Senate unity urged to fight De Lima rap

Senate President Pro-Tempore Franklin Drilon. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

The Senate was urged on Tuesday to take a collective stand against a move to hold Sen. Leila de Lima in contempt for advising her former bodyguard and lover to ignore a House of Representatives hearing on illegal drug trafficking at New Bilibid Prison (NBP) when she was justice secretary.

House leaders served the show-cause order on De Lima to explain in 72 hours why she had “unduly” interfered in the hearing of their justice committee.

Senate President Pro Tempore Franklin Drilon said the Senate should act as an institution on the De Lima case, pointing out this had implications on interparliamentary affairs.

“The institution should tackle it, should respond to it,” said Drilon, a member of the Liberal Party, like De Lima.

“Each House can summon and give, issue a show-cause order on a member. Is that right? Isn’t that something you must resolve as an institution?” he said.

De Lima defiant

Speaking to reporters, De Lima said she had not yet received any show-cause order, but if she did, she would ignore it and refer it instead to Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III.

“I am willing to live with the consequences of this act of defiance on my part,” De Lima said.

She said she would “act accordingly” if the Senate ethics committee would take up instead the complaints against her.

House Majority Leader Rodolfo Fariñas and the committee on justice chair, Oriental Mindoro Rep. Reynaldo Umali, on Tuesday served the show-cause order on De Lima, through the Office of the Senate Secretary.

The House panel issued the order last week at the resumption of proceedings on the alleged drug trade at NBP,  where De Lima’s former driver and lover Ronnie Dayan, who had vanished for months, appeared for the first time.

The House committee heard testimony that De Lima, through a text message to Dayan’s daughter, told her ex-lover not to appear at the House inquiry, where she was accused of receiving drug money for her senatorial campaign. De Lima said it was an “advice” and that she stood by it.

Ethics complaint

The House is also expected to file an ethics complaint against De Lima in the Senate.

De Lima has repeatedly denied the drug allegations, saying it was part of efforts to pillory her for her fierce stance against President Duterte’s bloody war on drugs.

Drilon, along with other Liberal Party Senators Francis Pangilinan and Bam Aquino, has criticized as  “unparliamentary” the conduct of last week’s hearing in the House, blasting the “disrespectful and condescending line of questioning” that delved into details of De Lima’s relationship with Dayan.

Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez on Tuesday dismissed a report attributed to Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III that the House had decided not to issue an arrest warrant against De Lima.

“There’s nothing like that,” Alvarez said, adding the move would depend on the recommendation of the justice committee.

When asked what the House would do if De Lima insisted the House had no jurisdiction over her, he said: “We’ll see in 72 hours.”

All’s well

Fariñas and Umali handed the show-cause order to Senate Secretary Lutgardo Barbo. Fariñas and Umali were at the Senate on Tuesday for the bicameral committee meeting to reconcile differences in the proposed 2017 national budget.

Barbo said he would forward the order to Pimentel and Sotto, who chairs the Senate ethics committee.

Sotto and Sen. Panfilo Lacson said Senate and House leaders agreed at a meeting on Monday night  that the House panel should file its complaint against De Lima in the Senate ethics committee to avert a crisis.

“So all’s well that ends well, so that it will be the Senate which would impose any disciplinary action if the evidence is strong,” Lacson said in a radio interview on Tuesday.

Sotto also said he had scheduled for next Tuesday a hearing of the ethics committee to tackle complaints against De Lima regarding her advice to Dayan to skip the House inquiry.