THE debate as to whether Former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s human rights are violated, or if her arrest for alleged plunder has once again been re-ignited by the news that Attorney Amal Clooney (also known as Mrs. George Clooney) is now defending Arroyo, and has reportedly requested the United Nations to release the former president from her arrest.
Amal Alamuddin Clooney is a London-based Lebanese-British lawyer, activist, and author. She is a “barrister” (Bar-at-law) associated with Doughty Street Chambers, who specializes in courtroom advocacy, drafting legal pleadings, and giving expert legal opinions. Her focus is on international law, criminal law, human rights, and extradition.
In his coverage of the celebration of International Women’s Day in Los Angeles, Balitang America’s Correspondent Steve Angeles reported that “Filipino American activists in Los Angeles are now questioning international human rights lawyer Amal Clooney’s new causes in the Philippines.
“We’ve really grown concerned because she doesn’t really have all of her facts and she’s been misguided and misled particularly with the case of GMA,” Nikole Cababa of Bayan USA told Angeles.
So how did Clooney end up representing Arroyo’s plight in the United Nations?
In an ABS-CBN News DZMM report, Amal Clooney was said to have learned about the case of the former president through Philippine Star columnist Carmen Pedrosa, a family friend of the Arroyos. Pedrosa was reported to also be a family friend of Amal Alamuddin’s family.
Pedrosa reportedly said she brought the wife of Hollywood actor George Clooney to the detained former president at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center in December 2013.
In the DZMM report, Modesto Ticman, lawyer of the former president, said he believes the international lawyer sympathized with Mrs. Arroyo after she visited the former president last December 2013.
Another counsel of Pres. Arroyo — Lawyer Larry Gadon — said he and Ticman provided Clooney with the information needed to file a complaint on Arroyo’s behalf before the United Nations Human Rights Committee.
Fil-Am activists believe Attorney Amal Clooney needs to get the bigger and complete picture when she takes on Arroyo’s case before the U.N.
Terrie Cervas of Gabriella added, “We are urging Attorney Amal to forge into the record of GMA and we also urge her to talk to actual victims who suffered under GMA”.
According to reports, Clooney claims that Arroyo’s arrest for alleged embezzlement and corruption charges are politically motivated.
Many Fil-Am activists, however, did not stop at wanting Clooney to get to the bottom of things in Arroyo’s transgression against the Filipino people. They want the famous international human rights lawyer to expose the human rights violations of President Noynoy Aquino.
“I think it could help shed light to some of his deficiencies in terms of the alliance, but there’s still a lot education Amal needs to look into because Gloria’s regime is the same regime that Aquino has stepped into. The 2 terms that Gloria had with operation Bantay Kaya in the Philippines she would see that Aquino and Gloria are kind of at a contest in terms of how many human rights violations they can commit,” Jewelle Dela Cruz of Anakbayan told Angeles in his report on Balitang America.
Clooney is also reportedly looking into the case of the 44 Special Action Forces members killed during the Mamasapano operation that killed terrorist Marwan.
Bayan’s Cababa said it would be great if the focus and concern of Clooney would be more about “pressing the Philippine government, including President Aquino, to really actually have more truth out there. Particularly, Filipinos are demanding the truth and they really demanding for Aquino to have more responsibility since he knew very well what was happening in the Mamasapano incident.”
Cababa told Balitang America that there will be a tribunal of alleged human rights victims later this year. She affirmed that US-based activists will continue to hold dialogue on the Mamasapano incident, and hope that Attorney Amal Clooney will hear all of the concerns on both issues.
After doing her due diligence on these controversial cases involving Presidents Arroyo and Aquino, let us see how Attorney Amal Clooney will move forward with her advocacies.
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Gel Santos Relos is the anchor of TFC’s “Balitang America.” Views and opinions expressed by the author in this column are are solely those of the author and not of Asian Journal and ABS-CBN-TFC. For comments, go to www.TheFil-AmPerspective.com, https://www.facebook.com/Gel.Santos.Relos
