SENATE President Juan Miguel Zubiri yesterday ordered the Blue Ribbon Committee to come up with a report on the Pharmally issue so it can lay down parameters for citing persons in contempt during hearings.
Zubiri issued the order following a Supreme Court ruling that the Senate committed grave abuse of discretion when the Blue Ribbon Committee ordered the arrest and detention of Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corporation executives Linconn Ong and Michael Yang Hong Ming in September 2021, after they were cited in contempt for giving false and evasive answers a hearing in connection with the company’s contract with the government in its purchase of COVID-19 medical supplies.
The hearings were presided by Richard Gordon, then Blue Ribbon chairman.
The SC, in its decision promulgated March 28, said the arrest order and contempt case against the two Pharmally executives violated their rights to due process.
“The Committee’s grave abuse of discretion lay in its precipitate act of citing petitioners Ong and Yang in contempt and ordering their arrest without giving them the opportunity to be heard,” the SC said.
Zubiri said while each committee “has the power to cite in contempt their resource persons,” parameters should be set to serve as basis for such an order.
“It is in our rules that each committee has the power to cite in contempt their resource persons, of course, (but) sometimes we are quick to pull the trigger in these particular cases. So, I would like to be guided accordingly,” Zubiri said as the Senate Committee on Finance tackled in the plenary the proposed P57.79-billion budget of the Judiciary in 2024.
During Senate investigations, Zubiri said, most resource persons do not give answers that would incriminate them, despite overwhelming evidence. This, he added, triggers committee members to cite the resource persons in contempt.
Zubiri also said the SC merely wants to determine how the committee decided to cite Ong and Yang in contempt, and “did not invalidate the Senate’s power to cite witnesses in contempt, as well as all the grounds for contempt under our Rules. “
“The Court merely said that `considering the broad definition of giving false or evasive testimony, the witness must be given a chance to explain why his or her testimony is not false or evasive,’” he added.
Sen. Juan Edgardo Angara, who defended the Judiciary’s proposed budget, said, “They’re not questioning the exercise of power but the methods in the exercise of citing the petitioner in contempt or giving the arrest (order) without giving him the opportunity to be heard.”
Senate minority leader Aquilino Pimentel III said the Senate Legal Division can craft a memorandum incorporating the SC decision.
Senate deputy minority leader Risa Hontiveros said the SC decision “upheld the Senate’s power to hold persons in contempt and compel cooperation of witnesses, in relation to its power to hold hearings in aid of legislation.”
“The Supreme Court did not absolve Michael Yang and Linconn Ong of the serious accusations against them that were extensively discussed in our Senate Blue Ribbon hearings. In fact, the Office of the Ombudsman has already recommended the filing of criminal complaints against Ong, former PS-DBM head Lloyd Christopher Lao, and other public officers and private individuals tagged in the multi-billion Pharmally scandal,” Hontiveros said.
She also said that Senate investigations, time and again, have been proven to perform a wide range of important public functions, “from improving our laws to exposing corruption, abuses, and other misdeeds which affect public service.”
Former senator Richard Gordon, who headed the Blue Ribbon Committee when the Pharmally controversy was investigated, came up with a draft committee report but a number of senators refused to sign because of a portion linking former President Duterte to the issue.
