Jinggoy questions JPE suspension

MANILA, Philippines - Sen. Jinggoy Estrada urged the Senate leadership yesterday to collectively vote on the issue of suspending a member following the order of the Sandiganbayan suspending Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile for 90 days.

As a co-equal branch of government, Estrada said Congress could choose whether or not to suspend a member.

Estrada, who is facing plunder charges over the pork barrel fund scam along with Enrile and Sen. Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr. before the Sandiganbayan, said he is not trying to imply that he doesn’t want to be suspended or does not want the Senate to follow the anti-graft court’s rulings.

“Let’s go first to the suspension of Senator Enrile. For me, the Senate should decide as a collegial body because it involves a member or members of the Senate,” he said.

Estrada said the House of Representatives has precedents where congressmen were ordered suspended but this was not immediately implemented after lawmakers were asked to vote.

“So in the case of Senator Enrile or in future in my case, the Senate should decide on this issue.

But if the Senate decides to suspend, I will accept. I have no problem with that. Anyway it’s only a preventive suspension for 90 days,” Estrada said.

“I would also like to inform the Senate that I do not have any plans of elevating my suspension case before the Supreme Court. I leave it up to them,” he added.

Estrada said he was hoping that collegial voting should be conducted, pointing out Senate President Franklin Drilon is not the Senate and the Senate should decide as a collegial body.

On Monday, Drilon implemented the 90-day suspension against Enrile following the orders of the Sandiganbayan.

Sen. Vicente Sotto III yesterday questioned the decision of Drilon to suspend Enrile, which he said was “unilateral.”

Sotto said he was surprised to learn the Senate had received last week the preventive suspension order by the anti-graft court and its eventual implementation on Monday.

In raising a concern on Enrile’s suspension, Sotto cited Rule 18, Section 49 of the Senate Rules where communications should be included in the Order of Business.

The Sandiganbayan order was not entered into the Senate plenary’s order of business, Sotto pointed out.

Drilon announced on Monday the Senate would be implementing the 90-day suspension against Enrile, apparently without consulting his colleagues.

“Is it not that the proper procedure is for the Senate as a whole should dispose of the matters appearing on the Order of Business? Such communication from the Sandiganbayan should have been referred to the committee on ethics and privileges,” Sotto said, referring to the suspension order on Enrile.

“Does this mean that the Senate president may act on the matter in place of the (ethics) committee? So, I would like to be enlightened… I think the main issue is: Should we take it up as a collegial body or the action of the Senate president would be enough?” Sotto added.

Sotto said he was not questioning the authority of the Sandiganbayan to suspend the erring senators but merely how the Senate leadership acted hastily on the issue.

Sotto said there were at least three instances when the House of Representatives did not act on the suspension against three of its members, including now detained Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Sotto said the 1987 Constitution explicitly provides that the legislative branch shall have the power to “punish its members of its disorderly behavior and with the concurrence of two-thirds of all its members, suspend or expel a member.”

As a collegial body, Sotto stressed the Senate has been invested with ample powers, among others, as an impeachment court, a proponent of legislation, treaty ratification, inquiry and disciplining its members through its own rules.

Testing the brain

Enrile’s former chief of staff Jessica “Gigi” Reyes urged the Sandiganbayan to allow her to undergo medical tests, preferably at the Makati Medical Center (MMC).

In a three-page motion filed yesterday, her defense counsel Anacleto Diaz said Reyes needs to undergo procedures of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and magnetic resonance angiogram (MRA) of the brain.

Reyes, through her lawyer, informed the anti-graft court’s Third Division that she suffered another anxiety attack which caused her to hit head against the wall of her detention cell in Camp Bagong Diwa on Aug. 5.

Two weeks later on Aug. 17, Diaz said Reyes showed signs of intermittent spasms of her right eyelid and cheek along with a progressive slurring in her speech and a slight deposit of saliva on her right lip.

Neurologist Martesio Perez of the MMC was asked by the anti-graft court to visit Reyes at the detention facility to check on her condition.

The doctor, Diaz said, observed Reyes as having “right hemi facial spasm” that could be “caused by pressure on the facial nerve by a tumor or an artery.”

With such initial findings, Perez recommended Reyes undergo further medical examinations of the brain with special focus on the facial nerve.

Perez issued a medical certificate that was submitted to the Sandiganbayan to support Reyes’ request to undergo medical tests.

Reyes, a co-accused or Enrile in the plunder case in the pork barrel fund scam, first suffered an anxiety or panic attack last July after she was brought to the Taguig City Jail female dormitory in Camp Bagong Diwa.

She was eventually brought to the Taguig Pateros District Hospital and the Philippine Heart Center for medical tests and observation.

Meanwhile, Sandiganbayan granted the prosecution’s motion to amend the graft charges against Enrile and Reyes, along with the handful of respondents in the case.

The court allowed the prosecution to change the word “Sub” to “Special” to form the phrase Special Allotment Release Order (SARO).

“The replacement of the word ‘Sub’ for ‘Special’ of all Informations …is a mere formal amendment,” the court said.

Estrada, for his part, wanted to hold Senate hearings while in detention but which the prosecution opposed, saying it would be contrary to law.

Ombudsman lawyers said Estrada’s argument that he should be allowed to conduct Senate hearings at the Philippine National Police (PNP) Custodial Center in Camp Crame where he is currently detained, just like Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV did, is both erroneous and deceiving.

The prosecution stressed that based on existing jurisprudence restraint on the liberty of an accused undergoing trial is a necessary consequence of arrest and detention.

Since Estrada was charged, ordered arrested and is now on trial for plunder, the prosecution said his liberties “should be curtailed,” which includes barring him from conducting hearings as chairman of the Senate committee on labor, employment and human resources development. – Christina Mendez