AFTER being deprived of their liberty for almost two months, six officials of the Ilocos Norte provincial government were finally freed by the same lawmakers who had arbitrarily had them detained, purportedly for refusing to cooperate in a congressional hearing on alleged anomalies in the use of tobacco excise tax funds.
Ilocos Rep. Rodolfo Fariñas who had ordered them detained for contempt on May 29, moved for their release, saying they had “regained their memory” by speaking the truth during a hearing of the House committee on good government and public accountability.
Ordered released were Ilocos Norte financial officers Pedro Agcaoili, Evangeline Tabulog, Josephine Calajate, Eden Battulayan, Genedine Jambaro, and Encarnacion Gaor, now more commonly known as the “Ilocos Six.”
The six officials were ordered detained at the Batasang Pambansa, even after the Court of Appeals issued a writ of habeas corpus and ordered their release.
House leaders refused to comply, however, and felt it appropriate not only to disobey the court, but threaten the justices with detention and the court itself with dissolution.
The chairman of the committee, Rep. Johnny Pimentel, even gave journalists a tour of the detention room where they would detain the justices who had ordered the Ilocos Six freed.
Faced with the refusal of the House to obey the court order, the Ilocos Six elevated their case to the Supreme Court, asking the justices to stop the House inquiry and to order their release. The case was still pending when the release order came from the House, and the Court may now view the petition as being moot, since the petitioners have all been released.
Still, it would have been instructive had the Court weighed in on what was clearly a case of one branch of government, the legislature, flexing its muscles at the expense of another, the judiciary.
Were House officials constitutionally and legally correct in asserting that the Court of Appeals had no jurisdiction over them, or did they err when they arrogantly threatened to detain the justices who ordered the release of the Ilocos Six? A clear decision from the Court would have cleared away any ambiguity and served as a precedent for future cases in which Congress chooses to exercise its power to detain uncooperative witnesses.
Beyond the constitutional question, it is apparent that the Ilocos Six were mere pawns caught up in a political contest between Fariñas and Ilocos Norte Gov. Imee Marcos. It is a pity that a local dispute was allowed to play out in Congress, which ought to have more important matters to tackle.
Fariñas, early reports say, apologized to the Ilocos Six, explaining that the House panel needed to detain them to preserve the integrity of the lower chamber. From the recent actions of House leaders, however, it seems that the threat to the chamber’s integrity comes from within.