Show cause order: Senate still undecided on action

MANILA, Philippines - Leaders of the Senate are still uncertain on what to do with the show cause order the House of Representatives served last week to Sen. Leila de Lima, who intends to ignore the directive.

The House wants De Lima to explain why she should not be sanctioned for allegedly obstructing a congressional inquiry into the drug trade at the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) in Muntinlupa.

Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III said he has directed Senate secretary Lutgardo Barbo to prepare a report on the order served on Tuesday by House Majority Leader Rodolfo Fariñas and Oriental Mindoro Rep. Reynaldo Umali.

Umali chairs the House committee on justice that is conducting the probe on De Lima’s alleged involvement in the drug trade at the NBP. 

The senator allegedly prevented her former driver Ronnie Dayan from appearing before the congressional investigation in violation of the law.

“Should we stop more pressing legislative matters just because of this (show cause order)?” Pimentel said in a telephone interview. “Should all our attention just be on this?”

He said he instructed Barbo to give the details of the show cause order, including whether “there were words accompanying it” coming from Fariñas or Umali.

Pimentel pointed out the document was directly addressed to De Lima, and not the Senate.

The summons asked her to explain within 72 hours why she should not be cited for contempt. To some House leaders, the deadline expired yesterday.

The Senate and the House last week averted their possible clash over De Lima as the congressmen agreed not to have her arrested for obstruction of justice.

But this has apparently left her exposed as congressmen are lining up more criminal charges against her before the Department of Justice and the Supreme Court as well as the filing of an ethics complaint in the Senate.

Barbo last week said the order was delivered to his office to show there was official cognizance by the Senate before the document is sent to De Lima.

He said the show cause order will be sent to Pimentel as he opined there was no need for it to be taken up in plenary as the same could be tackled by the Senate ethics committee chaired by Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III.

Sotto stressed the issue at hand did not originate from the Senate as an institution.

“We don’t want to be seen coddling or protecting a member of the Senate. Anyway we will always be following due process,” he said.

While the House apparently is settled on what to do with De Lima, senators however are still debating on what to do with the show cause order.

Sotto said the ethics panel will not accept the show cause order as the basis for investigating De Lima, and will oppose any such move on the floor.

He said the ethics committee could only entertain complaints, nothing else.

He said questioned the move to serve the order to the Senate Secretary when it was addressed to De Lima.

“But if it’s addressed to De Lima directly, it’s for her to answer and not the Senate,” Sotto said.

He also disclosed the committee might be able to resolve the issue of jurisdiction of a new ethics complaint filed by a certain lawyer Abelardo de Jesus who also raised the issue of obstruction of congressional inquiry.

Sen. Franklin Drilon, a partymate of De Lima in the Liberal Party, said the show cause order is a matter that should be discussed in plenary.

“This is a novel question,” Drilon said.

De Lima earlier said she would ignore the order as from the start, she has not recognized the jurisdiction of the House inquiry over her.

“I am not honoring any process from them because I am not recognizing the jurisdiction of that House committee (on justice) over me,” she said.

She also said she will not seek help from her colleagues over the situation she is in now.

“I leave this to the Senate. I don’t plead for myself in any situation I find in,” she said.

House prepares charges

The House of Representatives “is contemplating the filing of four cases” against Senator De Lima, Mindoro Oriental’s Umali said yesterday.

Umali, justice committee chairman, said the first case would be a complaint for misconduct to be lodged with the Senate committee on ethics.

He said the House would also file two criminal complaints with the court for obstruction of justice and impeding its inquiry into the trade in illegal drugs at the NBP.

“The fourth would be a case for disbarment, to be filed with the Supreme Court,” he added.

De Lima’s former driver-bodyguard Dayan has told the Umali committee that his former boss had advised him to hide from the House, which had subpoenaed him to testify in its inquiry.

The House subsequently issued a warrant for his arrest. The police arrested him and congressmen detained him until he gave his testimony to the justice committee.

De Lima has admitted to giving the advice to Dayan but said it was “obstruction of persecution,” not obstruction of justice.

She is accusing President Duterte and his House allies of persecuting her.

The justice committee has given her a show-cause order, asking her to explain why she should not be cited for contempt of a congressional investigation by telling Dayan to ignore the subpoena issued to him.

She was given three days to present her explanation.

But De Lima said the House has no jurisdiction over her and would submit only to the authority of the Senate.

Umali and Majority Leader Fariñas submitted the show-cause order to Senate secretary Barbo last Tuesday.

Umali said he did not know when Barbo forwarded it to De Lima.

He said the three-day timeline started when the Bicol senator received the order.

De Lima has said if Barbo sends the show-cause request to her, she would give it to Senate President Pimentel.

She said the order affects the independence of the Senate.

De Lima said the House could not command her to explain, much less sanction her.

Her Senate allies led by Drilon agree with her.

They said the Senate should tackle the show-cause order because it involves the chamber’s independence and inter-chamber affairs and courtesy.

They said the proper course of action for congressmen to take is to file a complaint with the Senate ethics committee.

They said the House would also protest if the Senate asks a congressman to explain why his name came up in a hearing and threatens to cite him for contempt and have him arrested.

Every now and then, a congressman is implicated in a Senate inquiry on anomalies.

The latest such case is Leyte’s Vicente Veloso, whom a police office claimed was involved in illegal drugs based on the affidavit of slain mayor Rolando Espinosa of Albuera town.

However, Espinosa’s son Kerwin, a self-confessed drug lord, has cleared Veloso.

Meanwhile, De Lima did not attend the Department of Justice preliminary investigation (PI) hearing on the four consolidated complaints linking her to the illegal drug operations inside NBP.

The senator, however, sent her staff Romeo Siazon who arrived after the five-man DOJ panel finished its two-and-a-half hour hearing held at the DOJ’s executive lounge yesterday afternoon.

The DOJ five-man panel was headed by Senior Assistant State Prosecutor Peter Ong.

Siazon submitted to the DOJ panel a one-page Letter of Authority bearing the signature of the senator that authorizes him to get copies of the four complaints filed against her.

Of the 19 respondents in the four cases, De Lima’s former driver Dayan and six others also failed to show up nor send representatives. They were: former Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) director Ricardo Reineir Cruz, former DOJ undersecretary Francisco Baraan III’s alleged bagman Julius Rejuso and NBP inmates Jaybee Sebastian, Vicente Sy, Wu Tuan Yuan alias Peter Co, and Jojo Baligad.

Only former NBP superintendent Richard Schwarzcopf Jr., who was accompanied by his lawyer, attended the PI.

Most of the respondents sent their lawyers or representatives, namely: Baraan; former BuCor director Franklin Bucayu; De Lima’s former aide Joenel Sanchez; De Lima’s nephew Jose Adrian Dera; NBI Deputy Director Rafael Ragos; NBI agent Jovencio Ablen Jr.; Bucayu’s alleged bagman Wilfredo Elli; and De Lima’s secretary Lyn Sagum.

A Public Attorney’s Office lawyer represented Baraan’s former subordinate Jesusa Francisco.

The four illegal drugs-related complaints were filed by the crime watchdog Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption (VACC); former NBI deputy directors Reynaldo Esmeralda and Ruel Lasala; high-profile inmate Sebastian, and the NBI.

Prosecutor Ong said yesterday’s hearing was intended to give the copies of the complaints to the respondents. With Jess Diaz, Evelyn Macairan