Lawyer to ask Court of Appeals to release ex-Arroyo bookkeeper

The lawyer of Rowena Del Rosario, a former bookkeeper for the Arroyo-owned company LTA Inc., will be asking the the Court of Appeals (CA) to release his client from Senate detention on Tuesday afternoon. "Mali ito. We will file a petition for habeas corpus," Del Rosario's lawyer Nunilo Marapao told GMA News Online in a phone interview. Habeas corpus is a writ or legal action wherein a prisoner can be released from unlawful detention. Marapao said they will file the petition around 2 p.m. On Monday, the Senate blue ribbon committee cited Del Rosario in contempt and ordered her arrest for supposedly being evasive in her answers and allegedly covering up for former First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo and Negros Occidental Rep. Ignacio Arroyo. She is currently being detained at the Senate Office of the Sergeant-at-Arms. Marapao said it was "unfair" that the Senate had his client arrested just because they could not get the answers they wanted from her. Marapao hopes the CA will see the merits of their petition. "There's solid ground. Sana makita nila," he said. He noted, however, that it is still up to the court when to act on their petition. Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, a member of the Senate blue ribbon committee, said the petition will not "prosper." "They can try to reverse the decision of the blue ribbon committee but I doubt it if it will prosper," Trillanes told reporters in an interview on Tuesday. — Kim Tan/RSJ, GMA News