WORD WAR Senators Richard Gordon and Antonio Trillanes IV are pacified after their verbal exchange by Sen. Vicente Sotto III. —RICHARD A. REYES
Senator Antonio Trillanes IV finally filed on Thursday afternoon his ethics complaint against Senator Richard Gordon.
In the 27-page complaint filed before the Senate ethics and privileges committee at 1:50 p.m., Trillanes said Gordon “engaged in unparliamentary acts, language and/or conduct” which are “in violation of the Senate rules, the Revised Penal Code, the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees and/or the Lawyer’s Code of Professional Responsibility.”
These violations were exhibited in two separate hearings at the Senate, according to Trillanes.
Trillanes said Gordon “violated Senate rules and engaged in improper conduct” specifically through his “malicious utterances” during the August 31 Senate blue ribbon committee hearing on the P6.4 billion drug shipment that slipped past the Bureau of Customs.
During the said hearing, Trillanes and Gordon were caught in a heated argument.
Trillanes said in his complaint that he was trying to make his point in support of his motion for the panel to invite presidential son and son-in-law, Davao City Vice Mayor Paolo Duterte and Atty. Maneses Carpio, when Gordon “rudely interrupted” him and “maliciously accused him of ill-motives” and “of badgering the witness.”
Trillanes added that Gordon accused him of turning the Senate into a “cockpit of tsismis” and of “nagdadadaldal” “na hindi mo nalalaman.”
He added that Gordon declared on his own that he was “out of order” and decided to suspend the session.
“Needless to say, such words coming from a senator, especially when addressed to a colleague, clearly constitutes oral defamation or slander as penalized by Article 358 of the revised Penal Code,” the complaint read.
Gordon earlier filed an ethics complaint against Trillanes last September 4 for the latter’s “comite de absuelto” remark during the same hearing.
READ: Gordon formally files ethics complaint vs Trillanes
Meanwhile, during the October 3, 2016 hearing of the Senate committees on justice and public order on the alleged extrajudicial killings in the country, Trillanes said Gordon also uttered malicious statements after he “launched a vicious and vitriolic attack” and “maliciously attacked” De Lima.
Trillanes said Gordon maliciously accused him and De Lima of deliberately allowing witness Edgar Matobato to leave the hearing.
Gordon also falsely accused De Lima of concealment and material misrepresentation, Trillanes said.
“This exchange is a stereotypical example of the uncanny habit of Sen. Gordon of ‘shooting from the hips’ first and accusing his colleagues of all sorts of things before even giving them the chance to explain their side,” the complaint read.
This reporter tried to get the side of Gordon but the senator has yet to reply to the query./je