Colleagues point out committee hearing already set
MANILA, Philippines — President Rodrigo Duterte’s fresh tirade against the Lopez family and TV network ABS-CBN prompted one of his allies in the House of Representatives to call on the chamber’s leadership to restart the probe into the loans of the Lopez Group of Companies allegedly condoned by state-run Development Bank of the Philippines.
This, even if the DBP already denied that it condoned or wrote off soured loans of the Lopez Group of Companies back in the early 2000s.
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“What we’ll do in Congress regarding this investigation will affect our reputation, our integrity, our duties and responsibilities,” Rep. Michael Defensor (Anakalusugan party-list) said partly in Filipino during the House’s plenary session on Tuesday. “The committee on good government has to pursue the investigation until its final conclusion.”
But it turned out that there was no need for him to call for hearings to resume as the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability has already scheduled a hearing on the matter on February 17.
Rep. Michael Aglipay (DIWA party-list), panel chair, said that resource persons were just given a month to gather documents that the committee asked them for. The panel last conducted a hearing on January 18.
'Out of order'
This prompted some lawmakers to point out that Defensor’s speech was out of order, as it pertained to matters still being deliberated by a House committee.
“It is not right that he is using his time here in plenary to discuss things that are up for investigation in the committee on good government,” Deputy Speaker Bernadette Herrera-Dy (BH party-list) said partly in Filipino.
Deputy Speaker Lito Atienza (Buhay party-list) backed this up and quipped partly in Filipino, “What is the right of Congressman Defensor to stand up and question what is happening in the committee? Did we change our rules?”
Rep. Kit Belmonte (Quezon City) then moved to strike from the records parts of Defensor’s speech that referred to matters still being discussed by the panel.
“I presume that he was carried away in tackling matters that were already subject matter to a committee deliberation,” Belmonte said.
But Defensor objected to the motion, warning the chamber that deleting his speech would mean that it is “fighting the objective and intent of the president.”
He eventually relented and allowed the House to strike off portions of his speech after being told that only parts of his statement would be deleted from the records.
The House of Representatives is dominated by Duterte allies but is part of a separate branch of government.
Duterte says, House does
Duterte once again used his weekly address on the government’s response to the pandemic to touch on a completely different topic — this time, the Lopezes and their TV network ABS-CBN.
He claimed without elaborating that the Lopezes committed “criminal acts,” which he said included the DBP's reported condonation of the loans. He referred to the loans as unpaid taxes.
He pointed out that Congress started an investigation on the condonation of loans, but stopped when they reached the issue regarding the Lopezes.
“So we’re having a problem there,” Duterte said in Filipino. “What I can do here is I think I’ll pass it on to the Ombudsman. To me, the Ombudsman is the most independent body who can solve this.”
Duterte’s words do hold sway in the House, where he has a supermajority. His pronouncements and policies, for example on ABS-CBN, have been generally followed by the lower chamber.
Some lawmakers, including Senate President Vicente “Tito” Sotto III and Deputy Speaker Vilma Santos Recto (Batangas), have filed bills to give ABS-CBN a fresh franchise, but these have a slim chance of passing given the explicit rejection of Duterte for the network to be given a new license.
The House legislative franchises committee rejected in July 2020 ABS-CBN’s application for a new franchise, which was widely seen as an attack on press freedom.
The shutdown forced the network to lay off thousands of its employees as the country grapples with the pandemic that has caused an economic downturn and massive unemployment.