Dalipe: With PI frozen, what’s there to probe?

Go said taxpayer money should be used to benefit the people, and government assistance should not be conditioned on the signing of a PI petition.

House Majority Leader Manuel Jose Dalipe appealed to the Senate on Friday to terminate its probe into alleged payoffs linked to the People’s Initiative, or PI.

Dalipe said there was nothing more to investigate after the Commission on Elections stopped last Monday all proceedings related to the PI, which was marred by alleged signature-buying.

“This (Comelec’s decision) means that the PI is in the freezer for now. So, what is there to investigate unless the purpose is to target some personalities (or) embarrass them? The Senate inquiry is just a waste of taxpayer money that could otherwise be used for productive purposes,” Dalipe said.

‘Not a legit exercise’

Also on Friday, during a Senate Committee on Electoral Reforms and People’s Participation public hearing in Davao City, Senator Christopher “Bong” Go said that if the signatures were collected using taxpayer money or government aid, then the people’s initiative cannot be considered a legitimate exercise.

Former President Rodrigo Duterte was among the scheduled witnesses at the hearing.

In his opening speech, Go said taxpayer money should be used to benefit the people, and government assistance should not be conditioned on signing the PI petition.

“Don’t take advantage of the vulnerabilities of the poor to fool them into giving up their signatures in a PI that they have little understanding of,” Go said in Filipino.

Not even her cousin

Earlier this week, Senator Imee Marcos, chair of the investigating Senate panel, pointed directly to Speaker Martin Romualdez as the one behind the campaign to gather signatures for a PI.

On Thursday, she said that she could not allow anyone, even her cousin Romualdez, to sabotage the Marcos family’s redemption following the 2022 poll victory of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

Romualdez has repeatedly denied being behind the signature drive or the alleged release of as much as P20 million per legislative district for the PI.

Duterte has slammed the effort to amend the Constitution, saying that it would only perpetuate President Marcos and other sitting officials in power.

Charter change proponents in the House, however, insisted that the only objective of a cha-cha is to relax the restrictive economic provisions in the Constitution that limit the entry of foreign capital and investments into the country.