Marcos cabinet to skip Imee’s Duterte arrest hearing at Senate

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Bersamin's letter to the Senate has more legal finesse than how Duterte and Medialdea did it during the 2021 Pharmally hearings

MANILA, Philippines – Officials of the Marcos cabinet involved in the arrest and surrender of former president Rodrigo Duterte to the International Criminal Court (ICC) will skip the second hearing at the Senate by the president’s sister, Senator Imee Marcos, citing executive privilege.

Cabinet secretaries attended the first hearing of the Senate foreign affairs committee on March 20, and according to a letter sent to the Senate by Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, “we believe that all matters not covered by executive privilege have already been extensively discussed.” The first hearing threshed out the nuts and bolts of how exactly the Marcos government cooperated with the Interpol, and whether Duterte’s rights under local and international laws were respected.

Citing four pending petitions in the Supreme Court questioning the legality of the arrest and detention of Duterte, Bersamin said in the letter dated March 31 that: “In light of these considerations, we must respectfully decline the invitation to attend the hearing.”

While this move is reminiscent of 2021 when the Duterte cabinet also snubbed the Senate’s hearings into the Pharmally pandemic procurement scandal, the Marcos administration is doing its own move with more legal finesse courtesy of Bersamin, a former chief justice.

In 2021, Duterte’s executive secretary Salvador Medialdea directed all officials under the executive department “to no longer appear before or attend” the Pharmally hearings, and instead “focus all their time and effort on curbing the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Senators, especially the lawyers there, were quick to brand the move as unconstitutional because in 2006, the Supreme Court had struck down as unconstitutional some parts of a Gloria Arroyo directive for executive officials to seek presidential consent first before attending a congressional hearing.

Believing the Duterte move was a violation of that Supreme Court ruling, the Senate filed a petition before the Supreme Court. The petition was dismissed in July 2022 when Duterte was no longer in power. The decision to dismiss was a technical one and it did not touch the 2006 precedent, nor Senate’s existing rules.

What was upheld as constitutional in Arroyo’s 2006 directive is that officials cannot divulge matters that are of executive privilege, which include military, diplomatic, and other national security matters, or close-door cabinet meetings, among others.

Constitutional advocates have over the years tried to fight for the public’s right to know certain information, consistently scrutinizing the parameters of a national security matters. It remains to be seen whether the Senate, as a body or Imee Marcos as an individual, will argue that way on Wednesday, April 2, when the next hearing is scheduled.

“Nevertheless, we remain available to extend our full cooperation through other appropriate channels, should there be any further clarifications required within the bounds of the law,” Bersamin wrote.

After one hearing on March 20, Imee Marcos released preliminary findings that the “there were glaring violations of the rights of” Duterte when he was arrested and that “the Constitutional safeguards guaranteeing liberty and due process of law were not observed.” Imee Marcos also quit his brother’s senatorial slate soon after.

Duterte is detained at the ICC for charges of crimes against humanity of murder for the killings by the Davao Death Squad (DDS) and in his war on drugs. He is scheduled to face a pre-trial hearing, where his charges would either be confirmed or denied, on September 23.

– Rappler.com