Solving a problem like Sen. Trillanes

If censure is not enough, what penalty is Gordon eyeing for Sen. Trillanes?

Sen. Richard Gordon filed at 7:44 p.m. on Monday his complaint against Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV before the Senate ethics committee. Gordon’s 23-page complaint hammered on Trillanes’s “unparliamentary acts,” “unparliamentary language” and “disorderly behavior” during the Aug. 31 hearing on the P6.4 billion drug shipment that slipped through the Bureau of Customs.

It must have really pained Gordon when Trillanes tagged his blue ribbon committee as “comite de abswelto.”

Trillanes has become the lone wolf of sorts in the Senate while the feisty Sen. Leila de Lima is behind bars on drug trafficking charges.

He had a heated exchange with Gordon on Aug. 31 and accused Senate Majority Leader Tito Sotto III of lawyering for presidential son Davao City Vice Mayor Paolo Duterte and his brother-in-law Mans Carpio.

Gordon said, “The continuing, schematic and incorrigible abrasive conduct of Senator Trillanes should be dealt with accordingly, maybe a censure is not enough.”

If censure is not enough, what penalty is Gordon eyeing for Sen. Trillanes?

Article VI, Section 16 (3), 1987 Constitution, says, “Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two-thirds of all its Members, suspend or expel a Member. A penalty of suspension, when imposed, shall not exceed sixty days.”

If not censure, the senators now have a choice between suspension and expulsion.

Gordon said he had the support of more than 14 senators in his ethics complaint against Trillanes. If the basis for the two-thirds majority is 24, Gordon needs 16 senators to punish Trillanes.

But Trillanes said it was premature for Gordon to say he had the support of the majority of senators.

“I understand the political game but it’s a long process. There will be a hearing. Eventually it will be presented to the plenary and it will be voted on. So it’s premature for him to say who is supporting him,” he said.