occasions where Duterte has repeatedly subjected her to crude personal verbal attacks, which involved the wrongful and unlawful collection and publication of her alleged personal affairs.
The senator enclosed in her petition a compact disc containing video and audio recordings of the president’s alleged personal and verbal attacks.
She also attached an assessment report made by Dr. Sylvia Estrada Claudio, a psychologist specializing in women’s concerns, on the alleged psychological effects of Duterte’s utterances.
She asked the high court to order the deletion, destruction, and rectification of “all the illegally-obtained pieces of private information” against her, and to bar the President and his men from making public statements that “malign” her as a woman and a person, notably references or discrimination against her sexuality.
Immunity challenge
While the 1987 Constitution does not provide specific provision on the immunity from suit of an incumbent president, the bases for the immunity are found both in the jurisprudence of the United States and the Philippines and under Article 8 of the Civil Code “the jurisprudence forms part of the legal system of the Philippines.”
In 1986, the SC ruled that “incumbent presidents are immune from suit or from being brought to court during the period of their incumbency and tenure.”
Two years later, the SC further ruled that “the rationale for the grant to the president of the privilege of immunity from suit is to assure the exercise of presidential duties and functions free from any hindrance or distraction, considering that being the chief executive of the government is a job that, aside from requiring all of the office-holder’s time, also demands undivided attention.”
Under the 2008 resolution, cases involving a writ of habeas data may be filed before the regional trial court, Sandiganbayan, Court of Appeals, and the SC, which are mandated to act swiftly.
De Lima, however said, the filing of a writ of habeas data against the president is just “one of a series of charges” her team, she and her lawyers would file against Duterte and his allies.
The post De Lima’s ‘Gender Card’ Ploy appeared first on Manila Bulletin
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