So Vice President Jejomar Binay reportedly “snubbed” the “hearing the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee set just for him.”
What will the Philippine Senate do now? Sue the Vice President of the Philippines?
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Good luck with that. Getting even a mountain of “evidence” collected in these “hearings” organised and filed in a proper complaint in a real Philippine court is something Congress can’t really boast as one of its better skills. Indeed, in a feat of prescience, the ABS-CBN News, reporting on the 2009 Senate Ethics Committee “probe” on then Senator Manuel Villar, dismissed these exercises as mere “slaps on the wrists” on their subjects. Villar, a presidential candidate at the time who, like Binay today, enjoyed immense popularity, was the subject of an Ethics Committee “inquiry” into anomalies surrounding his alleged ordering of a “double insertion of P200 million in the 2008 budget for the extension of the C-5 road.”
But the ABS-CBN News report also noted that “serious sanctions have yet to come out from such investigations.”
Former senators Renato Cayetano, Luisa Estrada, Heherson Alvarez, and Juan Flavier had previously faced an ethics probe. The most they received were a slap on the wrist.
A bit of interesting trivia as well: The late former Senator Juan Flavier who died recently and is now being hailed left and right in various after-the-fact tributes was himself almost a subject of an ethics complaint…
In August 2002, Flavier averted a full-blown probe by the committee when he apologized for making “insensitive remarks” to the Davao Compostela Valley School Teachers Association Inc. (DACOMPSTA).
DACOMPSTA filed an ethics complaint against the lawmaker after he told them in when they dropped by the senator’s office on August 20, 2001 to just “go to Noli de Castro whom [the teachers] voted for.”
DACOMPSTA said that Flavier blamed them for his poor showing in the Compostela Valley during his re-election bid for the Senate in 2001.
Flavier extended his apology to DACOMPSTA through a handwritten letter in April 2002 and reiterated his regrets in a letter to Compostela Valley Rep. Manuel Zamora.
None of the subjects of these “probes” ever had anything to fear, of course. According to the same report, “[the] harshest punishment that a senator received for an ethical violation is a reprimand.”
To be fair, the Senate Ethics Committee is different from the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee. And in the case of the on-going probe against Binay, the subject is not a Philippine Senator and, therefore, not one of their own. But no less than Senate President Franklin Drilon dismisses the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee as no more than a toothless circus. It “is not a judicial proceeding, nor is it a criminal proceeding,” asserts Drilon.
Drilon pointed out that the only real outcome of a Blue Ribbon Committee “probe” was a “public humiliation” of its subject and not much else. “After viewing the spectacle of a nationally televised hearing, [subjects] are left hanging and unedified because in the end, the Committee does not prepare a Committee Report. It is like a judge who hears a case but does not render a written decision,” he also said.
Drilon also points out that today’s Senate Blue Ribbon Committee is also far more one-sided and oppressive to the subjects of its “investigations” than even the dreaded Military Commissions organised under the regime of former President Ferdinand Marcos at the height of Martial Law. Under Marcos’s Military Commissions;
An accused could freely challenge the impartiality of any member of the tribunal. And invariably, whoever was challenged recused himself. Ninoy Aquino challenged practically all the members; and that left Commission No. 2 with only three members. The Commission could not proceed. An accused or his counsel could confront and cross-examine witnesses against him. The Blue Ribbon Committee does not allow this.
In short, Senate Blue Ribbon Committee “investigations” have got Circus written all over it, and Vice President Binay snubs them to the best of his interest. But he needs to learn from the way former Chief Justice Renato Corona failed to control his emotional outbursts during his impeachment trial back in 2012. Binay just needs to shut up about the whole thing, ignore the bozos nipping at his heels, and get on with his other more imporant businesses at hand. Instead of carrying on about how “unfair” these hearings are and how they supposedly already “pre-judged” him, he should instead tell them: See you in court — if you ever get there.
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
Yup, that’s exactly it. The Senate shouldn’t act like a court. It should just focus on legislation and seeing whether such laws are enforced. Because they themselves don’t seem to be following laws.
I agree with the article.
To add, in court, senator trillanes and senator cayteno do not have parliamentary immunity. So they cannot say whatever they want without repurcussions, If they do, they will face punishment if in court or in the obudsman. This applies to Binay as well.
In the senate, senator trillanes and senator cayteno have immunity and can say whatever they want while Binay doesn’t have any parliamentary immunity.
yeah, guess who’s eating his shorts, you, me, all the filipinos Like saying ‘I’m not accountable to all of you, I’m the VP!”
You rationality isnt sound. He is accountable to the people. We can always file impeachment or file it at court or ombudsman. Senate is the worst place to do this since there is no closure. The Senate Blue ribbon committee has no power to put Binay behind bars.
If you look at it objectively, if we pass through the Senate Blue Ribbon committee, it is anti-people since we cannot put Binay in jail if indeed guilty but will only benefit Senator Trillanes and Senator Cayetano.
If you really want to put Binay in jail as you claim to be, start an impeachment process or file cases in ombudsman or any judiciary court.
..Agree with you, Benigno. But right now, am not too worried whether the Ethics Committee or the Blue Ribbon has been, or is, inutile, more inutile, or most inutile. As you wrote earlier, there is job at hand, and that is how to stop Binay. It remains to be seen how the present televised hearings is eroding the chances of Bee-nay; evidently, hearings can be said to have done a fantastic job in disposing of Bee-llar. But, the mistakes of Villar has taught Binay, and Binay is now using a playbook that, more and more is becoming obvious, was not haphazardly prepared, to avoid Villar’s mistakes.
Sure, the hearings are horrible, exposing, in more ways than one, the mud in politics, and that there could be low lives in high places as being demonstrated by Trillanes. But hey, PHL politics is dirty, and the name of the game is how to be dirty, dirtier, or dirtiest — the more vomit-inducing it is, the better according to them. It is funny to watch how amateurish the three panel members in the present hearing are (though, Cayetano has to be admired for his skills in conducting cross examinations). Amateur, because they are no match to well seasoned politicians in the likes of Villar, Binay, and Noli de Castro, who are so subtle with their dirtiest selves. Noli was just different from the two Bees in the sense that he knew when to stop; otherwise, he would have been put through the grinder and would be a minced meat now. Recall Noli was already being suspected of his participation in the 12B housing scandal, but since he didn’t aspire for the presidency, they let him go with easy questions. (I don’t know how this bastard could be enjoying his loot now. Maybe, he could. Afterall, he was crook even before govt; wasn’t he using his exposes in the Magandang Gabi Bayan TV program to blackmail companies?.)
We’ll see, just hoping the hearing is having an impact on voters re their impression of Binay. Or, we’ll just be whistling in the dark, straining our eyes looking at the horizon, whether a knight in shining armour (who is definitely, certainly and absolutely NOT Mar Roxas) has arrived to slay these bastards.
@ BWAH HA HA HA !!! ‘A TOOTHLESS CIRCUS’, kind of like the Fail-ippines Military, Economy and just about everything in the entire country. It is a fuckin joke.The Senate President himself says that the ‘Blue-Ribbon Committee’ has no authority to do anything as far as prosecuting corrupt gov’t. officials or anything else.
SO, WHAT IS THE ENTIRE POINT OF THESE USELESS PROCEEDINGS? The endless charade continues, and idiotic Filipino’s watch the proceedings on TV as if the shit matters, WTF???.
OH AND BTW,When anyone refers to ‘THE CORONA TRIAL’, HA!, what trial? Exactly what happened there? The fucking guy got up and ranted for 90 minutes, did not answer a single question, FAKED A HEART-ATTACK and was wheeled out of the building.
This entire political landscape is nothing but a complete mockery of anything even approaching being called a ‘functioning democracy’. It is so bad that the thieves admit that they have hearings just to laugh at the people and say ‘Look at what we do, and you have no recourse…so fuck you Juan De La Cruz and that sorry-ass jeepney you drove up in.’.
An absolute failed state masquerading as a functioning democracy all while the leaders of the country steal everything that can possibly be stolen.One scam after another and no one ever is held accountable, but the never ending ‘blue-ribbon committee’s’ continue to be held on national TV.
ABSURD,LUDICROUS does not even begin to define these scams.
and BTW, the saying is not “Eat my shorts.”. No, its ‘Snort/sniff my shorts’, get something right in that sorry as shit country for crissakes.
Time for Political Zarzuela , again. Go and drag Binay to participate in this “Kangaroo Court”…
The game “Hangaroo” is quite a simile to this. But what else is new? They all get and like free PR, on every media entity this country.
KSP is the root of all evil. The KSP (s) in this case are Trillanes and Cayetano. Binay should have been in a real court ages ago but none of these corruption cops had the cojones to do it when justice and the public dime are concerned. But when 2016 elections are up for grabs now the look at me pageant begins.