MANILA, Philippines — Investigation on ill-gotten wealth and plunder such as the hearings accusing Vice President Jejomar Binay is not the turf of the Senate, a law school dean said.
Lawyer Ranhilio Aquino-Callangan, dean of the San Beda College Graduate School of Law, said Tuesday that the Senate Blue Ribbon subcommittee probe on Binay's alleged anomalous activities and hundred-hectare estate in Batangas is a waste of legislative time.
"Investigating ill-gotten wealth, graft and corruption, plunder is not what we elect legislators for," Aquino-Callangan said in a Facebook post.
"If this is the job they want to do, they should apply to be prosecutors of [the Department of Justice], not senators or congressmen! Ours is a government of enumerated powers," he added.
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The Senate is not mandated and has no powers to look into supposed crimes as it is mainly a legislative body, he explained.
The legal expert said that the Upper House's purposes is for oversight and legislation, and should not be conducting ocular inspections like courts do.
He also accused those behind the public hearings of "bastardizing the truth."
"The purpose of the present televised-media-covered spectacle that we get from Senate IS NOT the truth," Aquino-Callangan wrote. "So, please, stop bastardizing the truth and claiming that it is the end of these charade."
The lawyer also believes that the Aquino administration is not fair in hounding non-allies while allegations of wrongdoing against its friends are "quickly swept under the rug and occluded."
"It is hypocritical of this government to hound the VP for the very same offenses that many of its allies have successfully concealed," he said.