Pimentel wants Makati mayor cited for contempt

MANILA, Philippines - Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III has recommended that Makati City Mayor Jejomar Erwin Binay Jr. and six others be cited in contempt for refusing to heed the subpoenas issued by the Senate Blue Ribbon committee.

In separate letters addressed to Blue Ribbon chairman Sen. Teofisto Guingona III last Jan. 13, Pimentel recommended that Binay, Tomas Lopez, Eleno Mendoza, Eduviges Baloloy, Marjorie de Veyra, Line dela Peña and Bernadette Portollano be cited in contempt as provided for by the rules of the committee.

The letters were sent by Pimentel in spite of a standing request by the lawyer of Binay and the other Makati officials for the Blue Ribbon subcommittee to provide advance questions to be asked by senators during the hearings on the allegedly overpriced parking building constructed by the city government and other alleged anomalies.

Pimentel, chairman of the subcommittee, said that the arguments made by lawyer Claro Certeza about the need for the senators to provide advance questions to his clients, which he partly based on the case of former socioeconomic planning secretary Romulo Neri against the Blue Ribbon committee, were unheard of as far as he was concerned.

“This is a very novel idea. If they want to question this all the way up to the Supreme Court, so be it. Maybe the Supreme Court will entertain it because of the novelty of the idea,” Pimentel said.

Pimentel said that he was not certain that Certeza was right in citing the case of Neri because in that particular petition, the matter involved executive privilege.

Joey Salgado, who heads the Makati City Public Information Office, said the decision to cite Mayor Binay in contempt showed that the Senate investigations on various corruption allegations against the Binays were not in aid of legislation but part of efforts to discredit his father.

In his letters to Guingona, Pimentel cited Article 6, Section 6 of the rules of the Blue Ribbon committee, which states that the chairman, with the concurrence of at least one member of the committee, may punish or cite in contempt any witness who disobeys any order of the committee or refuses to be sworn or to testify to answer a proper question by the committee or any of its members, notwithstanding the issuance of the appropriate subpoenas for this purpose.

He noted that show cause orders have been issued against the seven by the subcommittee and based on the replies they gave, the explanations given were found unacceptable.

Lopez, a board member of Pag-Ibig Fund, was invited to the Senate hearings in his capacity as president of the University of Makati.

Baloloy is said to be one of the secretaries of the Vice President when he was still mayor of Makati and allegedly handled several of the financial transactions of Binay.

De Veyra is the former city administrator and social welfare department head of Makati.

Mendoza is the incumbent city administrator of Makati, while Dela Peña is the assistant city engineer.

Portollano is corporate secretary of OMNI Security, which is allegedly owned by the Vice President.

The hearings of the subcommittee will resume tomorrow and according to Pimentel, the allegedly overpriced Makati Science High School building will be taken up.

Meanwhile, Vice President Binay expects his critics in the Senate to continue their attacks against him using the Blue Ribbon subcommittee hearings.– With Helen Flores