MANILA, Philippines—“It’s time the Senate revisit the rules,” former Senator Joker Arroyo said on Tuesday as he expressed concern at how the Senate blue ribbon committee has been conducting its hearings and “unilaterally” issuing orders like the arrest and detention of Makati City Mayor Jejomar Erwin “Junjun” Binay.
“I am concerned with the conduct of the Senate blue ribbon committee at its proceedings nowadays,” Arroyo said in a statement.
He said several identical orders were “unilaterally” issued by the committee chairman, Senator Teofisto Guingona III, when he cited Binay and six other officials in contempt and ordered them detained for their refusal to face its subcommittee investigation on the allegedly overpriced Makati City Hall 2 parking building.
Arroyo said Guingona presumably based his order on the amended rules of the Senate governing inquiries in aid of legislation which provides that the chairman with the concurrence of at least one member of the committee may punish or cite in contempt any witness who disobeys any order of the body.
Arroyo said the old rules required a majority vote of all of committee members to punish any witness.
“The question arises. Is the Guingona order valid? That the chairman and one member can act for and in behalf of the 20-member blue ribbon committee and order the arrest and detention of a resource person?” asked the former senator.
“It cannot be overlooked that a detention order arising from a contempt citation is punitive, a deprivation of liberty. When that happens, the protection that one cannot be deprived of liberty without due process of law kicks in,” he said.
Arroyo pointed out that record would show that in the past, all the blue ribbon committee does was to recommend to the Office of the Ombudsman or the Department of Justice its reports on its investigations “but it does not mete out the punishment.”
“This is as it should be because blue ribbon committee rules specifically provides that ‘where the evidence of malfeasance, misfeasance, and nonfeasance is uncovered in the course of the committee’s investigation, the matter may be referred to the Ombudsman or the Department of Justice or any appropriate investigative agency as the case may be,’” he said.
The problem, Arroyo said, is that the investigation on the parking building controversy, has lasted five months already since it started on August 20, 2014.
“This is the longest blue ribbon committee hearings in its 60-year history. Yet the subcommittee through media announced that there would be four to five hearings more, which would run until April and May 2015. That would be a nine-month hearing,” the former senator said.
Despite this, he said, no report, even partial has been made by the subcommittee.
Arroyo also noted that only three out of 20 members of the body have been participating in the hearings.
“Three are detained, and 14 are in differentially being absent,” he said, apparently referring to Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada, and Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr., who have been charged with plunder and detained over the pork barrel scam.
“Can three speak for the 20? It’s time the Senate revisit the rules. Has it been allowed, followed, violated or abused? This cannot go an unanswered or uncharted,” Arroyo added.
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