House panel to decide on Sandigan suspension order

Saying they are "bound" by legislative procedure, the House leadership has tossed the Sandiganbayan order suspending two congressmen from Oriental Mindoro facing a P2.5 million graft case to the chamber’s ethics committee.

House Majority Leader Prospero Nograles said while the chamber will "most certainly comply with the legal judicial process" of the anti-graft court, the case of Reps. Alfonso Umali and Rodolfo Valencia must go through parliamentary process before any action can be taken against them.

"The House cannot just violate its own procedural due process in the implementation of any legal executive or judicial order because the Constitution also provides for a process for the suspension and/or removal of any member of Congress," he said.

By submitting the case to House process, Nograles denied it is in effect sitting on the court’s order.

"We can do no less. The Speaker of the House has instructed the committee on rules and ethics to immediately act on the matter with dispatch," he said.

The justices of the Sandiganbayan’s fourth division have directed the House secretary-general, through Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr., to implement a 90-day suspension of Valencia and Umali and to inform them of their suspension within five days.

Valencia and Umali, of the first and second districts of Oriental Mindoro respectively, have been sanctioned for offenses they allegedly committed while Valencia was still governor and Umali was still provincial administrator. The lawsuit was filed against them by the Ombudsman in April 1997.

Former vice governor Pedrito Reyes and incumbent board member Jose Leynes were also included in the preventive suspension. Their suspension is now in effect, even though the case against them is still pending.

According to Nograles, the chamber has informed the Sandiganbayan in writing that the House compliance shall consist of an endorsement of the court’s decision to the chairman of the House committee on rules. Nograles, in accordance with the Rules of the House, sits as chairman of the rules committee.

The endorsed order, Nograles said, shall be included in the House’s Order of Business and expeditiously referred to the rules committee for appropriate action. Thereafter, it will be transmitted to the House ethics committee, which has the sole power to recommend the suspension and/or removal of privileges of any member of the chamber.

Nograles said the ethics committee, whether or not it punishes either lawmaker, will report its findings to the plenary, which will then swiftly dispose of the matter on the floor.

In the 14-page Sandiganbayan resolution, Valencia, Umali and Leynes were directed "to cease and desist from exercising the functions and privileges of their respective positions for 90 days" immediately upon receipt of the order.

Prosecutors said the accused conspired to enter into an anomalous contract with engineer Alfredo Atienza, who received in January 1994 some P2.5 million in provincial government funds for the purpose of repairing, operating and maintaining his "vessel," reportedly a roll-on roll-off cargo vessel.

The justices said their hands were tied after the Supreme Court issued a temporary restraining order on the proceedings in May 2000. The TRO was lifted in June 2004. The four accused each paid P30,000 bail.

The witnesses against Valencia, Umali, Reyes and Leynes are former Mindoro Oriental governor Benjamin Espiritu, who was the provincial treasurer at the time the accused allegedly committed their offense, and three others led by the incumbent provincial auditor, treasurer and accountant.

Valencia insists he is innocent. The suspension order, he said, was nothing but a case of "clear political harassment" that was "maliciously filed" by his political opponents whom he said "cannot win an election."