MANILA, Philippines – Opposition Senator Risa Hontiveros denounced Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III’s “cavalier attitude” for assisting Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II in his supposed witch hunt for his wiretapping case against her.

In a privilege speech on Monday, February 19, Hontiveros slammed Pimentel for supposedly providing the personal information of her 23-year-old staff member, Davidde Kyle Venturillo, who allegedly took the photo of Aguirre’s text message exchange during a Senate hearing on September 5, 2017. (LOOK: Aguirre caught texting to ‘expedite’ cases vs Hontiveros)

“Nakakabahala ang pagsuko ng Senate President sa institutional integrity ng Senado. Nasaan ang tapang at integridad na kailangan ng institusyong ito sa ilalim ng pamunuan ni Senate President Pimentel? Ganito na ba tayo sa Senado ngayon?” Hontiveros said.

(It is bothersome how the Senate President is giving up the Senate’s institutional integrity. Where’s the integrity and bravery that our institution needs under the leadership of Senate President Pimentel? Is this how the Senate is like now?)

Hontiveros said Pimentel easily granted the personal requests of Aguirre – which happened to be written on Department of Justice (DOJ) letterhead – to furnish him with the personal data sheet, identification cards, pertinent personnel records, and photographs of Venturillo.

She said Aguirre also requested footage of the entire hearing on September 5, 2017, CCTV footage of the Senate’s entire 5th floor, where Hontiveros’ office is located, as well as the ground floor, lobby, entrance, and inside and outside areas of elevators.

Hontiveros said Pimentel or his office never informed her about such requests and added there was no subpoena or judicial order to release the footage.

“What if I filed a case against the Senate President – I wonder if I could now just go to the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms and clandestinely ask for personnel records of the Office of the SP, without the SP being informed? Or do different rules apply when the requesting party is the Secretary of Justice and the data subject is a neophyte opposition senator?” Hontiveros said.

“The letters were but personal letters from Mr Aguirre who is, for all intents and purposes pertinent to his request, merely a party-litigant to a case and not acting in his capacity as the Secretary of Justice. Samakatuwid po (In other words), we have a party-litigant who happens to be the SOJ using his office – not just its might and weight, but also its resources – to support his personal agenda, and the Senate allowed it to happen.”

Pimentel: These are public info

In reply, Pimentel apologized to Hontiveros for not informing her and said he was feeling under the weather. He insisted his office never gave out personal details about Venturillo. What he gave Aguirre, Pimentel said, was a “negative certification” that Venturillo was not part of Hontiveros’ staff.

“It’s unfair to charge my office or this representation of compromising the security of our staff. We did nothing, no personal data sheets were released. It was negative certification,” Pimentel said.

After receiving Aguirre’s request, Pimentel said he sought the opinion of the Senate’s legal counsel, who said the data requested are part of public documents.

He said it could have been the same reason used by the Office of the Sergeant-at-Arms (OSAA) when it released copies of the CCTV videos requested. The OSAA, however, is under the jurisdiction of the Senate President.

“The general way of thinking that we had was that there was an incident that happened in the Senate, which according to one party amounted to a crime… The basic factual scenario is that an incident happened in the Senate, which one party alleges to be a crime. He is asking for documents to help him build up his case, [and] the documents happened to be public documents,” Pimentel said.

Hontiveros said the action of the Senate President opens Venturillo to online bullying – something that Pimentel rejected.

“I do not think this representation or the Senate is to blame. The effort to identify the alleged photographer was not done by this representation,” he said.

In the end, the issue was referred to the committee on rules, chaired by Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III.

Minority Senator Francis Pangilinan manifested that the committee make recommendations, as the same incident could happen to the staff of other senators. Sotto assured them he would do such. – Rappler.com