BY JOCELYN MONTEMAYOR and RAYMOND AFRICA
PRESIDENT Duterte yesterday said he will require his Cabinet members to secure his approval before attending Senate hearings, adding he will not give his permission if he thinks they will just be “harassed and berated in front of the public.”
It was not clear if his decision would be limited to Senate probe on the procurement of medical supplies and efforts related to the COVID-19 pandemic, or would cover inquiries on other issues.
Sen. Richard Gordon said the President is preventing a co-equal branch of government from doing its work. Gordon is chairman of the Senate Blue Ribbon committee which is investigating alleged overpriced purchases using funds from the Department of Health’s COVID-10 pandemic response funds. The hearings have so far linked a former Duterte adviser to the alleged anomaly.
Gordon said, “He’s skirting sedition. Although, I think that’s the cover para sabihin na hindi (to say that it is not) sedition for the Cabinet not to attend. Kasi (because) you are restraining the legislative, co-equal branch of government, from performing its work and telling them don’t attend. That’s sedition, I mean incitement to sedition.”
Senate President Vicente Sotto III said it is the “prerogative” of the President not to allow his Cabinet members to attend their hearings but the the Senate will continue to exercise its “legislative oversight function over government projects and expenditures that we approved.
Sen. Francis Pangilinan said if government has nothing to hide and is not involved in any anomaly, the Cabinet officials must be allowed to attend the Senate hearings.
It was not the first time Duterte has challenged the investigative powers of Congress. In January, he directed the head of the Presidential Security Group to ignore summons issued by the Senate which was then probing his guards for inoculating themselves with an unauthorized COVID-19 vaccine.
Duterte stepped up his attacks on the Senate and individual senators like Gordon and Panfilo Lacson since the Blue Ribbon started hearings last month on the alleged mishandling by the Department of Health of COVID-19 response funds worth P67 billion.
The investigation has shifted to the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management (PS-DBM) and its alleged questionable purchases last year from Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corporation which is being linked to former presidential adviser Michael Yang.
The President, in his weekly “Talk to the People” address, said: “This time, I will require every Cabinet member to clear with me any invitation, and if I think, if walang silbi (there is no use) except to harass and be berated in front of the public, hintuin ko na iyan at pagbawalan ko na (I will stop it and bar them),” he said.
He added that he will “limit” what the lawmakers can do with the members of the Executive Department if they continue their practice of subjecting his appointees to long hours of tedious hearings. — With Reuters
