DETAINED Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV may finally get his wish to attend a Senate hearing, thanks to fellow Sen. Miriam Santiago who introduced a resolution asking the ethics committee to “punish” the failed Oakwood mutiny leader for instigating another attempted uprising at the Peninsula Manila Hotel in Makati last Thursday.

Santiago had filed Resolution 228 complaining that it was “an unparliamentary act for [Senator Trillanes] to lead an attempted coup d’ etat against the government” and called for his “proper punishment.” She asked the ethics committee to “meet immediately and recommend the proper punishment for Trillanes for disorderly behavior and unparliamentary acts and language, including, if necessary, his suspension or expulsion from the Senate.”

Because the ethics panel must set hearings on this resolution, it would have to summon Trillanes to the Senate to defend himself.

Santiago invoked Senate Rule 34 which provides that “upon recommendation of the Committee on Ethics and Privileges, the Senate may punish any member for disorderly behavior, and with the concurrence of two-thirds of the entire membership, suspend or expel a member.”

Senate President Manuel Villar Jr. and Majority Leader Francis Pangilinan, in separate interviews, confirmed that the Santiago resolution would be automatically referred to the ethics committee, chaired by Senator Pia Cayetano-Sebastian, which shall then call public hearings before rendering a report that would be the basis for taking any plenary action against Trillanes, if warranted.

Cayetano-Sebastian confirmed that Trillanes would have to be called to testify before the ethics committee to give its members a “full understanding” of his role in the standoff last week, which  ended after police special forces and Marine stormed the hotel to flush out Trillanes, Brig. Gen. Danilo Lim, their supporters, as well as media-men who covered the incident.

“How we will do that is another question,” Cayetano added, saying the ethics committee was not fully constituted because the administration-dominated majority bloc has yet to nominate its representatives in the disciplinary panel.

But she said the ethics committee, once it starts hearings on the Santiago resolution, will grant Trillanes his constitutional right to defend himself in the Senate proceeding. “If there is a committee hearing, it is his fundamental right to give his side on the issue,” Cayetano said, adding “it would be unfair for the proceeding to push through without hearing Trillanes’ side.”

“Senator Trillanes will have to be given his day in court,” Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. told reporters, saying the ethics committee would need to first call Trillanes to the ethics committee hearing to explain his side before the committee could make its recommendations to the plenary.

Pimentel indicated, however, that his fellow senators in the minority bloc would stop any move to expel Trillanes from the Senate. “What Senator Trillanes did [at the November 29 Peninsula hotel standoff] was merely a continuation of their July 2003 Oakwood mutiny,” he said, adding that it could be considered as “a continuing offense that should be left to the Makati court handling that case to decide. There is no need to file a separate case.”

Pimentel pointed out that the offenses committed by Trillanes properly fall more under the jurisdiction of the judiciary, not the Senate. He added that Trillanes has already been slapped with new charges of rebellion by justice and law-enforcement authorities, and it would be up to the courts to act upon them. 

MAKATI Mayor and United Opposition (Uno) president Jejomar Binay said Tuesday the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) should instead investigate Armed Forces chief Gen. Hermogenes Esperon, after the latter admitted receiving advance intelligence reports about the walkout at the Makati court and the takeover of Manila Peninsula by the group led by Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV and Brig. Gen. Danilo Lim.

ZAMBOANGA CITY—Troops from the military’s Western Mindanao Command (Wesmincom) joined in the manhunt for the recapture of fugitive Marine Capt. Nicanor Faeldon, who slipped from a police cordon at the height of the siege of Manila Peninsula Hotel in Makati City, the country’s business capital.

DETAINED Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV may finally get his wish to attend a Senate hearing, thanks to fellow Sen. Miriam Santiago who introduced a resolution asking the ethics committee to “punish” the failed Oakwood mutiny leader for instigating another attempted uprising at the Peninsula Manila Hotel in Makati last Thursday.

THE Commission on Elections (Comelec) still has over two years before the next electoral exercise, but it should now start cleansing the padded voters’ list of at least two million double registrations, according to Sen. Loren Legarda.

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY—The League of Cities in the Philippines (LCP) has asked the Supreme Court (SC) to look into the legality of the formation of 16 new cities throughout the country.

IT’S a double whammy for lawyer Roel Pulido.

Less than two weeks after the House justice committee laid to rest Pulido’s impeachment complaint against President Arroyo, the House ethics committee junked his other complaint against Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. in connection with his alleged role in the approval of a franchise of a broadband company owned by his son, Jose III.

THE banks may go beyond the permissible limit—50 percent with government debt papers—that a portion of their capital may be backed by peso-denominated IOUs of government. There is, however, a condition.

The United States will forever be an ally of the Philippines and it would never support any move to change the government through any other means other than what was prescribed in the Constitution, US Ambassador Kristie Kenney said on Tuesday.