Duterte’s vow to release Arroyo just a campaign promise?

PRESIDENTIAL aspirant Rodrigo Duterte titillated Pampanga voters in one of his sorties with his promise that, if elected, he would release former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, considering that the evidence against her is weak.

Duterte, being a lawyer, ought to know or should have known that Arroyo is already under the jurisdiction of the court trying her for plunder.

Such being the case, Duterte’s promise smacks of judicial interference, a no-no in our system of government. The most that he could have done was advise Arroyo’s lawyers about the steps they could take to get her released provisionally from jail.

This early, his audacity to show his despotic character is in full display, made more stark by his tendentious disregard for the well-entrenched principle of separation of powers.

We wish to believe Duterte never meant what he promised; we wish it was all hot air breathed out simply to woo vote-rich Pampanga.

—BENJIE GUERRERO,
Business Center, Sulo Riviera,Diliman, Quezon City