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Senator Leila De Lima.
(File photo by LYN RILLON / Philippine Daily Inquier)
MANILA, Philippines – Four senators on Wednesday made a new call for the participation of detained senator Leila de Lima in plenary sessions and commission hearings through teleconferences.
While de Lima was serving his fourth year in detention, Senate Pro Tempore President Ralph Recto and minority senators led by Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon jointly presented Senate Resolution No. 658. Senators Francis Pangilinan and Risa Hontiveros also they were the authors of the resolution.
To remember, Drilon and Senator Panfilo Lacson presented a similar resolution in July 2019 that sought De Lima to participate in the plenary through teleconferences, videoconferences or other forms of remote or electronic communications. The resolution is still pending at the committee level.
In the new resolution, the four senators stressed that there is technology available so that De Lima can carry out her functions as a duly elected legislator.
As a duly elected member of the Chamber of Senators of the XVIII Congress, de Lima should be granted “the privilege of participating in its plenary sessions and committee hearings via remote access,” the senators noted.
Last May, the Senate amended its rules, through an adopted resolution, to allow plenary sessions and committee hearings to be held via teleconferencing, videoconferencing, or other reliable forms of remote electronic means due to restrictions imposed by the pandemic. Covid-19.
Through this, the Senate and its committees have been holding plenary sessions and committee hearings through electronic and remote means.
Senators noted that after the Supreme Court allowed litigants to appear in court via teleconferences, Camp Crame established three existing facilities within its grounds to allow De Lima to attend his court hearings via remote access from his detention room.
They added that in the case of then-senator Antonio Trillanes, the jurisprudence “allows the detained legislators to fulfill their mission as long as they do so within the confines of their detention centers as ruled by the Supreme Court.”
KGA
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