MANILA - Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo on Monday urged the Senate to withdraw from the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Assembly.

Arroyo said she wants the country out of the global parliamentary community because it has already tried to interfere with the country's judicial process twice.

"Since it's the second time they [did] it to my knowledge, I am recommending to the Senate, which heads the delegation, that we should withdraw our membership in the IPU," she said.

At the 139th IPU Assembly, the body expressed serious concerns about members of parliament experiencing human rights violations worldwide.

Among the published decisions of the IPU committee on the human rights were two entries about President Rodrigo Duterte's critics, detained Senator Leila de Lima and Senator Antonio Trillanes IV.

A mission of the IPU committee to the Philippines in 2017 concluded that there was no evidence to justify the criminal cases against De Lima.

Since then, the IPU has called for Senator de Lima’s release and for the legal proceedings against her to be abandoned if there will be serious evidence against the senator.

The IPU has also expressed deep concerns on the renewed charges of rebellion against Trillanes based on the nullification of his amnesty by the President.

It also said the "sudden" questioning of Trillanes' amnesty "give[s] serious weight to the allegation that this is a targeted attempt to silence."

The union has recently resolved to send an official mission to the Philippines to look into the supposed political persecution of De Lima and Trillanes.