Senate stands behind detention order of Arroyo bookkeeper
By Jonathan de Santos
August 24, 2011
SENATORS who ordered the detention of Rowena del Rosario, a former bookkeeper for Arroyo-owned LTA Inc., for contempt are confident that the court will uphold the chamber’s power to do so.
Del Rosario’s lawyer, Nunilo Marapao, will reportedly petition the court for a writ of habeas corpus, a legal action to release people from illegal detention.
He said del Rosario’s detention over what senators saw as inconsistencies in her testimony Monday was unfair.
He said his client only answered questions “based on what she knew to be the truth.”
Senator Panfilo Lacson, who moved to have Del Rosario cited for contempt Monday, said the Senate will answer her petition. He said if the court grants the petition, they will have to let her go.
“But there are several legal precedents, there is jurisprudence. The Senate and the House have the power to cite and detain witnesses who answer evasively,” he said.
Lacson said del Rosario will “definitely” be held at the Senate until Thursday, when the Senate blue ribbon will hold another hearing on second-hand helicopters sold to the police at brand-new prices in 2009.
He said senators will hold a caucus after the hearing to decide if they will send the former Arroyo bookkeeper home.
“Of course, I anticipate that Rowena will ask to go to St. Luke’s or to the Asian Hospital, so we will have to release her,” he said, referring to witnesses who have missed Senate hearings for medical reasons.
Del Rosario’s former employer, Negros Occidental Representative Ignacio Arroyo, missed the hearing Monday because he had to consult doctors in London for a liver condition. His brother, Jose Miguel Arroyo, has also begged off from the hearings over a heart condition. Doctors have warned that the stress of a Senate hearing could kill him.
Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, for his part, welcomed del Rosario’s decision to petition the court for her release.
“I am not allergic to being brought to court because I want the court to decide. We can be wrong, or we can be right. In all my life as a lawyer, I never say that I know everything. Habeas corpus is always an available remedy,” he said.
“It is very obvious that there was contradiction between what she said in one part and what she said in another part (of her testimony),” Enrile added.
Senator Franklin Drilon, also a lawyer, said the Senate is “confident that our position can be defended.”
Senator Antonio Trillanes IV told reporters earlier Tuesday that del Rosario can petition the court but “whether the court will reverse the Senate order is a different matter.”
“I really doubt that the Supreme Court will intervene in the affairs of the Senate,” he said.
Trillanes and 11 other senators cited del Rosario for contempt Monday afternoon after she failed to satisfy them with her answers at a hearing on an anomalous purchase of second-hand helicopters believed owned by the former President’s husband.
Del Rosario used to handle the accounts for LTA Inc, which Arroyo now heads. Del Rosario told senators that she answered to Negros Occidental Representative Ignacio Arroyo when she worked at the company from 2001 to 2010. Representative Arroyo was president of LTA Inc. at the time.
Trillanes said the accountant was being punished for “outright lying” while under oath. The Senate blue ribbon committee found inconsistencies in her testimony, which she gave to support the Arroyos’ statements that they only leased but did not own the helicopters.
“My advice to her is to just tell the truth,” Trillanes said.
Public Attorney’s Office chief Persida Rueda-Acosta, who was at the Senate Tuesday for a hearing, said the detention order was within the Senate’s powers. She said the Senate has certain powers and that everybody is enjoined to respect them.
“The Senate would look silly if it cannot enforce those powers,” she said. (Sunnex)
Source: http://www.sunstar.com.ph/manila/local-news/2011/08/23/senate-stands-behind-detention-order-arroyo-bookkeeper-174874
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