Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, who has been in hiding since the emergence of a rumor that a warrant for his arrest for crimes against humanity had already been issued against him by the International Criminal Court, faces the possibility of being suspended and his salaries withheld if a proposal in the Senate to revise its rules is approved.
Senate President Pro Tempore Panfilo Lacson said in a recent interview that the leadership met with former senator Antonio Trillanes IV on the latter’s plan to file an ethics complaint against the missing senator for being in hiding instead of working.
In that case, the ethics committee led by Sen. JV Ejercito can tackle the complaint once filed, now that it has constituted its members with the resumption of session on Monday after a long break.
The Senate rules are currently silent on the punishment for absent senators, but amendments can be made to include suspension or “no work, no pay” arrangement,” Lacson said.
However, amending the rules can only happen after the ethics committee releases its report on the complaint, he said.
Lacson acknowledged that he has no moral ascendancy to seek sanctions for the continued absence of Dela Rosa, having turned fugitive himself from 2010 to 2011 when he hid to escape prosecution for what he called the trumped up charges in the Dacer-Corbito murder case. He eventually came out of hiding and cleared his name.
Trillanes expects to file the ethics complaint against Dela Rosa in March.
There was probably a time when it was generally assumed that the country’s voters would elect Senators that are people with courage, integrity, competence, and a host of other positive traits worthy of its august halls. Since that era is clearly over, it is high time that the Senate trash that lofty assumption and come up with rules when it comes to absenteeism and other forms of undesirable behavior among its supposedly honorable members. Otherwise, the Philippine Senate might as well be a circus or a zoo, where there are no rules for the clowns and the monkeys.*
