So argues Professor Antonio La Viña, a fierce human rights advocate and law teacher.

A resolution calling for Senator Leila De Lima’s immediate release was recently introduced in a U.S. Senate Committee and a Bill was approved banning the entry into the USA of “Philippine officials involved in the [illegal] detention of Senator Leila M. De Lima.”

Malacañang’s response was that the “U. S. Senate’s move is a “brazen” attempt to intrude into the Philippines’ internal affairs,” and that “it treats Manila as an ‘inferior state’.”

Professor Antonio La Viña refuted this position in an ANC interview on the program Matters of Fact. He argued that “every congress in every country can set its own rules for deciding who can come in and go out of” its country. He went on to explain that when a country is signatory to international treaties and conventions as is the Philippines to various such instruments, it, of necessity, limits its sovereignty – but “that is a good thing”, maintained the good professor.

In his capacity as a teacher of Constitutional Law Professor La Viña stated that the case of Senator De Lima “is an open and shut case” devoid of any evidence against her and that “she has a right to a speedy trial but is deprived of it.”

For a fuller discussion of this issue, view the ANC clip: