Joker Arroyo questions validity of Senate blue ribbon arrest order

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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