Faeldon wants ethics suit vs. Lacson moved to Committee of the Whole

Former Customs Commissioner Nicanor Faeldon on Monday sought  the transfer of his ethics complaint against Senator Panfilo Lacson from the Senate Commitee on Ethics to the Senate Committee of the Whole.

The ethics panel decided not to hold any hearing on Faeldon's complaint against Lacson after the former military officer refused to testify before the Senate blue ribbon committee's investigation into the P6.4-billion shabu shipment that slipped past customs in May.

In a 12-page omnibus motion, Attorney Jose Diño, legal counsel of Faeldon stated that, "The legal wrangling ultimately found its way to the Honorable Supreme Court, which held that since there was a charge that the Senate Ethics Committee could not act with fairness, then the transfer of an ethics complaint from the Senate Ethics Committee to the Senate Committee of the Whole was an extraordinary remedy that was not illegal."

"Herein Complainant firmly believes, that the same extraordinary remedy is not only most appropriate but in fact necessary under the circumstances, to prevent an impending miscarriage of justice to him," read Faeldon's 12-page omnibus motion filed by his lawyer Attorney Jose Diño.

The motion said the "holding in abeyance" of the instant complaint had no legal basis and moreover contrary to the express provisions of the Rules of the Committee on Ethics and Privileges.

Faeldon's camp cited the Section 17 of Rule 2 of the Rules, saying that "after the Committee receives a sworn or verified complaint against any member of the Senate, it shall give notice to the respondent that it will determine within five days from receipt of the complaint whether the complaint has complied both in form and in substance."

"With all due respect, not only did this Committee disregard such mandatory duty imposed on it by its own Rules, the action it took, 'holding in abeyance' in order to coerce the Complainant to appear at the Senate blue ribbon committee's investigation in aid of the respondent's self-confessed obsession, is not provided for in any rule or in any section of the Committee's rule," the motion said.

"The obvious salutary purpose of this Committee's Rules is to afford any complainant a fair and impartial venue for the redress of grievance against any member of the Senate," it added.

The motion mentioned Senator Vicente Sotto III who "vowed to be impartial with the instant complaint," but later "sang an entirely different tune."

"Sad to say and with all due respect, he almost sounded like a legal counsel for the respondent, the legal arguments of whom he merely parroted, ending-up with a conclusion," the motion said.

"In his over-eagerness to 'kill the instant comnplaint at the first instance, Chairman Sotto, with all due respect, invoked for the respondnet an affirmative defense which the latter has yet to invoke, for now could he, when he has not even filed his Answer to the Complaint?" it added. —NB, GMA News