Trillanes files ethics complaint vs Gordon

WORD WAR Senators Richard Gordon and Antonio Trillanes IV are pacified after their verbal exchange by Sen. Vicente Sotto III. —RICHARD A. REYES / INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV on Thursday filed an ethics complaint against Sen. Richard Gordon for allegedly resorting to name-calling and malicious statements against him, making unwarranted accusations against other senators and behaving in a disorderly manner during Senate hearings.

“(Gordon’s) malicious utterances during the Aug. 31 hearing of the Senate blue ribbon committee were clearly made in violation of the rules of the Senate and violation of existing law,” Trillanes said.

“(He) resorted in name-calling and precipitated the heated argument between (us),” he said.

Trillanes said he was trying to support his motion at the hearing for the Senate to invite Davao City Vice Mayor Paolo Duterte and lawyer Manases Carpio when Gordon “rudely interrupted him and maliciously accused him of ill motive.”

“Complainant attempted to explain himself and was beginning to say he is sorry if the respondent felt alluded to but … respondent repeatedly and persistently cut him off and went ahead with his insulting monologue,” Trillanes said.

He said Gordon’s accusation that he was turning the Senate into a “cockpit of tsismis (cockpit of rumors)” and of “blabbering without knowing anything” clearly constituted the use of offensive language against a fellow senator. —PHILIP C. TUBEZA