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SC justice: 6,000 watch list, hold departure orders issued under Arroyo


Supreme Court justices on Tuesday grilled the counsel of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on the issue of the watch list orders issued against her and husband Jose Miguel “Mike" Arroyo for their alleged participation in the supposed electoral sabotage in the 2007 elections. Associate Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno asked lawyer Anacleto Diaz why his camp was questioning the legality of the Department of Justice's Department Circular No. 41, which was the basis for the watch list orders against the Arroyos, when the government had issued more than 6,000 watch list and hold departure orders during Mrs. Arroyo’s incumbency as president. "Why are we going to make an exceptional case and not make a presumption that the Arroyo administration did not believe that?" Sereno asked Diaz. Justice Bienvenido Reyes also echoed Sereno's observation and said "pursuant to the same DC, there were many HDO and WLO issued [in the previous administration]." Mrs. Arroyo has been questioning the legality of the watch list order so she could travel abroad to seek medical treatment for his bone mineral disorder. The Arroyo couple invoked their right to travel under Section 6, Article III of the Constitution. But in grilling Diaz, Sereno asked why Mrs. Arroyo should be exempted from being placed on the watch list order "when some of the people placed under HDO and WLOs under the Arroyo administration also had health problems." "Facts do not support your contention," Sereno told Diaz. In response, Diaz admitted that while Cabinet secretaries are considered the president's alter-egos, the members of Mrs. Arroyo's official family during her nine-year term might have committed a "mistake for following the department circular" that authorizes the DOJ to issue such orders. "Public officials should not be allowed to strike when and where they please. They should not be allowed to use unchanneled governmental power," Diaz said. Diaz claimed there was no basis for the DOJ to issue DC 41 and that the circular "was violative of a person's right to travel. Under the Constitution, a person's right to travel should not be impaired except in the interest of national security, public, health, and public safety. Diaz said there is no law authorizing the DOJ to issue a watch list or a hold departure order to anyone being subjected to a preliminary investigation by the department. "With the absence of any law, there is no basis for DC No. 41. It is clear that DC is clearly violative of a person’s right to travel," he said. - KBK, GMA News

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