Anti-BBL lawmakers face ethics case

Two party-list representatives critical of the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) and the peace agreement with Moro rebels are facing an ethics complaint for “prosecutorial terrorism” against government negotiators.

The complaint was filed Thursday by former Sen. Rene Saguisag against Buhay Rep. Lito Atienza and Abakada Rep. Jonathan de la Cruz, who have filed treason and inciting to sedition charges against government peace panel members.

Saguisag asked Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. and the House ethics committee to launch an investigation against the two lawmakers to avoid a repeat of their “mischief.”

In May, Atienza and De la Cruz filed treason and inciting to sedition charges against government peace panel members, including presidential adviser Teresita Quintos Deles and chief negotiator Miriam Coronel-Ferrer.

“The situation seems to call for action by your ethics panel… to avoid a repetition of the mischief,” Saguisag wrote the speaker.

“[Atienza and De la Cruz being] at war most needlessly with Malacañang and the Supreme Court is not in the national interest,” he said.

Saguisag is the legal counsel of Ferrer and other government negotiators.

De la Cruz said he welcomed the complaint “so we can ventilate the issues raised versus Deles and the peace panel on their misguided and decidedly un-Filipino agreement in [promoting] an unconstitutional BBL, which can dismember the country.”

“I have great respect for Senator Saguisag but he should lend his considerable talent… to ensure the country’s territorial integrity and secure a just and lasting peace for our country and people,” De la Cruz said.

Saguisag said the only “weapon(s)” wielded by the peace officials were “words, words, words.”

He suggested to Atienza and De la Cruz that if they were really against the peace process, they should just “get their peers to vote no on the basis of legally tenable arguments.”

“The superior idea should prevail,” Saguisag said, adding that “the arguably misguided duo should not pick needless quarrel… with mind-boggling charges of treason and sedition.”