SPEAKER Pantaleon Alvarez on Tuesday said the House of Representatives will exhaust all means to compel Senator Leila de Lima to respond to the show-cause order filed against her by the House committee on justice.
“We will look at all the options at the same time,” Alvarez said in Filipino. “We won’t be choosing just one.”
Alvarez said the action to be taken against De Lima by the House should she refuse to answer will depend on the recommendation of the House committee on justice chaired by Oriental Mindoro Rep. Reynaldo Umali.
If the committee recommends to have De Lima arrested, Alvarez said he would sign the arrest warrant against her.
“We will know in 72 hours,” he said.
Alvarez said the House will be forced to issue to an arrest warrant againt De Lima if she continuously ignores the subpeona issued.
Alvarez also laughed off De Lima’s denial of all the allegations hurled against her.
“She should stop trying to fool us.. it is her credibility that is at stake. It is only now that I have met such a person, so quick to lie,” he added.
He added that if De Lima had nothing to hide, she should not be worried about attending the House hearing.
On Tuesday, House Majority Leader Rodolfo Fariñas of Ilocos Note and Umali served a show-cause order to De Lima through the Office of the Senate Secretary, seeking to compel her to explain why she should not be held in contempt for advising a witness at the House hearings—her former lover and alleged bagman Ronnie Dayan–to go into hiding to avoid testifying.
Fariñas said De Lima has 72 hours to explain her side.
“That is more than enough time,” Fariñas told reporters in an interview at the Senate, adding that the House issued the order despite De Lima’s promise to defy the order.
Umali, chairman of the House justice committee which conducted the probe into the flourishing drug trade in the New Bilibid Prison when De Lima was still Justice secretary, signed the show-cause order.
Umali said that if De Lima should refuse to comply with the order, the committee would be constrained to take “appropriate actions” including finding her in contempt.
Since the House had already issued the show-cause order, Fariñas said no arrest warrant will be issued against De Lima.
He said they would leave it up to the Senate to impose sanctions against De Lima.
“But we will ask that they impose disciplinary action against their member,” he said.
Leaders of the Senate and the House of Representatives met Monday night to avoid a possible clash between members of the two chambers over the case of De Lima.
Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III and Senator Panfilo Lacson said they told their counterparts in the House, Fariñas and Umali, that they will not prevent them from serving the show-cause order to De Lima.
Sotto and Lacson also said if De Lima continues to defy the show-cause order, House leaders can file a complaint against her with the Senate ethics committee.
Sotto and Lacson said they were avoiding having a member of the Senate arrested and detained, but added that they would not stop House leaders if they want to file charges against De Lima before the courts.
Sotto said they made it clear to the House leaders thst everything should go through a process.
For her part, De Lima said she will refer her show-cause order to the Senate leadership through Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III, who has said he will forward it to the rules committee headed by Sotto.
Senate President Pro Tempore Franklin Drilon said the Senate, as an institution, should take a stand on the show-cause order of De Lima.
“I would want that…the Senate President and the institution should tackle it, should respond to it. This is not only the issue of Senator De Lima, this is an issue of the whole Senate as an institution,” Drilon said.
“I would want it to be discussed either in a caucus or in the plenary in the Senate,” he added.
Farinas and Umali served the order through Senate secretary Lutgardo Barbo before noon on Tuesday.
De Lima has stood pat on her assertion that the House committee has no jurisdiction over her.
“I’m not honoring that. I will not honor any notice or process from the House committee because I am not recognizing the jurisdiction of the House committee over me,” she said.
She dismissed the House hearing as a “kangaroo court” whose only intent was to nail her for made-up drug charges.
“I’m willing to accept the consequences. I’m willing to live with the act of defiance on my part,” she said.
Also on Tuesday, the Supreme Court ordered the Office of the Solicitor General to answer the motion filed by De Lima seeking clarification on whether the privilege of presidential immunity from suit constitutes a prejudicial question in her habeas data suit filed against the President.
Court spokesman Theodore Te said the justices have given Solicitor General Jose Calida 10 days within which to answer De Lima’s motion.
De Lima, in a motion dated Nov. 25 said there is a need for the Supreme Court to clarify if the President’s immunity from suit constituted a prejudicial question, which in jurisprudence is a question based on a fact distinct and separate from the case, but so intimately connected with it that it determines whether the case will proceed or not. With Rey E. Requejo