Former Senate President Franklin Drilon warned that the Blue Ribbon Committee hearings conducted by the faction of Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano are unofficial and will not be recognized in the Senate records without proper administrative support.
Drilon issued the caution after Sen. Pia Cayetano pushed through with a Blue Ribbon Committee hearing on the flood control scandal Thursday, defying a work-from-home directive issued by acting Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian.
Because Gatchalian suspended all official Senate business and barred resource persons from the building, Drilon explained that the Cayetano-led hearing lacked the physical presence of the Senate secretariat to officially document the proceedings.
"There is no administrative staff in the Senate today because, from what I saw yesterday, Sen. Gatchalian issued a directive that today is work from home and no one will enter the Senate," Drilon said in Filipino during a radio interview.
He clarified that while the Cayetano bloc and their witnesses are free to meet, the absence of official recorders renders the event non-existent in the eyes of the institution.
"Sen. Cayetano can go, or whoever goes, but without administrative staff, no one will record the events if a hearing happens. So in the records of the Senate, no hearing took place," Drilon stressed.
Drilon drew from his own experience to prove his point. He recalled a past leadership dispute involving the late Sen. Blas Ople, where Drilon's bloc refused to recognize a turnover and prohibited the official recording of the proceedings. In the chamber's history, unrecognized sessions devoid of official documentation do not legally exist, he added.
"This is also what will happen now if Sen. Pia Cayetano and the 18 witnesses go, no one will record their meeting," Drilon concluded.
Sen. Erwin Tulfo, who was installed as the new Blue Ribbon chairman under the Gatchalian-led majority, officially moved the public hearing on the flood control anomalies to 08 June.
Meanwhile, Sen. Pia Cayetano insisted that the 03 June leadership shake-up that ousted her brother was invalid due to a lack of a 13-senator quorum. She proceeded to preside over her own hearing with the 18 former Marines who claimed involvement in massive cash deliveries tied to the anomalous flood control projects.
