Amendment in Senate rules to protect witnesses rights pushed

MANILA, Philippines –  Sen. Joker Arroyo yesterday pushed for the amendment in the rules of the Senate to protect the rights of witnesses and resource persons during congressional inquiries.

Arroyo said the Senate Blue Ribbon committee had basically adopted the rules under the 1935 Constitution that did not provide for the protection and respect of the rights of persons being summoned, unlike what is provided for under the 1987 Constitution.

“The Rules of the Senate Blue Ribbon committee must be amended. It is long overdue and necessary,” Arroyo said.

Arroyo made the proposal on the heels of accusations that the Senate investigation into the corruption in the military drove former Defense secretary Angelo Reyes to commit suicide.

Arroyo, who had previously chaired the Blue Ribbon committee, admitted the present rules curtail a resource person’s right to defend himself.

“The rules, unfortunately, lend itself to a situation whereby a witness in the course of his testimony can libel a mere resource person invited to appear before the committee, and the hapless resource person, who now finds himself as the accused, would have no right to examine or cross-examine his libeler,” he said. 

Arroyo referred to Section 5-e, Article 6 of the rules that provides that a witness and his counsel shall not have the right to examine or cross-examine any witness before the committee or subcommittee but may ask leave to submit to the presiding officer proposed questions which the latter may propound if, in his opinion, the same are necessary for clarificatory purposes.

“The resource person’s right to defend himself on the spot is curtailed. If at all he can exercise it, he does so not because he is entitled to it but by the grace of the chairman who may even disallow it,” Arroyo said.

Arroyo noted the Senate enjoys an “extraordinary privilege” of parliamentary immunity where “no member (of Congress) shall be questioned nor be held liable in any other place for any speech or debate in the Congress or in any committee.” 

“A person thus summoned to appear in a legislative inquiry is at the outset at a disadvantage in the face of such uneven or lopsided situation,” Arroyo said.

According to Arroyo, the situation has become a “tradition and practice of the conduct of legislative inquiries that has developed and evolved over the years.”

Arroyo said he wanted to amend the rules to allow resource persons to defend themselves during the grilling.

He said any amendment to the rules should not be perceived as impairing the power of the Blue Ribbon committee to conduct the inquiry in aid of legislation or in the exercise of its oversight functions.

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile said he is leaving it up to the senators to decide on the manner they would throw the questions during congressional inquiries.

“We will moderate our conduct in the hearing matters that are to be heard in aid of legislation but it is all addressed to the individual senators to frame their questions, to address their questions and use language that could not offend unnecessarily the dignity and self-respect of the resource person,” Enrile said.

For his part, Enrile said his style of questioning during Senate hearings is patterned after a strategy to cross-examine witnesses like in a trial court.

Sen. Manuel Villar Jr. expressed support for the need to amend the rules on congressional inquiries.

Villar said he has been cautious himself when he asks questions during inquiries to ensure that the resource persons’ rights are respected.

“We do not need to humiliate the person invited to appear in the hearing,” he stressed.

Villar though called on the Blue Ribbon committee to continue the investigation on the issue of corruption in the military.

Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. said the House of Representatives has been generally fair and objective in the conduct of congressional inquiries.

Belmonte said the House leadership has been reminding lawmakers on the proper conduct in questioning resource persons to avoid possible abuses and trampling of rights of the witnesses.

“We’ve been trying to temper that (grilling of witnesses),” Belmonte said.

He said the House has been updating its rules on congressional probes since July last year when the 15th Congress opened.

Belmonte, however, refused to compare the manner in which the House and the Senate conduct their respective inquiries.

Ilocos Norte Rep. Rodolfo Fariñas, vice chairman of the House committee on justice, earlier revealed plans to draw up new rules to govern the conduct of congressional inquiries and protect the rights of resource persons.

The move to come up with tighter rules on congressional investigations came as more lawmakers lamented how public hearings are used to destroy the reputation and humiliate resource persons leaving no issue being resolved. – With Paolo Romero