Senate amends ethics rules to tackle Villar case

MANILA, Philippines – The Senate has amended three rules of the Ethics Committee which it had adopted when it convened into a Committee of the Whole last week to tackle the alleged conflict of interest case of Sen. Manuel Villar Jr.

Villar’s case stemmed from the allegations that he exerted effort for the budget insertion of a road extension project.

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile has directed the secretariat and the general counsel to notify Villar that the Senate will start its preliminary inquiry at 9 a.m. on Thursday.

“It is the position of this chair that the agenda for Thursday is preliminary inquiry,” Enrile said at the end of the five-hour meeting of the Committee of the Whole yesterday. 

Enrile said Villar may appear or not during the preliminary inquiry.

“Well, that’s his prerogative. There’s a next stage where he will be required to submit his pleadings,” he said.

In an interview before the Senate went into session, Villar said he is not sure yet if he will attend the preliminary proceedings. 

He expressed disappointment over the move of the majority not to allow an amendment that would limit the jurisdiction of the ethics committee to “acts and/or omissions committed by any member of the Senate during the term of the present Congress.”

Villar’s colleagues in the minority believe that the complaint against the former senate president covered even his past acts before his new term in 2007, and should not be covered by any ethics complaint in the present 14th Congress.

Villar said this would mean that a senator can be held responsible even for acts committed when he was a teenager.  

He then retaliated against one of his accusers – Sen. Panfilo Lacson – whom he alluded to when he said that the cases of the controversial Kuratong Baleleng and the double murder of publicist Salvador “Bubby” Dacer and his driver Emmanuel Corbito should also be investigated by the Senate or the Ethics committee.

Villar maintained that he can explain fully the allegations that he exerted influence for the double release of some P200 million for the C5 Road extension project which would benefit millions who are living in the Southern part of Metro Manila and Cavite, Laguna and Batangas provinces.

Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, disgusted over the railroading of the rules of the majority, still believes that the case against Villar is politically motivated and that it is related to Villar’s high approval ratings as presidential bet for next year’s election.

At the start of the meeting, Sen. Joker Arroyo asked if a senator elected by the people can be removed by 23 senators as the debates focus on what quorum should be followed in the Senate Committee of the Whole.  

The present Ethics rules provides that at least two members of the committee shall constitute a quorum, a provision which the minority wanted to amend to have one third of the entire 23 senators as basis for quorum.

Prior to this, the Senate amended only three out of about eight rules proposed by the minority senators who were represented by Sen. Cayetano in the third meeting of the entire Senate committee yesterday.

The Senate minority failed to muster enough votes when 11 senators voted down the proposal of the minority on jurisdiction of the committee that will tackle the ethics complaint. 

Enrile said Villar has the right to respond or even call for the dismissal of the complaint once he received the complaint.

Arroyo made the statement after majority of the senators also junked the proposal that provides that the “respondent shall have the right to cross-examine the witness even at the stage of the preliminary hearing.”

Citing the rules, Enrile explained that the committee shall promptly commence preliminary inquiry whenever there is a sworn statement or a verified complaint that the committee has determined to have complied with the requirements of Rule 2.

He said the Senate, during the hearing proper, will deal with the issue of substance and form, as well as evidence of the complaint filed by Sen. Jamby Madrigal against Villar over the C5 Road Extension project that supposedly passed by a number of properties of Villar and his real-estate companies.

However, Villar hit back by tagging Madrigal as a “queen of lies” after the woman-senator said he met with President Arroyo abroad and even called him the “king of corruption.”

Madrigal disclosed last week that Villar was set to have a meeting with the President to address the C-5 issue.

Villar is an opposition member and a meeting with the administration will be perceived as dancing with the enemy for political convenience.

“First of all, I would like to clarify that I did not meet with (the President). And I have no plans to meet her,” Villar told reporters.

“That’s why I was surprised when that news came out. It’s funny but there is no truth to that. And whoever said that is a liar,” Villar said.

When told that it was Madrigal who said it and even called him the corruption king, Villar said: “If I am corruption king, she is sinungaling (liar) queen.” — Aurea Calica