Press Release
October 30, 2008

MIRIAM UPHOLDS SENATE PRESIDENT'S POWER
TO ORDER DELA PAZ ARREST

Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago today underscored the power of Senate President Manny Villar under the Senate Rules to order the arrest of former PNP comptroller Eliseo dela Paz.

In a legal memorandum she gave Villar today, Santiago said that under the Senate Rules, the Senate President "has not only the power but the duty to issue warrants, orders of arrest, subpoena and subpoena duces tecum."

Santiago said that this duty of the Senate President stands independently and takes precedence over Sections 17 and 18 of the Rules governing the procedure on inquiries in aid of legislation.

Section 18 of the Senate Rules of Procedure Governing Inquiries in Aid of Legislation provides:

"The Committee, by a vote of a majority of all its members, may punish for contempt any witness before it who disobeys any order of the Committee or refuses to be sworn or to testify or to answer a proper question by the Committee or any of its members, or testifying, testifies falsely or evasively."

In enforcing its authority, the Committee has the power under Section 17 of the Rules "to issue subpoena duces tecum, signed by its Chairman, or in his absence by the Acting Chairman, and approved by the President."

"There arises a serious problem where the majority of the Committee members, for one reason or another, fail to vote as provided in Section 18," the senator said. "In which case, a Committee of the Senate - or worse, a few of its members whose act has prevented a majority vote - may defeat the exercise of authority of the entire Senate in dealing with contempt, resulting in the paralysis of the whole by a sin of omission of a few."

"Sections 17 and 18 of the Rules even preclude no less than the Senate President to effectuate his approval to the issuance of a subpoena and subpoena duces tecum without the majority vote of the Committee members," Santiago explained. "The Senate President will be unable to assert the authority of the entire Senate. The paralysis becomes a fatal sclerosis."

Santiago said that in order to avoid this paralysis, the power of the Senate President to issue orders of arrest must be upheld.

News Latest News Feed