Not in search of truth

Batas Mauricio .

IT was, by and large, a fruitful experience for my wife and I. I am referring, of course, to our appearance as the lawyers of Ben “Bitag” Tulfo, during the hearing on Aug. 14 of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee where it was supposed to have conducted an “inquiry in aid of legislation” on the P60 million advertising contract between the Department of Tourism (DOT) under then Secretary Wanda Tulfo Teo, and PTV 4.

I learned many things. Foremost among these is the truth that in the investigation carried out by the Blue Ribbon Committee on the Tulfo-DOT controversy, Committee Chairman Sen. Richard Gordon, Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, and Sen. Riza Hontiveros were actually not concerned with searching for the truth.

The hearing that my wife, former Judge Angelina Domingo Mauricio, and I attended as the legal counsel of Ben Tulfo was in reality a hearing in which Gordon, Trillanes IV, and Hontiveros, merely engaged themselves in a fishing expedition, to come up with facts to support their prior perceptions that Secretary Tulfo and Ben Tulfo were indeed guilty of graft and corruption in the P60-million deal.

If the truth be told, a deeper look into the previous behavior and conduct of the three lawmakers here–Gordon, Trillanes, and Hontiveros–in past investigations of the Blue Ribbon Committee would show the same pattern of prejudgment even before formal inquiries are made. Their proceedings were not really “fact finding” to ferret out what really happened, but “finding facts to support their preconceived ideas or their prejudgment.”

With due respect to Gordon, Trillanes and Hontiveros, what they have been doing is a clear desecration and indubitable violation of the mandate given to them under their Rules of Procedure in Aid of Legislation. Firstly, no senator has the right to pass judgment upon their resource persons and delare them guilty or not guilty of any crime.

That is not part of their mandate, according to Section 1, Resolution No. 5 of the Senate, which is otherwise known as the Rules of Procedure Governing Inquiries in Aid of Legislation. The mandate of the Senate in inquiries in aid of legislation is to know the facts to enable them to pass new laws, or revised old ones. Senators have no power to act as judges, unless they are sitting in an impeachment court.

Under Section 12 of Resolution No. 5, it is also clear that resource persons appearing in any Senate inquiry, like Ben Tulfo and Wanda Tulfo on Aug. 14, 2018, would simply be asked on “matters of fact.” They shouldn’t be asked whether they are guilty or not guilty, just like what happened to Ben and Wanda.

Too, no senator has the right to side with, or take the cudgels for, anyone in their investigations. Yet, I was amazed and disappointed to hear Gordon saying, in public yet, that he actually talked to the executives of PTV 4 one day before the hearing on Aug. 14, 2018, asking them to turn state witnesses against the Tulfos. Gordon even assured, and this was according to himself in that hearing, protection to those executives who will turn against the Tulfos.

This is truly stupendous, is it not? Then, as Patricia Laurel commented in a Facebook post while the hearing was being held, Trillanes was throwing questions, left and right, to the Tulfos, seeking to elicit an admission of guilt from them, yet forbidding them to answer him! Now I wouldn’t be surprised anymore if I hear comments that the Senate “is one rotten agency of government.”

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She may not have confessed that she was the one who masterminded the killing of her own son on account of their land dispute but, the Philippine National Police at Dapitan, Zamboanga del Norte arrested 94-year old Flaviana Sagapsapan just the same, to hold her liable for her kin’s gruesome murder. Police claimed that Flaviana paid two-gun-for hire killers to carry out her son’s killing.

Horrific? Oh yes, of course, but, if the truth be told, this phenomenon of family members fatally feuding with one another — father against son, mother against daughter — was prophesied to happen much earlier by the Lord Jesus, our God and Savior who is God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Jesus said in Luke 12:51: “Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided…” Earthshaking? Yes, it is, but what Jesus was actually referring to as the division within families pertains to the dispute between those who believe and have faith in Him as against those who no longer believe in God and who no longer listen to, nor obey, His Word.

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We are suspending, in the meantime, our discussions in this column on the proposed Federal Constitution. The reason is that, the criticisms against Federalism that have been coming from ranking members of the Cabinet of the Duterte government no less were so mercilessly shattering that many, including the group that prepared the draft Constitution, are now thinking that the President is no longer interested in its passage.

The perception is that, if President Duterte is still interested on changing our country’s form of government from purely presidential to federal, no contrary declarations should ever come, or be allowed, from his finance secretary, Sonny Dominguez, and from his economic affairs secretary, Ernesto Pernia. Unfortunately (and yes, inexplicably), Dominguez had even claimed that the economy would crash if the proposed federal system pushes through.

At this point, I share the anxiety of those who are clamoring for the President to unequivocably declare his position — is federalism still okay with him, or he has had a change of heart?

Indeed, our country already spent quite a huge sum for the committee that the President himself created for the purpose of drafting a new charter. This amount faces the prospect of simply being wasted, largely because of the President’s men trashing the proposed charter just like that!

E-mail: batasmauricio@yahoo.com