Gordon slams Trillanes

Television viewers last week had a glimpse of Senators Richard Gordon and Antonio F. Trillanes IV almost coming to blows at the Senate plenary hall had not Senator Vicente C. Sotto III intervened and let them calm down. The aborted boxing bout was the day’s climax of a raging verbal back and forth that has led to the filing by Gordon last Monday of an ethics complaint against Trillanes, a former Navy officer implicated in two failed coup d’etat attempts.

The verbal tussle began when Gordon, chairman of the Blue Ribbon committee, rejected Trillanes’ suggestion to invite President Duterte’s eldest son Paolo, vice mayor of Davao City, and son-in-law Maneses Carpio, lawyer-husband of President Duterte’s daughter Sara who is the mayor of Davao City, to the committee’s hearing to give their side on their “rumored involvement” in the P6.4 billion worth of shabu shipment from China. The shipment arrived in Manila on May 17, 2017, passed uninspected through the Bureau of Customs’ “green lane” and transported to a private warehouse in Valenzuela City on May 24.

Gordon rejected the suggestion, on the ground that the involvement of Paolo Duterte and Maneses Carpio were all “hearsay.” This drew the ire of Trillanes, who said that Gordon was turning the hearing into a “oneman show” and the committee into a “comite de absuelto” (an absolution committee).

Last Monday Senator Gordon filed an ethics complaint against Senator Trillanes over his repeated display of unparliamentary conduct and disorderly behavior, the latest of which was exhibited during last Thursday’s hearing on the smuggled shabu shipment.

Gordon’s complaint is set for hearing by the committee on ethics and privileges chaired by Senator Sotto on Monday. The committee’s recommendation will be acted on by two-thirds of the Senate and the House of Representatives, who are authorized by the Constitution not only to punish members or suspend or expel a member, but also to protect the institutional integrity of the Senate, its proceedings, and its reputation.

In his complaint, Senator Gordon said Trillanes engaged in “unparliamentary acts and uttered unparliamentary language and exhibited disorderly behavior” in violation of the law and rules of the Senate relating to ethics, conduct, and/or demeanor during the Aug. 31 hearing of the Blue Ribbon committee.

Calling the Blue Ribbon committee as a “comite de absuelto” constitutes a violation of the law, amounting to oral defamation or slander; the statement violates the rules of the Senate, which considers acts and language which offend a senator or any public institution as unparliamentary, and makes “a mockery of the work put in by the members of the committee to investigate the shipment of 604 kilograms of shabu from China into the country.

Trillanes’ calling Senator Sotto and Gordon as “abogado” for Paolo Duterte and Manases Carpio violates article 358 of the Revised Penal Code which penalizes slander or oral defamation. “Alleging that a senator, one of high repute and office, is lawyering for certain personalities in the course of a committee hearing tends to prejudice the former’s reputation.”

Although Gordon said he will invite Carpio and Duterte in the next hearing scheduled today, Trillanes insinuated that Gordon and Sotto were treating the two as “sacred cows.” Said Gordon: “Accusing fellow senators of bias and partiality in the treatment of resource persons is a defamatory imputation to the discredit of the leadership and members of the committee and the Senate.”

Trillanes further stoked the defamatory fire by threatening to expose irregularities involving the Philippine Red Cross of which Gordon has effectively headed as chairman and CEO. In previous instances, he called his fellow senators “Tuta (ng) administration,” “Mga senador na takot,” “Mga Bahag ang Buntot,” and branded the Senate as one of the most damaged institutions in the government.

“The continuing, schematic and incorrigible abrasive conduct of Sen. Trillanes should be dealt with accordingly, maybe censure is not even enough. He is devoid of proper bearing and demeanor and continuously exhibits unbridled immaturity.”

“It has become a litany of transgressions of people and of calling them names. He has used the Senate as a forum, used his agenda against his enemies and to satisfy his megalomaniac desire for his own self… Truly, it is now opportune to arrest this despicable pattern of behavior which is trifling to this institution,” the senator added in the 23-page letter complaint.

“Mutual respect is paramount if we are to function well. We can disagree, but we cannot afford to be disagreeable and, worse, show the public that the disagreement is based on puffery and pique. Rather, it must always be based on important matters,” Gordon said.

“This complaint… is, therefore, of primordial importance. It is neither frivolous nor is it being filed out of spite. Rather, this is about maintaining the dignity of the Senate, because all Senators owe the people a public institution that, among others, deserves their respect. The Senate is an assembly of elected officials who meet to discuss policies, investigate in aid of legislation, and make the laws of the State. It is not a forum for chaos and jiggery-pokery,” Gordon said.

As of this writing, Senator Trillanes has made the announcement that he will file his counter-complaints against Senator Gordon.

No admirer of his, I can feel his arrogant posture in his language and behavior.

* * * When Bishop Jessie Susmirano Suarez was senior chaplain of the National Council of Churches in the Philippines Ecumenical Ministry-Church of the Risen Lord at the UP Diliman campus in Quezon City, I looked forward to listening to his sermons which provided me – and I guess the other worshippers – substantial food for my continuing life’s journey. In fact I used a couple of his sermons as subjects of my column.

Now that our paths have gone on other directions, it’s good to know that I can still listen to his new sermons which have been compiled into a book titled In God’s Liberating Hands.” The book will be launched at 3 p.m. this afternoon at the United Church of Christ in the Philippines national office on 877 EDSA, Quezon City. Reviews will be made by Jun Yasay, Usec Agnes Joyce Bailen of DBM, and Rev. Fr. Rex Reyes, secretary general of NCCP.

The book contains 24 sermons that are simply written and easy to remember to take home as bread for one’s journey. Rep. Feliciano Sonny R. Belmonte writes of the book as “a must-read for every believing soul as it will surely walk you through a truly edifying experience with God.” Rev. Fr. Rex RB Reyes Jr. describes the author as “a living prophet. In reading his homilies, the abundant promise of our Lord Jesus Christ enters the realm of the possible.” Rep. Henry S. Oaminal of the 2nd District of Mis. Occ. writes that the sermons “rightfully attest to the mystical power and meaningful influence that comes with the inspirational words shared by the author as I was deeply moved listening to his homilies at the Church of the Risen Lord in UP, Diliman.”

Bishop Suarez is currently the administrative pastor of UCCP Church on the Hill in Bataan Hills, Quezon City. He obtained his theological degree from Union Theological Seminary in Dasmariñas, Cavite in 1987. In the same year, he was ordained to the ministry by the Southern Tagalog Conference, UCCP.