The House committee on dangerous drugs on Wednesday found former Mayor Teddy Tumang of Mexico, Pampanga in contempt of the panel and voted to detain him at the Batasan complex in Quezon City for 30 days.
“We are citing former Mayor Tumang for contempt for violating Section 7 of our rules governing inquiries in aid of legislation, subject to motions for reconsideration,” Surigao del Norte Rep. Robert Ace Barbers, committee chairman, told the former local official.
Section 7 prohibits the disclosure of information taken up in executive session of the House or any of its committees.
The penalty imposed on the former mayor is the second punitive action taken in as many days in connection with two separate inquiries involving Mexico officials and over P6 billion worth of shabu seized by the authorities from a warehouse in Barangay San Jose Malino in the town last September.
The Barbers committee is investigating the shabu seizure.
On Monday, another House panel, the committee on public accounts, cited a former aide of Tumang, Roy Gomez, for contempt and ordered him confined in the House for 30 days for evading and sometimes refusing answers from committee members.
This second panel, chaired by Abang Lingkod Rep. Joseph Stephen Paduano, is looking into more than P40 million worth of allegedly anomalous transactions entered into by the former Mexico mayor.
The Ombudsman has dismissed Tumang in connection with graft charges.
Before the committee on dangerous drugs took a vote, Barbers confronted the former mayor with the statements he gave in a press conference the latter held last Oct. 11.
The Mindanao lawmaker quoted a particular statement the mayor made: “Meron akong nakausap sa mga nag-iimbestiga, ang nagtatanong dun (sa executive session) isa si Senior Deputy Speaker Dong (Aurelio) Gonzales, tinanong sa sa mga NBI, ‘hindi ba talaga involved si Mayor Tumang diyan?’ Para akong ini-implicate, dalawang beses daw niya tinanong.”
Upon questioning by Antipolo Rep. Romeo Acop, Tumang admitted holding a press conference and uttering the statement quoted by Barbers.
But the former mayor said he was making a “big sorry” for not knowing the rules of the House. He repeated his apology several times.
He said the information was volunteered to him by one who attended the committee’s executive session on Oct. 11 who approached him while he was having coffee at a gasoline station along North Luzon Expressway on his way home after attending the part of that day’s hearing that was open to the public.
However, Barbers said his committee held the hearing on Oct. 9, not Oct. 11.
Prodded by Paduano, Tumang could not point his supposed informant among law enforcement officers who attended today’s hearing.
“I think you are lying,” Paduano told the former mayor.
It was Acop who moved to cite Tumang in contempt of the committee and to detain him at the House premises for 30 days.
Businessman Willy Ong, the owner of the warehouse in Barangay San Jose Malino where the huge shipment of shabu was seized, did not show up in Wednesday’s hearing.
His absence prompted Barbers to ask the Philippine National Police and the National Bureau of Investigation to locate Ong.