Senate urged to view ethics complaints with caution

Sen. Franklin Drilon (Photo: Cesar Tomambo/PRIB)

MANILA — Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon on Monday urged his colleagues to view complaints filed before the Senate Ethics Committee with extreme caution as the number of complaints continue to pile up.

Drilon, former Justice Secretary, made this remark the same day former Commissioner Nicanor Faeldon filed an ethics complaint against Senator Panfilo Lacson.

It may be recalled that Lacson, in a privilege speech, exposed corruption within the Bureau of Customs (BOC) and alleged that Faeldon received PHP100 million worth of “pasalubong” or payoffs. Faeldon, however, denied these allegations.

The senator said that he was concerned that the “relentless” filing of complaints has “cheapened the process.”

“I am concerned that the frenzy that characterizes the filing of ethics complaints in the Senate has severely cheapened the process and I urge the Senate to be more circumspect in treating these ethics complaints,” Drilon said in a statement.

Drilon said that if caution should be exercised when filing impeachment cases, the same caution should also be observed when filing ethics cases.

Drilon said if there have been calls not to abuse the process of filing impeachment cases, the same should be exercised when filing ethics cases.

The filing of ethics complaints, he said, should not be abused.

A number of complaints have been lodged against several senators including detained Senator Leila de Lima, Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III, Senator Antonio Trillanes IV and most recently, Senator Lacson.

Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre reportedly mulls the filing of an ethics complaint against Senator Risa Hontiveros after the latter exposed in a privilege speech Aguirre’s exchange of text messages with a former congressman allegedly about prosecuting the opposition senator. (PNA)