MANILA, Philippines — The United States Senate committee seeking to ban entry of Philippine government officials involved in the “politically-motivated” case of Sen. Leila de Lima may be seen as an “interference,” but Chief Justice Lucas Bersamin said Monday that the American lawmakers are free to do so.

In an exclusive interview with CNN Philippines’ “The Source,” Bersamin said the nature of the action is “interference,” but stressed: “They are privileged to do that.”

“Those in the US, they have the fullest freedom to do what they want to legislate, to adopt a resolution in the Congress about intervening to other countries, we cannot do anything about them,” he said in a mix of English and Filipino.

US Sen. Dick Durbin (Illinois) lauded the US Senate's appropriations committee for passing the amendment to prohibit entry of Philippine government officials that had a hand in De Lima’s detention that he proposed with Sen. Patrick Leahy (Vermont).

“Good to see the Senate Appropriations Committee pass my amendment with @SenatorLeahy today to prohibit entry to any Philippine government officials involved in the politically-motivated imprisonment of Filipina Senator Leila De Lima in 2017,” the Democrat from Illinois said.

According to reports, the amendment was to the 2020 state and foreign operations appropriations bill.

While the chief justice acknowledged that the US senators are free to adopt the proposal, he, however, said he would not allow them to dictate what would happen in a matter that has already reached Philippine courts.

“The law there is let the courts function. Let the person involved there like [De Lima] do it in that forum... I don’t like that they will dictate to us, pressure us to do this one way or another,” he added.

Durbin was one of the lawmakers who introduced a bipartisan resolution in April condemning the continued detention of De Lima and calling for her immediate release. The other legislators were Edward Markey (Massachusetts), Marco Rubio (Florida), Marsha Blackburn (Tennessee) and Chris Coons (Delaware).

The resolution was read twice and referred to the chamber's foreign relations committee.

‘Vote on De Lima case was a judicial function’

Bersamin also said he does not consider himself to be one of the officials covered by the supposed ban.

He explained that what he did was an exercise of a judicial function.

“She came to the court and asked for relief and we considered the plea. We debated it. Of course, she should not expect that all of us will agree one way or the other,” he added.

Bersamin also explained that his vote was because he was not convinced that De Lima’s arguments that the SC should “deprive the trial court to have jurisdiction against her.”

The SC voted 9-6 on Oct. 10, 2017 to uphold the constitutionality of De Lima’s detention, in connection to the government’s illegal drug trading case against her.

The high court affirmed its earlier ruling in June 2018.

Bersamin, then an associate justice of the SC, voted to junk both of De Lima’s pleas.