MANILA, Philippines — A number of senators are undeterred by President Rodrigo Duterte's threat to jail them over their inquiry into the government's anomalous deals with Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corp.
"Now, if you are cited in contempt, if I find out, I will jail the senators," Duterte told members of his Cabinet in Filipino in a taped meeting aired late Wednesday night.
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He also repeated his instruction to the police and military not to arrest resource persons ignoring Senate subpoenas.
"Only a court of law can issue a warrant of arrest in accordance with the rule of law or under Rule 113 of the Rules of Court. Under Section 5, even a warrantless arrest or citizen’s arrest has clearly defined circumstances," Sen. Panfilo Lacson, a former police chief, said Thursday.
"The president is a lawyer. He should know his law."
Duterte reminded: Senate is a co-equal branch of government
"When you threaten to harm any member of the Senate in our performance of our sworn duties, you attack and undermine the Senate as an institution mandated to check your excesses and abuses," said Sen. Richard Gordon who has been leading the chamber's inquiry as blue ribbon chairman.
Sen. Risa Hontiveros chimed in, saying in a separate statement: "Last time I checked, we are in a democracy in which the executive and the legislature are co-equal branches of government."
"The Senate has no obligation to stop its investigations just because the president feels offended," she added.
"He is President Duterte, not King Duterte."
Duterte earlier this week formally barred executive department officials from attending the blue ribbon committee's hearings on deficiencies in pandemic spending flagged by state auditors.
As a result, the panel resumed its hearings Tuesday with no executives from the departments of health and budget present to field senators' questions.
The Philippine Bar Association on Tuesday warned that the directive "upsets our system of checks and balances and transgresses the doctrine of separation of powers among the three branches of government under our Constitution."
The Integrated Bar of the Philippines on Wednesday urged Duterte to reconsider the ban, saying: “It is only by granting our Congress free access to information that we can empower them to formulate policies that fully reflect the will of our people."
'Why keep lawyering for Pharmally?'
Both Gordon and Hontiveros questioned Duterte's continued tirades over the probe.
The chief executive previously vowed not to tolerate "even a whiff of corruption" and has said that his goal for his remaining days in the presidency is to rid the government of crooked officials.
"The question we should all ask is this: Why is the president willing to issue illegal orders and drag the country into a constitutional crisis, just to protect a favored company and a few public officials?" Hontiveros said. "What is with Pharmally and their government collaborators that the President himself is their number one defense lawyer?"
Executives of the embattled Pharmally met with the president in Davao City as early as 2017 along with his then-economic adviser Michael Yang.
Yang, who first tried to deny any ties with Pharmally, has since been named by the firm as its financier and guarantor to suppliers.
Meanwhile, it was a Duterte appointee who headed the Department of Budget and Management's procurement service when it awarded the largest pandemic contracts to the new and undercapitalized firm.
Senators estimate that contracts awarded to Pharmally could be worth as much as P12 billion, significantly higher than the P8.68 billion logged by the Commission on Audit.
The official in question, Lloyd Christopher Lao, former PS-DBM officer-in-charge, worked as Duterte's election lawyer before he entered public service.
Duterte has said that he is "indebted" to Lao. He also insists that Yang was simply a "middleman" for the government and Pharmally who also played a "key" role in Chinese investment in the country.