Foiled

 Senate president pro tempore Jinggoy Estrada is asking too much from his fellow Senators Manny Villar and Panfilo “Ping” Lacson. Jinggoy dared both Villar and Lacson to face the music, so to speak, their respective troubles now hounding them. Both Senators Villar and Lacson are currently under fire.

Jinggoy, son of former President Joseph Estrada had dared both Villar and Lacson to do what his father did when faced with very serious accusations besmirching their name and integrity. He particularly referred to the Senate impeachment trial and the subsequent plunder trial that ex-President Estrada went through in defense of his name and honor. 

For more than a year, Villar was being grilled by his peers at the Senate ethics committee over alleged “insertion” of public funds in the 2008 budget for a pet C-5 road extension project. Senators Panfilo Lacson and Jamby Madrigal scored Villar for allegedly ensuring his family-owned real estate business along the route of the C-5 extension project.

Villar has vehemently denied the accusations against him, not just once but twice already in two privilege speeches he delivered before his peers at the Senate floor. He did the first privilege speech last year when he was being pilloried for the C-5 road project at the Senate ethics committee. And he did the second privilege speech on Tuesday in response to the recommended “censure” against him as handed down by the Senate Committee of the Whole that took over the case. But in both instances, Villar opted not to be interpellated by his fellow Senators.

Jinggoy took to task Villar for the latter’s refusal to confront head-on his accusers. He urged him to follow the lead of ex-President Estrada who did not stop Congress from their impeachment bid against him. This was while Villar was then Speaker who presided the tumultuous House session when he approved the transmittal of the Estrada impeachment case to the Senate in 1999.  

And the rest is history, as we say, when both the ex-President and Jinggoy were charged, arrested and detained for plunder charges. Jinggoy recalled those bitter memories for him and his father as example of being men enough to face adversities despite the odds stacked up against them.

But of course, Jinggoy’s dare did not fly with Villar. Not even the needling and perorating of Jamby can make him do so. What more of Jinggoy?

Nonetheless, Senate president Juan Ponce Enrile decided to proceed with the voting on the Committee Report to censure Villar on the last day of session before they adjourned for the election campaign period. In defiance of the majority, Villar and the Senators supporting his being absolved from the C-5 road project case did not show up.

For lack of quorum, the Enrile-led majority adjourned their session. But not after breaking their own parliamentary rules. Without benefit of quorum, Enrile allowed anti-Villar Senators to hurl their last barrage of tirades against the presidential standard-bearer of the Nacionalista Party.

Jamby even made a motion to the Senate president to use his plenary powers “to arrest” their fellow Senators if only to physically bring them to the session hall. Had she had her way, Jamby’s contempt for Villar nearly caused the arrest of Lacson, her fellow C-5 co-complainant.

Lacson is reportedly facing arrest on a criminal case that implicated him in the celebrated murders of public relations (PR) practitioner Bubby Dacer and his driver, Emmanuel Corbito. The two were murdered on Nov. 24, 2000 while Lacson was then the director-general of the Philippine National Police (PNP).

After several years of investigation, the Department of Justice included Lacson as among the principals in the Dacer-Corbito double-murder case. This was after Lacson was tagged by his former PNP deputies as the brains behind the kidnapping and subsequent killing of the PR man. Despite a battery of lawyers defending him in this criminal case, Lacson opted to fly out of the country beyond the reach of the court’s jurisdiction after sensing his imminent arrest.

Jinggoy asked Lacson to come back and face the court if he has not committed those crimes charged against him. He called this as a “friendly advice” to Lacson with whom he recently locked horns with, after the latter tried to drag ex-President Estrada in the Dacer-Corbito double murder case.

Since the court has not issued any warrant of arrest yet, DOJ Secretary Agnes Devanadera rightly pointed out that Lacson is still a “tourist” at this stage. Lacson becomes a fugitive from the law if he goes into hiding once the court, if ever, issues an arrest order on this non-bailable crime against him, especially now that Congress has already adjourned.

The same lack of quorum also bedeviled the last session days at the House of Representatives. For different reasons, though, certain congressmen intentionally caused lack of quorum for various reasons of vested interests, perhaps? 

Both chambers of the 14th Congress will resume sessions on May 31 to June 4 for the sine die adjournment. But these remaining session days are exclusively for the purpose of convening as a joint national canvassing body to tackle the results of the May 2010 presidential elections.

As dust settled over the furor over quorums in Congress, Palace-endorsed bills along with other priority legislations, including those in advanced stage in the legislative mill, were good as dead. They will consequently go back to square one, if re-filed at the incoming 15th Congress.

If there is one positive consequence over these hullabaloos in both chambers of Congress, it is the thought that we will be spared from self-serving legislations. In particular, bills that would extend the terms of incumbent officials in the Immigration Bureau, the National Telecommunications Commission and Philippine Gaming Corp. were foiled. The downside, however, the proposed legislations of national importance suffered the same fate.

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Text joke: My good friend, Jess Paredes, Ateneo classmate of Estrada, sent this funny pun about the conversations last week between former Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and Estrada. It goes this way:

Anwar: They arrested me and detained me for more than six years.

Erap: So do me!