Gordon stays as Blue Ribbon chairman — Pimentel
Unfazed by the threats of Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV to work for his removal, Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III yesterday said he would allow Sen. Richard Gordon to stay on as chairman of the Blue Ribbon committee.
Trillanes has been demanding for Gordon to be replaced as chairman of the powerful Senate committee because of how he has supposedly been covering up the abuses allegedly committed by President Duterte and his family and allies.
Last Thursday, Trillanes upped the ante by threatening to work for the replacement of Pimentel as Senate president if he does nothing to heed his call.
Pimentel dared Trillanes to go ahead and convince 12 other senators to replace him, but Gordon will remain as chairman of the Blue Ribbon committee.
“Just do it and if he can convince 12 other senators, with him as the 13th, then they can organize the Senate as they please,” Pimentel said in an interview over dwIZ.
Pimentel explained Gordon never asked to be chairman of the Blue Ribbon committee when the Senate committees were organized last year.
He said the committee was given to him based on the preference to have a lawyer head this and he was the one available from the Senate majority to take on the job.
Trillanes has been complaining about the way Gordon conducts hearings of the Blue Ribbon committee, which he has described as a komite de abswelto or the committee that absolves.
According to Pimentel, Gordon has in fact responded to the feedback coming from Trillanes, particularly on how he has been dominating the discussions during the hearings.
“We have seen that he (Gordon) has adjusted. He now gives five to 10 minutes to each senator for their questions. Now it can’t be said that the senators are not being given the opportunity to develop their theories,” Pimentel said.
Pimentel did not hide his displeasure over Trillanes, who he said has resorted to telling lies and wasting the time of the Blue Ribbon committee during its hearings.
He recalled how Trillanes quoted him as saying that he was happy that the family of President Duterte was protected by Gordon, which he said was a barefaced lie.
When Davao City Vice Mayor Paolo Duterte and his brother-inlaw Manases Carpio appeared before the Blue Ribbon committee hearing on the smuggling of illegal drugs into the country and corruption at the Bureau of Customs, Pimentel said he advised all the senators present to focus all of their questions to the two and never asked any of them to hold back.
What happened, Pimentel recalled, was it was only Trillanes who asked questions and it was focused on the President’s son’s tattoo.
“So who was at fault there, chairman Gordon or the one who pushed for the two to be brought there and then just asked about the tattoo? So what if he has a tattoo?” Pimentel remarked.
Pimentel advised Trillanes to stop focusing purely on politics and just get down to work.
The blog
Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III claimed he has uncovered the people behind the effort to destroy the reputations of his colleagues from the majority bloc.
Sotto said he will expose the people behind the blog during the inquiry into the proliferation of fake news on Wednesday.
Sotto declined to identify the personalities involved this early out of fear that they might skip the hearing of the Senate committee on public information and mass media headed by Sen. Grace Poe on Wednesday.
Sotto, however, said the information he received was “solid” as it came from various sources, including the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI).
Last Wednesday, Sotto delivered a privilege speech condemning the attacks against him and six other members of the majority bloc through a blog “silentnomoreph.”
The unnamed writer of the blog entry denounced Sotto, Pimentel, Gordon and Sens. Manny Pacquiao, Cynthia Villar, Gregorio Honasan and Juan Miguel Zubiri for not signing Senate Resolution 516, which called for an end to extrajudicial killings, particularly of children, and for the conduct of a thorough investigation of these killings.
Prepared by Sens. Francis Pangilinan, Paolo Benigno Aquino IV and other members of the minority bloc, the resolution was signed by 16 senators in all.
Sotto and the six other senators all claimed that they were never asked to sign the resolution, contrary to the perception that they refused to sign it.
In his privilege speech, Sotto vowed to expose the person or persons behind the blog and to file cyber libel cases against them.
Acting on the request of Sotto, Pimentel directed the Senate secretariat to coordinate with the NBI cybercrime division in identifying the people behind the blog.
In his text messages yesterday, Sotto said the personalities identified by his sources include private individuals who were connected to the previous administration and an incumbent public official.
Sotto said he intends to confront these people on Wednesday if they will show up for the hearing.
Pimentel aired his suspicion that the attack against him and his colleagues from the majority bloc was orchestrated.
Pimentel said it was hard for him to believe that what took place was a random act, considering the personalities involved.