Trillanes wants Gordon out of committee

Senator Richard Gordon EDWIN BACASMAS

Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV wants Sen. Richard Gordon out as chair of the Senate blue ribbon committee due to the way he has handled the ongoing inquiry into the P6.4-billion “shabu” (crystal meth) shipment from China which got through the Bureau of Customs and ended up in a warehouse in Valenzuela City.

Trillanes made the call in a radio interview on Sunday as he complained that Gordon had mostly monopolized the three hearings of his committee.

“A chair is a moderator and he should allow senators to question [the resource persons]. You give respect to the other senators,” Trillanes said in the radio interview.

He said during last week’s third hearing, he was finally allowed to ask his questions but only had five minutes to do so and was unable to follow up on his questions.

If senators from the majority bloc would not take up his call at their caucus on Sunday, Trillanes said he would take the floor on Tuesday to renew the call as well as seek an informal rule on how to go about questioning in committee hearings.

In a text message, Trillanes cited two other reasons why Gordon should be replaced as committee chair.

Loyalty to Duterte

“His loyalty to Duterte has affected his objectivity as he sometimes appears to be lawyering for/defending him,” he said of Gordon.

The other reason was the fact that Gordon “has lost the moral authority to lead another extrajudicial killing investigation because he whitewashed the one conducted last year.’’

In a phone interview, Trillanes also accused Gordon of either misdirecting or focusing his line of questioning in a way that would be “less harmful to his political patrons.”

Meanwhile, Sen. Panfilo Lacson said in a radio interview that Trillanes’ call for Gordon to be replaced as committee chair could be taken up at the majority caucus.

Lacson, who was unable to ask his questions at last week’s hearing into the shabu shipment from China, did not want to comment when asked about his opinion on the way Gordon handled the committee hearings.

But when asked to comment on Trillanes’ call for Gordon to be replaced as blue ribbon committee chair, Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III said: “There is no clamor from within the majority for any change in the committee chairmanship.”