Ethics cases vs 3 senators dismissed

The Senate ethics committee on Tuesday dismissed complaints filed against Senators Panfilo Lacson, Antonio Trillanes IV and Leila de Lima.

The committee, chaired by Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III, voted to dismiss the complaints on Sen. Franklin Drilon’s motion.

Former Customs Commissioner Nicanor Faeldon filed the complaint against Lacson for alleging in a privilege speech that Faeldon accepted payoffs from smugglers.

Forum shopping

Faeldon also filed a separate complaint against Trillanes for accusing him of being at the center of a multi-billion peso bribery and corruption system at the Bureau of Customs.

Drilon argued that Faeldon had engaged in forum shopping when he filed the complaint against Lacson.

He said Lacson’s privilege speech against Faeldon was the subject of an ongoing inquiry.

‘As guilty as anybody’

In seeking the dismissal of the complaint against Trillanes, Drilon argued that Faeldon had made “very malicious and untruthful statements against members of the Senate.”

“If anyone has abused his right to criticize, Faeldon is as guilty as anybody,” Drilon said.

The panel dismissed the complaints against De Lima without prejudice to their re-filing once a lower court rules on a criminal case against her.

The House, led by Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez and Majority Leader Rodolfo Farinas, filed the complaint against De Lima for allegedly advising her former aide, Ronnie Dayan, to snub an inquiry into the illegal drug trade at the New Bilibid Prisons.

Lawyer Abelardo de Jesus filed a supplemental complaint over her alleged involvement in the prison drug trade.