10/14/2009
The Senate, acting as a committee of the whole, has issued an ultimatum to one of its members, Sen. Manuel Villar Jr. who is accused of alleged ethical misconduct for funding the controversial C5 road extension project, giving him until this Friday to decide whether he intends to rebut or challenge the evidence of his accuser.Sen. Jamby Madrigal stands as Villar’s accuser.
She was also directed to submit not later than 5 p.m. Friday her pieces of evidence and have these formally received and marked by the committee.
If there is no response from Villar by the end of the week, the case will be deemed submitted for resolution, Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile stressed as he terminated the proceedings yesterday morning.
The Senate chief stated
that should Villar decide to be heard, the Senate as a whole can hold hearings after the recess. Otherwise, a report will be presented when Congress resumes next month.
“We gave Villar until that time to inform the committee on whether he will present any evidence to controvert those (pieces of) evidence presented against him and indicate, when he would, if he wants to present controverting evidence and introduce the evidence within a reasonable time.
“Unless he will do so, he will notify the committee of the whole that he will be presenting evidence to controvert the evidence against him, the ethics case will be deemed submitted for the reconsideration and resolution of the committee of the whole. Then we will decide the case on the basis of the evidence presented,” Enrile said.
“A week, or at least a week or so, is a reasonable time (for Villar),” the Senate chief said, explaining that the Senate committee has notified Villar of this in the last hearing last Oct. 6, on the matter of presenting his evidence to refute the charges leveled against him by Madrigal, on the purported anomalous funding of some P200 million of the C5 road project in the 2008 national project.
At that time, Villar was sitting as Senate president.
“That was Oct. 6, today is the 13th. One week ago we notified him that we are ready to receive his controverting evidence and to date, we have not received any reply.
“But we still give him more time to reply until Friday. If he will reply, then he must indicate to us when he wants to do that. It cannot be forever. It cannot be after the year. It cannot be after the month of November. It cannot be longer than two weeks. We will give him that time. If he will do so, we will give him time to be heard after the recess, if there is such an indication. If not, then we will start writing the committee report,” Enrile emphasized.
The presiding chairman directed Ernesto Francisco, Madrigal’s legal counsel, to submit a motion for the admission of the evidence against the respondent.
Enrile also instructed Francisco to furnish a copy to all the members of the committee of the whole.
The Senate chief refused to discuss how the committee will deal with the issue of the needed signatures to consider the report for plenary debates, saying it will depend on what will be the result of panel’s findings and recommendations.
It was gathered that the requirement on the number of votes that will comprise the majority of the upper chamber, will depend on the gravity of the penalty to be imposed on a senator facing ethical misconduct.
“If it is a mere slap on the wrist, a simple majority will do. But if we are talking of an expulsion of a member, I think it would mean two-thirds vote of the entire chamber or two thirds of 24 senators,”one senator said.
Enrile also directed the committee’s legal counsel to prepare a memo to all the members of the committee, informing them of his instructions made during the said proceedings.
Insofar as Villar’s camp in the Senate goes, Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. gave no indication of heeding the directives of the committee, acting as an adjudicatory body.
“I have yet to talk to him, really. But from what I gathered, I think he will not submit (any evidence). From the very beginning, we have not participated in the proceedings, anyway,” Pimentel said in an interview.
The senator admitted that he would advise the same to Villar as acceding to the directive would practically serve as a waiver of their position, questioning the legality of the proceedings that they had elevated before the Supreme Court sometime middle of the year.
Source: http://www.tribune.net.ph/headlines/20091014hed2.html
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