De Lima ethics case: Sotto wants immediate action

Senator Vicente ‘Tito’ Sotto III (left) said he wanted immediate action on the ethics complaint filed by House leaders against Sen. Leila de Lima (right) but would let members of the Senate ethics committee to decide on the issue. House leaders are accusing De Lima of stopping her former driver-lover, Ronnie Dayan, from testifying in a congressional inquiry on illegal drugs. INQUIRER FILES

Is there a need for the Senate to immediately call for a “full blown inquiry” on the complaint filed against Senator Leila de Lima?

This question would be answered in a resolution that Senate Majority Leader Vicente “Tito” Sotto III is planning to draft as chair of the Senate committee on ethics tasked to deliberate on the complaint filed by three officials of the House of Representatives — Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, House Majority Leader Rodolfo Fariñas, and Oriental Mindoro Rep. Reynaldo Umali.

READ: Ethics complaint vs De Lima filed at Senate

Sotto said the committee would tackle the complaint in the first week of the resumption of the sessions of Congress. Congress is on break and will resume on January 16.

“I plan to draft a resolution and have the members review it and agree if we will call for a full blown inquiry right away,” he said in a text message on Wednesday.

Asked if the committee should immediately act on the complaint against De Lima, Sotto said, “Yes, I think so. To be fair to all sides.”

The complaint, filed before the committee last December 12, stemmed from De Lima’s advice to her former aide and partner, Ronnie Dayan, not to attend the House justice committee’s investigation on the alleged proliferation of illegal drugs at the New Bilibid Prison.

De Lima allegedly violated Article 150 of the Revised Penal Code, which states that “Disobedience to summons issued by the National Assembly, its committees or subcommittees, by the Constitutional Commissions, its committees, subcommittees or divisions.”

“As an incumbent Senator, former Secretary of Justice and a lawyer, advising and inducing Mr. Dayan to hide and not to attend and/or appear in the House inquiry for which she was duly summoned, is tantamount to restraining or inducing disobedience to a summon issued by Congress, of which she is a sitting member, in violation of Article 150 of the Revised Penal Code,” the complaint said.

De Lima, it said, “clearly interfered in a congressional inquiry conducted by the House committee on justice” when she advised Dayan to hide and refrain from appearing the House probe.

“This is a clear case of contempt of the power and authority vested in the House of Representatives,” the complaint said.

Dayan, who eventually appeared in the House probe and later in a separate investigation in the Senate, claimed to have delivered millions of pesos to De Lima allegedly from suspected drug lord, Kerwin Espinosa. CBB