By Mario Casayuran

Opposition Senator Risa Hontiveros said Friday the concern shown by US lawmakers through their resolutions, seeking the dropping of the charges against detained opposition Senator Leila de Lima and journalist Maria Ressa, was “not foreign intervention… it is about humanity.’’

Hontiveros issued the statement following the filing of a resolution by Senate President Vicente C. Sotto and Senators Panfilo M. Lacson and Gregorio B. Honasan II rebuking the US lawmakers’ resolution that amounted to ‘’interference in Philippine judicial process.’’

“This (concern for humanity) animated Senators Aquilino Pimentel III and Miriam Defensor Santiago to file resolutions calling for Aung San Suu Kyi’s release from prison,’’ she said.

“You know who’s guilty of foreign intervention? China. That’s where you should put your foot down’’ she added.

Hontiveros said the US lawmakers’ resolution seeking the dropping of the charges against de Lima and Ressa was an expression of their solidarity.

“Solidarity my foot!’’ was Sotto’s riposte.

“Did they do that for former Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile and Senators Jose “Jinggoy’’ Estrada and Ramon Revilla Jr.?’’ he asked

“Ok, let’s file a resolution telling the US to allow all immigrants into their country. Solidarity yun,’’ he added.

In a related development, de Lima chided Department of Justice Secretary (DOJ) Secretary Menardo Guevarra for his remark that the US lawmakers were “misinformed’’ in their call to drop the “politically-motivated’’ charges against her and Ressa.

“Much has been said by the Palace and my own colleagues in the Senate about the filing of a resolution by US Senators calling on the Duterte Administration to stop the legal persecution of dissenters, including myself and Maria Ressa. But none of these is more absurd than Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra’s statement that the US Senators were misinformed and that Maria Ressa and I were properly treated and legally charged by the DOJ for alleged criminal wrongdoings,’’ she said.

“Secretary Guevarra might have been hiding under a rock for a good part in the early months of this administration to be unaware of the daily character assassination, slut-shaming, and trial by publicity that Duterte and his officials subjected me to, but definitely the US Senators were not,’’ she added.

De Lima maintained that these American senators know, while Guevarra apparently did not, that the whole government machinery, first and foremost, the House of Representatives and the DOJ, was mobilized by his boss to malign my reputation and fabricate criminal charges against me on the basis of the statements of convicted criminals and other perjured witnesses.

“I am sure that the US Senators are better informed than him about my cases if he has at all even bothered to familiarize himself with the cases his department has filed against me. As DOJ Secretary, he has continued the legal persecution started by his infamous predecessor by maintaining the criminal convicts as state witnesses against me, even if they are disqualified by law,’’ she said.