President Rodrigo Duterte’s projected calling of the Congress to a special session to tackle and approve the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) is grossly premature.
The BBL bill must be first cleansed of constitutional infirmities, foremost of which is the legislative abolition of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) whose establishment is mandated by the 1987 Constitution.
The suggestion of Majority Leader Rodolfo Fariñas, with the acquiescence of Chairman Reynaldo Umali and majority members of the Committee on Justice, which barred me from attending its so-called “executive session” this morning is patently baseless for the following reasons:
Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, as respondent in the pending impeachment proceedings before the House of Representatives, has the following inherent and constitutional rights:
To appear through counsel and have her lawyers cross-examine on her behalf the complainant and adverse witnesses (This was unwarrantedly denied by the Committee on Justice); and
Not to personally appear at all. It is for the complainant Gadon to prove the allegations in his complaint, and not for the respondent Chief Justice to disprove the same considering that Gadon has not even proved anything and his chargers are utterly unfounded and based on hearsay.
The appointment of presidential spokesman Harry Roque as the President’s adviser on human rights is to apparently deodorize the Duterte administration’s unabated violation of human rights and the President’s repeated verbal assaults against critics of his dismal human rights record.
The die is cast in the crude mold designed by the leaders of the House of Representatives in the impeachment proceeding against Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno.
The supermajority has defied and defiled the Constitution and the Rules of the House in denying the Chief Justice the right to have her counsel confront and cross-examine the adverse witnesses even as it has jettisoned the erstwhile unbroken tradition that House Members who are not members of committees have the right to participate in the deliberations of such committees, including the Committee on Justice conducting impeachment proceedings with “right of voice, and not of vote”.
