SC to Senate: Comment on flood control probe petitions

MANILA, Philippines — While the partial report on the investigation into the flood control scandal was made public last week, the appeal for the Senate Blue Ribbon committee to fully disclose its report will continue, according to a lawyer who filed a related petition.

Elridge Marvin Aceron revealed in his post on Facebook yesterday that the Supreme Court (SC) has ordered respondents in the Blue Ribbon committee, then headed by Sen. Panfilo Lacson, to “comment… within 15 days from notice” on the resolution issued last April 29.

He added the high tribunal “denied the prayer for the issuance of a TRO (temporary restraining order) and/or SQAO (status quo ante order).”

In early March, Aceron and his fellow lawyers Sikini Labastilla and Purificacion Bartolome-Bernabe filed before the SC a petition for mandamus and to issue a TRO or SQAO with the goal of compelling the Senate to release the draft Blue Ribbon committee report that contained the signatures of the senators who had withdrawn.

While their appeal for a TRO or SQAO was junked, Aceron maintained “the case moves forward” with the high tribunal’s order for comment from the Blue Ribbon panel.

“This means we now get to argue — before the en banc, on the merits — that legislative drafts cannot be cloaked in a ‘privilege’ the chairman himself has already shed in public. The constitutional question of first impression we filed in March is now squarely before the Court,” he wrote in his post.

He added their case could set “a landmark precedent in making information from all branches of government more accessible and open to the public.”

In his privilege speech on May 5, Lacson revealed the leaked parts of the Blue Ribbon committee report contained recommendations to file charges against Senators Francis Escudero, Jinggoy Estrada and Joel Villanueva, as well as former speaker Martin Romualdez and former congressman Zaldy Co and more than a dozen government officials, according to earlier reports.

Senators Lacson, Vicente Sotto III, Risa Hontiveros, Francis Pangilinan, Bam Aquino and brothers Erwin and Raffy Tulfo have signed the partial report. Two more signatures are required for the proposal of amendments to the plenary.

The seven senators are now in the minority bloc after Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano was chosen as new Senate president and Sotto was removed.