SENATOR Leila de Lima will be spared a Senate complaint for unethical behavior despite her walkout Monday night during the justice committee’s hearing on summary killings, committee chairman Richard Gordon said Wednesday.
“Senator De Lima has been under severe stress. I have never wanted to add to her stress,” Gordon said.
“I consider her a friend. We’re not enemies. If she wants to talk to me about it, she can talk to me very civilly, in a very cool and collective manner.”
Gordon made the statement even as Senator Juan Edgardo Angara said the justice committee should not be reduced to a game of “my witness is better than your witness.”
He said the committee’s hearings had revealed many important points–particularly the state of law enforcement agencies.
“We learned about the delays in the issuances of search warrants,” Angara said.
“Director General [Ronald] Dela Rosa said that the time a judge issues a search warrant greatly varies–ranging from three days to several months,” he said. He said the delays in the issuance of search warrants were hampering not only the police’s anti-drug initiatives but their operations in general.
Gordon said he will reach out to De Lima.
“I will talk to her, I will even go see her.”
He said his wife, former Mayor Kate Gordon, had called him and said De Lima was “very emotional.”
“Kate and I talk about her every night. We pity her because we went through the same ordeal, remember? We went through it,” Gordon said.
He said he will talk to the members of his committee because an ethics complaint is serious.
“That’s serious but you really have to watch out,” Gordon said.
“As a senator, she must remember that she must be of mild temperament and that she must be composed.”
On Tuesday, Gordon said De Lima could be censured, suspended or kicked out of the Senate once the majority of the members of the committee voted on matter, but he was not inclined to initiate a complaint.
De Lima said she walked out of the hearing because she did not want to be crucified as the senators were deliberately ganging up on her. This was after Gordon accused her of not revealing that her witness Edgar Matobato had been charged with kidnapping for ransom.
