Malacañang on Tuesday assured distressed overseas Filipino workers that it is exerting all efforts to provide them with legal assistance, including those who will be charged for drug cases abroad.
Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said this following President Rodrigo R. Duterte’s warning to Filipino workers against committing drug-related crimes abroad since he would not be able to help them.
Panelo said that while legal assistance will still be provided, the President will not do so much as to personally ask a country’s government for pardon.
“If Filipinos will be engaged in drug-trafficking, he (Duterte) will not lift a hand in the sense that he would be traveling there and asking the President for a pardon,” Panelo said in a Palace briefing.
“What we can do is just provide lawyers for them. When you provide lawyers, you’re also helping,” he explained.
Panelo emphasized that Duterte, a lawyer himself, is strict in enforcing the country’s laws and would want Filipino workers to follow laws in countries they work in as well.
“What he means by that is he cannot be violating the laws of other countries just like his position that you cannot violate our laws,” Panelo said.
“It will be against our own policy that we are very strict on the enforcement of drug laws pagkatapos sa ibang lugar hindi. Para maging consistent tayo (and then in other countries, we’re not. We have to be consistent),” he added.
