Katropa sa Kamara: 20170622 News Releases

Statement of House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez on the opinions of SC Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno and CA Presiding Justice Andres Reyes, Jr.

I appreciate the opinion expressed by Supreme Court Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno and Court of Appeals Presiding Justice Andres Reyes, Jr. over the impasse between the Special Fourth Division of the CA and the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability.

But let it be clear that the House of Representatives is simply doing its job based on jurisprudence and existing law. For the record, it is the Special Fourth Division of the Court of Appeals that violated the existing law and established jurisprudence.

True, harmony must be preserved among the co-equal branches of our government under the time-honored principle of separation of powers.

However, it has become necessary for the House committee to issue the show cause order against the justices of the CA Special Fourth Division. Such is a consequence of the court’s order that overstepped its authority and transgressed the committee’s contempt powers, which is a necessary extension of its legislative power affirmed by no less than the Supreme Court in numerous cases.

The CA order impinges on the core of the legislative power that the Constitution has vested upon the House of Representatives of which we are duty-bound to protect.

It was the action of the CA Special Fourth Division that precipitated the unfortunate situation when it committed grave abuse of discretion tantamount to ignorance of the law in issuing the controversial order. It has not only violated the constitutional power of the HOR, but has overturned jurisprudence long established by the Supreme Court since 1950. In the 2006 case of Sabio v Gordon, citing an 1821 American case, the SC in reiterating the power of Congress to hold and detain a person in contempt, stated "that there is in some cases a power in each House of Congress to punish for contempt; that this power is analogous to that exercised by the courts."

While I appreciate the view of Chief Justice Sereno and Presiding Justice Reyes, it may also be best if they can discipline the said members of the Appeals Court for grave abuse of discretion and abuse of authority. Accordingly, it also has the power to rectify the "uneasy situation" its recklessness has created. ###

BANK GLITCH PROBED - House Committee on Banks and Financial Intermediaries, chaired by Rep. Ben Evardone, conducts its own investigation on the banking glitch involving the Bank of the Philippine Islands and Banco De Oro. Among the resource persons invited to the hearing include BPI President and CEO Cezar Consing, as well as BDO President and CEO Nestor Tan. Also present were officials of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and the National Privacy Commission.

House: "Criminal negligence" caused Resorts World Manila tragedy

The House committees on public order and safety, games and amusements, and tourism, chaired by Reps. Romeo Acop (2nd District, Antipolo City), Gus Tambunting (2nd District, Parañaque City), and Lucy Torres-Gomez (4th District, Leyte), respectively, terminated Wednesday their joint inquiry into the June 2 Resorts World Manila tragedy that resulted in the death of 37 guests and employees.

The three chairpersons described the inquiry as fruitful and successful as lawmakers were able to dig deeper into the circumstances which led to the tragedy. They assured the victims and their families that House members are one with them in seeking justice for their untimely deaths or the injuries they suffered, and that they will continue to work to make sure that the tragedy will never happen again.

In his closing remarks, Tambunting made four observations which were based on the disclosures and discussions made during the hearings.

First, that the tragedy was caused by the actions of one man who did not appear to have any plan beyond attempting a direct access to the casino, according to Tambunting.

“Obviously, since the assailant was able to gain access into the casino with minimum effort and with no challenge posed by RWM security personnel, this speaks a lot about the quality of the security preparedness of RWM. Normally we would not like to delve with speculations, but what if this was an actual terrorist attack which was well planned and aimed at exacting maximum casualties and damage? Obviously things could have been much worse,” said Tambunting.

Second, the lack of clear protocols for coordination between RWM and the first responders, and even among the first responders themselves (Philippine National Police and the Bureau of Fire Protection), which was one of the proximate causes of the death by smoke inhalation/ asphyxiation of the 37 fatalities in the incident.

“As stated by PAGCOR Chairperson Andrea Domingo in her report submitted to the Committees, the continuous setting-off of ammunition which the assailant threw on the burning game table may have caused the victims/fatalities to panic. But for an establishment fully covered by CCTV cameras, the failure of the CCTV operators to track the whereabouts of the victims and to coordinate with the first responders to have them extracted from their whereabouts—which according to the PNP could have been accessed via a nearby fire exit—may be considered criminal negligence,” said Tambunting.

Third, the CCTV footage provided to the lawmakers and the testimonies of the many resource persons who testified proved the lack of co-ordination between RWM and the first responders resulted in significant delays in taking positive action to deal with the threats and the situation at the time.

“An incursion by a single individual such as this should have been resolved in a matter of minutes. That positive action of our first responders, the location of the trapped casino patrons and employees, and even the location and effective neutralisation of the assailant, took hours was a significant factor in the high death toll from this unfortunate event. This cannot be countenanced,” said Tambunting.

Fourth, questions of jurisdiction arose because there appeared to have been conflicting understanding of existing laws.

“If what is needed is the passage of new laws, then let's do it. However, it may be more proper to see first where we are so we can act with purpose and clarity. The quality of the laws we come up with, outweigh their quantity. We have to be more circumspect about how laws we pass affect the overall picture,” said Tambunting.

Tambunting said casinos, other business establishments, PAGCOR, the PNP, the BFP and the rest of the government – must all work to make sure that the tragedy does not happen again.

“More than that, we must make sure that the gaming industry is ready to meet the challenges of keeping the gaming public safe and secure during these trying times,” said Tambunting.

Tambunting also condoled with those who lost their loved ones on the tragedy. “Our hearts go out to the victims and their families, whose lives have been forever changed by this terrible turn of events. We would like to extend our sincerest condolences to those who lost their loved ones on that fateful June early morning. We would like to personally extend our condolences to one of our colleagues here at the House. To Congressman Aurelio Gonzales, Jr. and his family, we offer our sincerest sympathies for the untimely passing of his wife, Elizabeth during this tragedy,” Tambunting said.

Acop thanked everyone who helped make the hearings fruitful and successful. “We endeavored to conduct the hearings simply because we wanted to know what really happened during that fateful incident."

After the hearings have been terminated, Acop said everyone concerned has to step forward. Some agencies have to plug the loopholes that have been brought up in so far as the hearings are concerned, he said.

“So today, I can say we have endeavored to fill in the gaps and find the answers. We have not relented until we have established the complete picture, after which we can rest ourselves in peace, that we have discharged our duties to our people, particularly those who perished and were injured in the incident, including their loved ones. It is in their honor that we left no stone unturned and must thus continue our search for the truth. This is an unfortunate incident. So we must not only learn lessons from it, but lessons should be used,” said Acop.

Gomez commended the members of the three committees who led everyone to a deeper line of questioning during the second hearing. “They exposed several key sources of failure that contributed to that fateful night of June 2,”said Gomez.

Among the causal factors revealed during the inquiry according to Gomez were: unsound judgments on security deployment; lack of crisis management; lack of breathing apparatus; and shortfalls in response protocols, among many others.

“As we endeavor to connect the dots, we begin to realize that these individual problems are part of a larger network of problems. We now begin to see that we are faced with systemic issues that cannot be resolved by simply addressing each problem, as if ticking them off from a task list,” said Gomez.

Gomez said there were many instances where the individual solutions failed to address the true problem at hand. For example, the Resorts World Emergency Manual presented detailed response protocols per type of crisis.

“They have a protocol for earthquake, fire, robbery, etc. This investigation falls under two of these crises: armed attacker, and fire. For fire, the suggested course of action was to – "extinguish the fire, only when it is safe to do so. But there was an attacker, so it was not safe to fight fire. On the other hand, for an armed attacker, the suggested course of action was to hide and veer away from the attacker's view. This was exactly what the victims did, but they tragically succumbed to smoke inhalation,” said Gomez.

Gomez said there was not one protocol that addressed a situation with both an armed attacker and fire, happening at the same time. The individual protocols were practical, assuming there was only one problem at a time, according to her.

“What we needed here was leadership---someone who could see the larger picture and quickly establish a hierarchy of risks. We needed a crisis response plan that cuts across violence suppression, firefighting, and search and rescue,”said Gomez.

As chairperson of the tourism committee, Gomez proposed that regulatory authority on casino hotels, and other tourism enterprises be consolidated in TIEZA- the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority, in partnership with PAGCOR, BFP, LGUs and other relevant national agencies.

“I would like to reiterate that we have to protect the Filipinos, our guests and the tourism industry. There is no better time to institute a fail-safe regulatory and administration system, that: (a) addresses the industry's problems as a whole, and not piece meal, and (b) ensure resiliency, safety and security against violence, terrorism and calamities. It is time for us to let go of fragmentation, and instead, unite and work together to find systematic and integrated solutions,” said Gomez. (30) RBB

HIGHLIGHTS

Ben Evardone:

- House leadership tasked the committee on banks to conduct a motu proprio investigation on BPI's computer breakdown & BDO's reported ATM skimming to protect depositors and the whole banking industry.

Mr. Cezar Consing, President and CEO, BPI:

- BPI officials details "data processing error" last June 7 & 8, 2017, which affected and inconvenienced the public.

- BPI deeply regrets the inconvenience caused to the public, and ensured the committee that they are doing everything to prevent the same incident from happening again.

- It was caused by human error, and not due to hacking

- Assured that there was no breach in data security

Rep. Edgar Sarmiento:

- "There should have been a check system", after learning from BPI official that a female programmer, 1 of 2 persons trusted to handle BPI's new system, committed the posting error.

Mr. Ramon Jocson, Head, Enterprise Services, BPI:

- Reports on social media regarding millions or billions in erroneous account postings were only a hoax.

Joseph Gotuaco-EVP, BPI:

- Sustained advisories were sent from June 7-11 through internet, social media, print and broadcast media

Rep. Gus Tambunting asked how much was mistakenly withdrawn.

BPI:

- P46 million were mistakenly withdrawn.