The Philippines has pending Treaties on the Transfer of Sentenced Prisoners (TTSP) with several countries but these have not been expedited. These treaties seem “better sounding” than the proposed omnibus “prisoner swap agreements” (a free-for-all prisoner-swap agreement!) suggested by Senate President Chiz Escudero — which might even put in danger the liberties and lives of law-abiding kababayans OFWs who could be used as pawns to trigger a prisoner swap negotiation for high-value foreign prisoners in the country. Frightening. Let’s go by the tried and tested legal route of Treaties on the Transfer of Sentenced Prisoners — prioritizing and expediting those where 1)there are Filipinos on death row, 2)those with the most number of sentenced OFWs, 3)those with the most number of OFWs with pending criminal cases 4)those with the most number of OFWs etc. , in that order. Has any office been tasked with working on this with urgency and a timetable? Anyone?
In the meantime, the Mary Jane Veloso humanitarian appeal can be treated as a pro hac vice (for this time only) action to be based on the agreement with Indonesia and the consent and “authorization” given by Indonesia to the Philippines to determine the treatment and disposition of the transferred sentenced person —
— with a pro hac vice clause, it can be simple.
(in fact, if a detainee has no Philippine pending case, i.e., no pending criminal case in the Philippines, any fiscal/prosecutor can issue a resolution addressed to the custodian to release the person, ordinarily … ganun ang nangyayari kapag walang kaso, di ba). Here (the MJ Veloso case), you will be using (1) mainly international law concepts and terms, and then (2)some multi-disciplinary discourse for social context, and (3) a little criminal procedure discussion.
(ngek 😂, nagbigay ng assignment kahit Pasko🌲)
Happy holidays, everyone!
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