Senate Majority Leader Vicente C. Sotto III yesterday expressed fears that the Upper Chamber’s refusal to answer a House of Representatives’ request that it should investigate Senator Leila de Lima over her advice to her former driver-lover not to appear before the House Committee on Justice has negative repercussions that would affect the relations of the two legislative chambers.

The refusal of De Lima to answer the allegations against her as well as the Senate’s rejection of the House’s call to investigate the lady senator could result in a reversal of the time-honored parliamentary courtesy tradition to a “parliamentary discourtesy” between the two legislative chambers, Sotto said.

Such a “parliamentary discourtesy’’ would have negative effect on Congress as an institution, Sotto said.

While Sotto is aware of the repercussions of the congressional impasse, his Ethics Committee has rejected the request of the Lower House to sanction De Lima because of her questioned romantic relationship with former driver-lover Ronnie Dayan that reportedly violated laws on adultery.

Sotto cited that the supposed act was committed when De Lima was not yet a senator, but secretary of the Department of Justice (DOJ) during the Aquino administration. Thus, the Senate committee cannot acquire jurisdiction over her, he added.

Aside from the romantic relationship, which both De Lima and Dayan admitted, the House also wants De Lima investigated by the Senate for advising Dayan to go into hiding instead of appearing before the House hearing.

Sotto had earlier said his committee has to wait for the filing of a complaint against De Lima first before it could begin its investigation. He added that he could not unilaterally undertake the probe.

Under the current situation, Rep. Harry Roque of Kabayan Party-list said it is not only De Lima who is on trial but Congress as an institution.

Roque said he finds it unconscionable for De Lima to advise Dayan, through a text message, not to attend the House hearing on illegal drug trade at the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) because she is member of Senate.

“It is unconscionable for her to continue in office having done something like that,” Roque said.

He, however, expressed doubts that De Lima would resign.

Roque cited the case of then US President Richard Nixon who resigned not because of the wiretapping case but the attempt to cover up the wiretapping.

“But the (Senate) Ethics Committee should not wait for anyone to file a complaint with the panel. Any member (of the Senate) can initiate the probe by filing a complaint,” Roque pointed out.

Roque maintained that “we (Senate and the House) are trying to save the same institution. We are hoping that since everything is documented already, one of them (senators) can start the ball rolling.”

“If no one does, we will be compelled to take action ourselves by filing a complaint with the Ethics Committee but I reiterate I prefer that a senator initiate that action,” the party-list representative said.

Roque said parliamentary courtesy exists between the two legislative chambers.

Marcos on the spot

While the Senate is in a dilemma over how to handle De Lima’s situation, the Philippine National Police (PNP) is dealing with its own problem.

Yesterday, Director General Ronald dela Rosa confirmed that Superintendent Marvin Marcos, who led the raid at the Leyte sub-provincial jail in Baybay City that resulted in the death of Albuera Mayor Rolando Espinosa last Nov. 5, has long been involved in illegal drugs.

The mayor’s son – Kerwin, the alleged big-time drug lord of Eastern Visayas – named during the Senate hearing last Wednesday Marcos as among the police officials who had received drug money from him in exchange for protection.

Dela Rosa said Marcos is now under “restrictive custody” of the PNP in Camp Crame, Quezon City, while undergoing investigation.

He added that based on intelligence reports he received even before Kerwin testified in the Senate, Marcos has long been “tainted” with illegal drugs.

Marcos, former chief of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) in Eastern Visayas, has denied receiving drug money.

Apart from Marcos, Kerwin also implicated other police officers in the illegal drugs protection scheme.

But Interior and Local Government Secretary Ismael Sueno said that only a minority of police officials are involved in drug trade and not the entire PNP.

“Only a handful of police officers are really involved in the drug trade, and those rotten eggs do not define the whole PNP organization,” he said.

“The PNP in the current administration lives by the ideals of service, integrity, and discipline,” he added.

In line with this, Sueno directed the National Police Commission (Napolcom) and PNP-Internal Affairs Service (IAS) to conduct speedy investigations on the police officers named “drug protectors” by Kerwin.

‘Beyond imagination’

Meanwhile, Sen. Manny Pacquiao told his audience in Tokyo, Japan, that the Philippines’ drug problem is “beyond imagination.”

Pacquiao is a high-profile supporter of President Duterte’s brutal war on crime that has left more than 3,700 people dead in four months.

“The problem in our country is beyond of our expectation, beyond of our imagination that the illegal drugs (situation) in our country is really bad,” he said in English at a press conference held by the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan.

“A lot of our government officials, elected officials are involved with this illegal drug,” he said, defending Duterte’s crackdown which has drawn global condemnation for alleged extrajudicial killings.

Pacquiao, who was elected to the Senate in May, also supports Duterte’s call to restore the death penalty for drug traffickers in the mainly Catholic nation.

He himself is a convert to a conservative Christian sect.

“My main focus is to change our country and hold our president’s advocacy because the president and I are very close and join together to clean these illegal drugs in our country,” he said. (With reports from AFP and PNA)

Source:
courtesy of MANILA BULLETIN

by Mario B. Casayuran

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