MANILA, Philippines -- Detained Senator Antonio Trillanes IV wants Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita hauled before a congressional inquiry for allegedly interfering in Senate affairs and violating the principle of separation of powers.

Resolution 614, filed by Trillanes, wants the Senate, as a committee of the whole, ““to inquire, look into and investigate in aid of legislation, the unconstitutionality, illegality and impropriety of having Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita preside over” a meeting on the proposed baselines bill of the technical working group (TWG) of the Senate’s foreign relations committee.

The meeting was held August 14 at Malacañang’s Bonifacio Hall.

Trillanes said Ermita “blatantly undermined” the independence of the Senate as an institution not only by presiding over the meeting but also when he directed the committee secretariat and members of the working group to draft a substitute baselines bill more in tune with the position of the executive branch.

“The fact that Executive Secretary Ermita, an alter ego of the President of the Republic of the Philippines, presided over the TWG meeting of a standing committee in the Senate constitutes undue intervention in the official work of Congress, which is a clear violation of the constitutionality enshrined principle of separation of powers between executive and the legislative branch of the government,” Trillanes’ resolution said.