Senate: Hearing rules long published

THE publication of its rules on investigation will be the major argument of Senate when it files a motion for reconsideration on the Supreme Court ruling before the deadline on April 10.

The Supreme Court last week ruled that the Senate was in error when it conducted inquiries without publication of the rules governing the conduct of these inquiries.

The Senate lawyers said the publication of the rules in 1995 fully satisfies the requirement of the high court.

They argued that the Senate is a continuing body whose half of the members are elected every three years, which does away with the regular publication of its probe rules.

The Senate will likewise argue that the publication of the Senate rules in its official website "is also sufficient compliance with the Constitutional requirement."

It stressed that the Senate rules continue to exist even if the terms of the office of the senators expire.

Senate majority leader Francis Pangilinan, a lawyer by profession, said it remains a mystery why the high court zeroed in on the non-publication of the Senate rules in promulgating their decision.

"During the oral arguments, katiting lang ang nabanggit sa usapin ng aming publication of rules. Ngunit isa ito sa mga naging desisyon ng Korte Suprema," Pangilinan told the weekly Kapihan sa Senado news forum.

"Sa madaling salita, we will argue that we were denied basic due process. We were not given the opportunity to be heard in this issue of declaring void our rules because of non-publication."

Pangilinan said the Senate will also argue that it does need to have all senators present on the floor or in the committee when acting on proposed measures.

He said if the 24 senators are required to be present in every committee, other committees holding simultaneous hearings would be paralyzed.

"This committee system will not function because obviously, we have 35 committees, we only have 23 senators and to require all senators to be present during a committee hearing, wala na kaming pwedeng gawin."

Senate President Manuel Villar has maintained that the Senate rules on conducting inquiries was published initially on August 20, 1992 in the Philippine Daily Inquirer and August 21, 1992 in Philippine Star.

Citing Senate records, Villar added that amendments in the rules were published on August 24, 1995 (Philippine Star and Malaya). The rules without amendments were republished on December 1, 2006 in the Inquirer and Star, he added.

Villar added the Senate, as a continuing body, is not required to publish the rules every Congress. – Dennis Gadil

First:	Acts 5:34-42
Resp:	Psalm 27:1,4,13-14
Gospel:	John 6:1-15