DETAINED Senator Leila De Lima has asked Senate President Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III to support her bid to attend Senate sessions on important bills, including the reimposition of the death penalty.
In a letter released on Sunday, De Lima has requested Pimentel and the Senate to express support on her appeal for the court to grant her furlough "occasionally" to attend senate deliberations and vote on special bills amid detention for drug charges.
"The minimum that I request is for an expression of support for my desire to occasionally be granted furlough by the court in charge of my detention, for purposes on voting for crucial landmark legislations on a case-to-case basis," De Lima said.
"This is not too much to ask considering that I have not yet been stripped of my office and and no penalty has yet been imposed on me," she added.
The senator is currently detained at the Philippine National Police custodial center following her arrest for drug charges over her alleged participation in the proliferation of narcotics trading in the National Bilibid Prison (NBP).
De Lima claimed that since she has not yet been convicted of any charges, she is still in full possession of her "political" and "civil" rights.
Explaining her claim, De Lima cited that detention prisoners are allowed by the Commission on Elections in the past to vote in municipal and city jails.
Since detained individuals can still vote, she insisted that she is also entitled to vote in Senate deliberations.
"I see no legal barrier in the applicability of the same principle to the case of a detained senator who in the absence of a final judgement of conviction still possess that mandate of public office bestowed upon her by no less than fourteen million Filipinos," she said.
The senator, in the end of her three-page letter, asked the Senate to ask the Muntinlupa Regional Trial Court to grant her furlough. (SunStar Philippines)