STATEMENT AFTER WALKOUT
by Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago

I walked out, because of the intransigence and discourtesy shown to me by the House panel of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Commission on Appointments.

The Rules of the Commission on Appointments describes the quorum at a public hearing, thus: "The presence of the chair; or vice-chair; or at least three members shall be sufficient for conducting public hearings, and acting on motions and other incidents. (Art. 6, "Investigation of the Committees, Sec. 2).

Black's Law Dictionary 9th edition 2009, defines a quorum as: "The minimum number who must be present for a deliberative assembly to legally transact business."

Therefore, as committee chair, I am the quorum and possess the power to legally transact business. Today, the panel from the House of Representatives insisted that I should wait for the absentee members who, unknown to me, were reportedly attending a speech by Pres. Aquino.

If they were late, that was their privilege. But I humbly submit that those representatives do not have a right to cause further delay on the nominations of some 50 nominees from the DFA. The hearing was scheduled for 11:00 a.m., and yet at that very late hour, most of the House panel were still absent!

In law, there is a principle called estoppel by laches. This is the doctrine that denies relief to a person who has unreasonably delayed or been negligent in asserting a claim. The representative who raised a question of order tried to read from the Rules of the Commission on Appointments under Art. 4, entitled "Meetings of the Committee."

Obviously, a "meeting" under Art. 4 is different from a "public hearing" under Art. 6. He tried to argue that the quorum should be a majority of the members.

I have news for him. I have been chair of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the CA for some 10 years. During all that time - nearly a decade - I conducted the hearings on the basis of the provision that my presence alone as chair is a quorum.

Therefore, if he questions my judgment, he is in estoppel by laches, a legal term that means "unreasonable delay in pursuing a claim."

As a senator suffering from lung cancer stage 4, I purposely willed myself back to work, to show that cancer can be licked. In this spirit, since I am staring death in the face, I will no longer compromise, mollify, or appease those who do not obey the rules. Instead, I will speak truth to power. I will try to help run this government properly, to my last breath.