"My own reading is that the three committees conducting the Jose Pidal inquiry will rule that Iggy Arroyo won’t be allowed to invoke his right to privacy," Osmeña told a news conference.
He said based on the initial discussions of the three panels on Monday afternoon, there is an emerging view that the public interest aspect of the Jose Pidal controversy outweighs the right to privacy of the brother of First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo.
Iggy Arroyo would be called again to testify before the Senate. If he continues to invoke his right to privacy, he would be cited for contempt and given time to challenge it before the Supreme Court, Osmeña said.
"We don’t want to detain him unless it is absolutely necessary. We don’t want to make a martyr out of him. He should not take punishment for his brother, who is the real Jose Pidal," Osmeña said.
Iggy Arroyo’s counsel welcomed the decision of the three Senate committees to continue their investigation into the Jose Pidal issue, but reiterated his client is entitled to his rights set forth in the Bill of Rights, including the right to privacy.
Antonio Zulueta, counsel for Arroyo, said "we welcome this development. It merely affirms our position that Senator (Panfilo) Lacson, until this date has failed to present proof of his allegations."
Osmeña stressed that if Iggy Arroyo’s invocation of his right to privacy prevails over public interest, every private citizen who is invited by congressional committees would just invoke such right and thereby frustrate legislative inquiries.
Osmeña chairs the committee on banks, one of the committees conducting the Jose Pidal probe. The lead panel is the Blue Ribbon Committee of Sen. Joker Arroyo. The committee on constitutional amendments, and revision of codes and laws is the other probe panel.
Osmeña said the most prominent case that he and his colleagues have discussed is the one involving Frenchman Jean Arnault, who was cited for contempt by the Senate in the 1950s and who spent more than two years in the Muntinlupa prisons until he was forced to talk.
He said the Supreme Court ruled in the Arnault case that a witness in a congressional inquiry cannot invoke his right to privacy on a matter of national interest.
He said he also asked the three probe panels to rule on the extent of the coverage of the Bank Secrecy Law which bank officials summoned to the second Jose Pidal hearing last Sept. 8 repeatedly invoked when asked about the Pidal accounts.
"We admit we don’t have the power to look into bank accounts, but details such as when was the account opened, when was it closed, who among the bank personnel helped the client open the account are not covered by the Bank Secrecy Law," he said.
He recalled that during their appearance before the probe panels on Sept. 8, bank officials, when asked about such details, told senators that they either could not remember them or the law prohibits them from revealing any specifics.
One of those is Nestor Pineda, former manager of the UnionBank branch along Perea street in Legaspi Village in Makati City, not far from the LTA Building that the Arroyo family owns.
According to opposition Sen. Panfilo Lacson, Pineda, who is now with the Philippine National Bank, was manager of UnionBank (Perea) when the Jose Pidal account was opened.
He said the President’s husband used the false name Jose Pidal to hide supposedly illegal funds. The First Gentleman has denied the accusation.
Osmeña said the bank officials refused to talk "because they are afraid of the real Jose Pidal."
He said he would like these officials to appear before the Senate again.
"I’m also interested in Vicky Toh, her brother Thomas and brother-in-law Kelvin Tan. We would like them to establish their connection to 8th floor, LTA Building, where Mike Arroyo holds office and which is also the business address of Jose Pidal," he said.
Lacson claims that the First Gentleman also used the bank accounts of the Tohs and Tan to launder funds. Vicky Toh is Arroyo’s personal accountant and secretary. She has been in Canada for more than two months now, together with her brother Thomas.
Copies of bank documents that Lacson has submitted to the three Senate panels show that the Tohs and Tan have the same business address as the President’s husband and Jose Pidal.
Osmeña has urged Vicky Toh to come home and take the witness stand but her lawyer said politicians would just feast on her to boost their ambitions if she did that. The lawyer could not say when Toh would return to the country.
Zulueta, meanwhile, decried Lacson’s "continued absence and failure to heed the call of his colleagues to substantiate his allegations.
"He has not only failed to answer our challenge for him to file his cases in courts, he has apparently failed to even present convincing proof that would satisfy his own colleagues in the Senate."
The lawyer said "we can only have true democracy with the full protection of the constitutional rights of all Filipinos."
In a statement yesterday, the Arroyo camp said major columnists and legal luminaries have supported Iggy Arroyo’s invocation of his right to privacy.