Senate must not turn into a den of scalawags
For scoundrels and scalawags, all roads lead to the Senate as a safe haven.
First, there are the incumbent senators who are implicated in the flood control scandal, as reportedly established in the Senate’s blue ribbon committee report chaired by Sen. Panfilo Lacson. They are Sen. Joel Villanueva, Sen. Francis Escudero, and Sen. Jinggoy Estrada. Then there are the sibling-senators, Mark and Camille Villar, who are facing criminal investigation by the Department of Justice for market manipulation concerning a massive P1.33 trillion overvaluation of land owned by one of their family’s realty companies. There’s also Sen. Loren Legarda, whose son, Batangas Rep. Leandro Leviste, is facing a P24 billion fine and contract cancellations from the Department of Energy for his failure to deliver on his solar energy commitments to the government.
All the above senators, who (by themselves or through their kin) face civil or criminal investigations by the Marcos administration, have joined ranks with Duterte-allied senators, in launching a coup to unseat the Senate leaders allied with the ruling administration. The Senate is, therefore, now ruled by allies of Vice President Sara Duterte. The Senate, under its new leadership, has become a safe haven for all the above-named scandal-tainted senators.
Second, there’s the impeachment complaint against VP Sara, which has been approved by an unprecedented number of 257 congresspersons, and which will inevitably be filed with the Senate soon. VP Sara faces four impeachment grounds that allege she misused secret funds allotted to her office, bribed officials to circumvent procurement guidelines, amassed unexplained wealth, and plotted to have President Marcos, first lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and former Speaker Martin Romualdez assassinated if she, too, was killed. But with the Duterte-allied senators taking over the Senate leadership last Monday, the Senate has become a safe haven for VP Sara.
Third, there is the International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant of arrest issued against Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa. Last Monday, the National Bureau of Investigation, together with former Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, tried to serve the ICC arrest warrant, but the new Senate leadership prevented the arrest by giving Dela Rosa “protective custody.” The Senate has now become a safe haven for Dela Rosa.
The Senate has no power to prevent the arrest of Dela Rosa even inside the Senate halls. There is absolutely no provision in our Constitution or in any of our laws that gives the Senate the power to issue a “protective custody” that can prevent his arrest even inside the Senate.
In fact, the argument being invoked by the allies of Dela Rosa is convoluted. They contend that the ICC no longer has jurisdiction to cause Dela Rosa’s arrest, because the Philippines had already withdrawn from the ICC. And yet, they are invoking the ICC statute itself, (specifically article 59 of the Rome Statute), which they say requires a resort to a local court as a precondition for the implementation of an ICC warrant of arrest.
There is no necessity for any resort to a local court in implementing an ICC warrant of arrest because we have a domestic law, Republic Act No. 9851, which gives Philippine authorities the discretion “to surrender … [an] accused person in the Philippines to the appropriate international court” if that “international tribunal is already conducting the investigation or undertaking the prosecution of such crime.” The ICC itself has also already ruled that resort to a local court is not a mandatory requirement in the implementation of an ICC warrant of arrest (Prosecutor v. Dominic Ongwen, ICC-02/04/01/15, 7 July 2015).
The filing of a petition in the Supreme Court by Dela Rosa to prevent the enforcement of the ICC warrant of arrest against him is also completely without basis, and the high court should dismiss the same outright. In the case of Pangilinan vs Cayetano (G.R. No. 238875, March 16, 2021), the Supreme Court already ruled with finality that “the International Criminal Court retains jurisdiction over any and all acts committed by government actors until March 17, 2019. Hence, withdrawal from the Rome Statute does not affect the liabilities of individuals charged before the International Criminal Court for acts committed up to this date.”
The ICC arrest warrant charges Dela Rosa with at least 32 murders from July 2016 to April 2018, during which dates the Philippines was still an ICC member state. As affirmed by our Supreme Court, the ICC retains jurisdiction over acts committed by Dela Rosa while the Philippines was still an ICC member country.
If there’s a time for the Marcos administration to demonstrate strong political will, it is now. The Senate must not be allowed to become a den of scoundrels and scalawags.
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