Former Department of Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario, one of the proponents of the case filed against Chinese President Xi Jinping before the International Criminal Court, was stopped by immigration authorities upon his arrival in Hong Kong for business meetings yesterday morning.
Del Rosario said he was later brought and held in a small airport immigration lounge. Immigration personnel told him an unspecified “case” they could not specify was the reason why he was not allowed to enter the territory immediately.
He said his lawyers are studying the possibility of taking legal action in connection with his more than three hours of “detention” at the Hong Kong International Airport.
Del Rosario was held despite traveling on a diplomatic passport.
He said his detention is a “violation” of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. “I keep reminding them that I’m traveling on a diplomatic passport and according to the Vienna Convention, they have no right to hold me,” Del Rosario said, referring to the international treaty that specifies the privileges of diplomats to carry out their work without fear of coercion by a host country.
Del Rosario also said he has demanded immigration authorities to give him a “rational explanation” on why he is being held.
Del Rosario is a board member of the Hong Kong-based investment management and holding company, First Pacific.
Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said he will ask the DFA to find out why Del Rosario was held.
Guevarra, government caretaker while President Duterte is in Thailand for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit, said he will also ask the DFA to extend whatever assistance to the country’s former top diplomat.
“As OIC, I will request the DFA to find out the reason for former SFA’s exclusion and extend whatever assistance could be given to him as a former foreign minister of our country,” he said.
Guevarra said Del Rosario should have learned from what happened to Morales. “But personally, I believe that the lesson derived from former Ombudsman Morales’ similar experience should have been clear to him,” he said.
Last May, retired Supreme Court Justice and Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales said she was also barred for about four hours from entering Hong Kong for a vacation with her family and ordered to take a flight back to Manila.
Hong Kong airport and immigration officials later told her “there was a mistake” and that she could proceed with her trip to Hong Kong, but she and her family had already decided to return home because of the incident, she said at the time.
Del Rosario and Morales took the bold step of filing a complaint before the ICC against Xi and other Chinese officials over Beijing’s assertive actions in the disputed South China Sea, which they say deprived thousands of fishermen of their livelihoods and destroyed the environment.
They accused Xi and other Chinese officials of turning seven disputed reefs into man-made islands, causing extensive environmental damage, and of blocking large numbers of fishermen, including about 320,000 Filipinos, from their fishing grounds.
Chinese Ambassador Zhao Jianhua to Manila called the complaint a “fabrication.” (with a report from Argyll Cyrus B. Geducos)