Some sense a looming crisis, not without reason. The House of Representatives, peeved by Ronnie Dayan’s allegation (his daughter’s, better) that Lady Leila had advised him to keep away from the House hearings and to snub its summons, has issued the senator a show-cause order, one step closer towards slapping her with a contempt citation. Predictably, the Senate has rushed to the side of a beleaguered colleague. The Upper, it seems, will not yield to the Lower.
There is talk of interdepartmental courtesy. But this kind of courtesy is no more demandable than a switch to “dim” when one meets another vehicle on the road at night with one’s headlights on. What is clear is that legislators are immune from arrest while Congress is in session, for crimes punishable by not more than six years. Definitely, contempt—which is not even to be found in our book of crimes but is often referred to as “the only crime found in the Rules of Court” — does not reach that threshold. Then, there is the prerogative vested in each Chamber to deal with the disorderly conduct of its own members. But that only begs the question: Does snubbing the summons of another Chamber, or suborning the defiance of another, constitute “disorderly” conduct?
Leila was right in fearing that she and Dayan would be made sport of at a Lower House hearing. The conduct of the proceedings and the prevalence of impertinence only proved that she was right in predicting that she and Dayan would come out all the worse because of attending the hearing—and there are not a few who believe that she was right in avoiding embarrassment of this sort. After all, “self-preservation” comes in grades and shades.
On the other hand, there is the conceptual problem of abetting if not encouraging defiance of a lawful order of the House of Representatives. There may be constitutional issues about summoning De Lima herself, but certainly none in respect to Dayan. Then again, there are limits—not observed—to what a House hearing may demand of its “resource persons.” Some legislators believe that once summoned, a witness is fair game and he can be compelled, on pain of contempt, to answer every bit of irrelevance asked of him. In one instructive case, the US Supreme Court upheld the right of a witness testifying before the US Congress to refuse to answer a question that lacked any demonstrable connection to the planned legislation. In Watkins v. United States (1957), the US Supreme Court so wisely taught that congressional inquiry “must be related to and in furtherance of a legitimate task of the Congress.” And as regards the right of a witness not to answer an impertinent question, the Court ruled: “Protected freedoms should not be placed in danger in the absence of a clear determination by the House or the Senate that a particular inquiry is justified by a specific legislative need.” That, to me, is very good constitutional law!
I maintain the position I had earlier advocated. If the House of Representatives is convinced that Leila’s actions have not only been naughty but contemptuous, then it should file a complaint against her with the Ethics Committee of the Senate, and while the Senate is at liberty to arrive at its own findings, I should think that any grave abuse of discretion on its part in this respect will be subject to the broad certiorari powers of the Supreme Court.
There is a very important, interesting if vexing dynamic at work here. One sees how institutions determine individual’s actions. Congressmen and women are irked not necessarily because they do not like Leila but because of the “dignity” of the Lower House that they believe it their duty to protect. Leila for her part has so much that is personal to protect, and she takes refuge in the institutions of Congress as well as in the conventions of the workings of the Legislature— and she has by her side her colleagues in the Senate who may not necessarily be convinced that she has done no wrong, but who are not willing to sacrifice the prerogatives of their Chamber either. It is a question of whether it is the individual who colonizes the institution or the latter that lays down the path the individual can tread—or whether even it is correct to make a disjunction of both!
rannie_aquino@csu.edu.ph
rannie_aquino@sanbeda.edu.ph
rannie_aquino@outlook.com