Stop to jueteng inquiry sought

The House of Representatives urged the Senate yesterday to stop its inquiry into allegations that President Estrada received more than P500 million in jueteng payola and tax kickback.

The request is contained in Resolution 1836 introduced by the committee on justice and which the larger chamber approved.

The principal basis for the appeal is because an impeachment complaint against the President is now pending in the justice committee, and that such complaint could eventually be sent to the Senate for trial.

Opposition congressmen immediately criticized the request.

Assistant Minority Leader Michael Defensor said the House in effect wants the Senate to gag itself.

He said the request is a Malacañang effort to stop the jueteng hearings now that the "paper and money trails are leading probers to the Palace gates."

"The Senate will be doing a great disservice to the Filipino people if it terminates its hearings on the prodding of Malacañang and on flimsy grounds at that," he said.

In Resolution 1836, the justice committee said the Senate hearings "have ventured or necessarily resulted into probing the truth of the allegations against the President of the Philippines involving alleged payoffs from the illegal gambling operations of jueteng and alleged illegal diversion of tobacco excise taxes."

It said the same accusations against Mr. Estrada are part of the impeachment charges leveled by opposition congressmen and various people’s organizations against Mr. Estrada and which are now pending in the justice committee.

It pointed out the senators cannot avoid forming their respective judgment on the allegations against the President in the course of their hearings and may not therefore sit as impartial judges in the event the impeachment complaint is sent to them for trial.

The resolution also attempts to protect Mr. Estrada, who has denied having received even a centavo in jueteng money, from being publicly tried without due process.

It said the inquiry is being conducted without the President’s participation, and without him being given the opportunity to answer the charges.

Speaker Manuel Villar Jr. said "what the House has made is just a request, and if the Senate chooses to continue with its hearings, we will respect that decision."

Villar urged the people to have faith in the impeachment proceedings as he admitted that he does not know where the current jueteng scandal and political-economic crisis will take the nation.

Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr., chairman of the Blue Ribbon Committee, earlier said the jueteng hearings will go on even if impeachment proceedings are taking place in the House.

Deputy Majority Leader Neptali Gonzalez II (LAMP, Mandaluyong City) said senators should go on with their inquiry.

"Inumpisahan nila ito, dapat tapusin nila (They started this, they should finish it)," he said.

He said the Senate should make conclusions on the charges leveled by former presidential drinking buddy Gov. Luis "Chavit" Singson of Ilocos Sur against the President.

Gonzalez will initially preside over the meetings of the justice committee until the panel has chosen a permanent presiding officer.

Its chairman, Rep. Pacifico Fajardo (LAMP, Nueva Ecija), earlier inhibited himself from the impeachment proceedings because he is a third cousin of Vice President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who will assume the presidency if Mr. Estrada is removed from office.

Some justice committee members have expressed their reservations about the designation of Gonzalez as presiding officer, claiming the Mandaluyong congressman has been open in defending the President and criticizing Singson.

"Kung ayaw nila sa akin, ayaw ko rin sa kanila (If they don’t want me, I don’t want them)," Gonzalez said.

He said he will throw the matter to his colleagues when they meet on Nov. 6 to take up the impeachment complaint.

Opposition Rep. Oscar Moreno (Lakas, Misamis Oriental) has suggested Representatives Oscar Rodriguez of Pampanga or Wigberto Tañada of Quezon as permanent presiding officer of the impeachment proceedings.

Rep. Ralph Recto (LAMP, Batangas) defended the choice of Gonzalez as presiding officer.

"In Congress, there is a saying that the best way to take a member out of the floor is to exile him to the podium and give him presiding tasks. That is also true in committee hearings, where the best way to silence an articulate member is to hand him over the gavel," he said.

He said it is the anti-impeachment camp, not the opposition, that was hurt by the designation of the Mandaluyong congressman as presiding officer.

He said there is no basis for some congressmen to question the impartiality of Gonzalez.

"Any premature accusations that he will rig the hearings in Erap’s favor is grossly unfair. Let us take comfort in the fact that he is his father’s son, and Boyet will never sully the name of a great man," he added.

So the justice panel would be above suspicion, Rep. Alan Peter Ceyetano of Taguig-Pateros urged its members to give up their political party membership.

That will help allay the people’s fears that the President’s allies in Congress would soon throw out the impeachment complaint because they are members of the ruling party and they have been released infrastructure funds by Malacañang, he said.

He also said some media personalities and lawmakers will announce their stand on the jueteng scandal this weekend.

In a related development, Senior Deputy Minority Leader Sergio Apostol urged the administration’s economic managers to resign.

"If our economic managers want to have a future for themselves and for this country, they should at least tender their resignations and leave their posts now. At best, they should point to their boss, Erap, and squarely tell him that he is the problem and should therefore be extracted," he said.