THE House committee on ethics and privileges yesterday issued an ultimatum to Negros Oriental Rep. Arnolfo Teves Jr.: Show up before the panel today or face serious sanctions.
The panel chaired by Rep. Felimon Espares (PL, COOP NATCO) gave Teves 24 hours to physically attend the hearing after he failed to appear yesterday despite having been given five days to attend and explain why he has not returned to the country despite the expiration of his travel authority last March 9.
The committee denied Teves’ request to be allowed to participate in the two-hour closed-door motu proprio hearing and speak through video conferencing, which his lawyer earlier said was supposed to be permissible.
“The action of the committee will be based on his non-appearance,” Espares told reporters, adding that the panel will have to discuss today what actions to take against Teves who has repeatedly said he is in grave danger.
Espares said: “We extend(ed) our time to let our colleagues respond within 24 hours to come home, but if he doesn’t appear personally before our committee, the committee would really have its decision, the appropriate sanctions. So probably by tomorrow 4 or 5 p.m., we will have our committee meeting,”
Teves, who is being accused of masterminding the March 4 assassination of his political nemesis Negros Oriental Gov. Roel Degamo, is facing sanctions ranging from a simple reprimand to suspension or expulsion, depending on the panel’s decision.
The governor’s widow, Pamplona Mayor Janice Degamo, said last Sunday she has signed a petition urging congressmen to expel Teves but the Office of the Speaker said it has yet to receive a copy of it.
Espares said lawmakers still have no idea where Teves is. Teves’ last known location was the United States where he said he had medical treatment.
Espares explained that virtual attendance was not allowed by his committee because “we need his physical appearance, meaning, we need him to report here in the House.”
In a letter to the ethics panel, Teves’ lawyer Ferdinand Topacio said his client should be allowed to participate in the hearing via online platforms because the House has not yet issued a direct order compelling him to physically attend.
“By the tenor of the good Speaker’s statements on the matter, it is pellucid that he merely made a friendly advice to Rep. Teves to return to the country ‘face allegations’ relating to the murder of Gov. Roel Degamo, adding that ‘we all want to hear his side of the story.’ It was an expression of concern, which our client deeply appreciates, but is far from being a command or directive,” Topacio said.
He said this stand “finds support in the pronouncement of the House secretary general that ‘the House cannot compel the lawmaker to come home since his trip is not in an official capacity.”
“At any rate, our client informs us that under the hybrid system adopted by the House, virtual meetings are allowed and considered as an actual presence for most intents and purposes of the House rules,” he said. “In addition, Rep. Teves invites the attention of the Committee, and the House in general, to the latitudinarian attitude of the House to absences made by its members when the same is due to good and valid causes. We feel that grave and serious security concerns are one of those valid causes.”
Topacio said his client was planning to explain to the committee “why he could not physically attend, why he is being framed up,” stressing that “this is a matter of life and death.”
He also laughed off calls for government to freeze his client’s assets and expel him from the House, saying Teves is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
“They want them frozen para raw hindi makapanuhol si Congressman Teves (so that Congressman Teves cannot bribe anyone). That is not a reason for such under our laws. Because if you do that, you assume that the suspect will bribe someone. That call is uncalled for and unsubstantiated,” Topacio told a press conference in Quezon City.
Topacio cited the case of former Sen. Panfilo Lacson who had been ordered arrested for being a respondent in the Dacer-Corbito double murder case only to be exonerated later on.
“We have procedures laid down in the law, let us follow the law. Expel? Congressman Teves enjoys the presumption of innocence. You cannot impose expulsion on whim because you will be disenfranchising the district (he represents),” he said.
