AN official of Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corp. yesterday asked the Supreme Court to declare as unconstitutional an order of the Senate Blue Ribbon committee detaining him for allegedly making “false and evasive” answers during the panel’s investigation into multi-billion-peso contracts his firm got from government last year.
Pharmally director Linconn Ong, in a petition, also asked the SC to declare as unconstitutional Section 6, Article 6 of the Rules of the Blue Ribbon Committee, adopted on Aug. 14, 2019 insofar as it punishes as contempt the act of testifying falsely or evasively, and Section 18 of the Senate Rules of Procedure, which he said are vague for having no clear standards as to what constitutes “testifying falsely or evasively.
Senate President Vicente Sotto III, asked for a reaction, said: “The Supreme Court is supreme. It knows what to do.”
Ong, in the petition filed by his lawyer, Ferdinand Topacio, said the contempt order issued by the committee as well as the punishment imposed on him can be considered as an encroachment of the power of the judiciary.
“For a finding of guilty and the consequent imposition of a punishment for false testimony, the same being a crime defined law, it must be proved beyond reasonable doubt. The person charged thereof is entitled to all the rights of the accused in a criminal prosecution as provided by the Constitution, including the presumption of innocence and the right to notice and hearing, among others,” he said.
He added Congress “absolutely has no business in the determination of such guilt or innocence much less in the imposition of punishment.”
In one of the hearings, Ong admitted his company got money from Michael Yang, a Chinese businessman who was appointed by President Duterte in 2018 as his economic adviser. Ong has repeatedly declined to say how much was loaned by Yang to Pharmally which had a paid-up capital of only P625,000 when it got the billions worth of contracts for pandemic supplies last year.
Some senators suspect Yang is Pharmally’s financier.
President Duterte on Wednesday night stood by his order barring Cabinet officials from attending the Blue Ribbon hearings.
“No way that I will withdraw it. You can do your worst and I will do mine,” he said adding the senators have been derailing the government’s anti-COVID efforts, including the distribution of vaccines.
Duterte said while he recognizes the power of the Senate to conduct inquiries, he prefers not to allow his appointees to attend to avoid being insulted. He said the powers of the senators do not include berating or shouting at people.
He warned he would imprison the senators if they cite his officials in contempt or detain them.
He again berated Blue Ribbon chair Sen. Richard Gordon, adding he will stop only if the senator returns to government some P86 million disallowed by Commission on Audit. The fund was released by the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority when Gordon was its chairman.
Gordon said Duterte’s threat to jail the senators is just a diversionary tactic.
He also said the President is not threatening the senators per se but the Senate as an institution which is mandated to “check your excesses and abuses.”
“No amount of tantrums and threats will ever distract us from pursuing our investigation on who profited from the taxpayers’ money meant to provide ‘ayuda’ for our people, buy our vaccines, build more hospitals, save our jobs, and bail us out of recession,” he said.
Gordon said Duterte is so fixated on him, making him the subject of tirades in his twice-a-week “Talk to the People” public address.
“What are you afraid of, Mr. President? The President’s incessant and vicious attacks on me can only be interpreted that he is so afraid that the Senate investigation will reach the doors of his official residence once we release our partial interim report,” Gordon said.
Sen. Panfilo Lacson said Lacson said Duterte is a lawyer and he “should know his law.”
“Only a court of law can issue a warrant of arrest in accordance with the rule of law or under Rule 113 of the Rules of Court. Under Section 5, even a warrantless arrest or citizen’s arrest has clearly defined circumstances,” he said — With Raymond Africa and Jocelyn Montemayor
