The decision by several Cabinet officials to skip a Senate hearing on the arrest of former president Rodrigo Duterte was a valid exercise of executive privilege and well within constitutional bounds, a House of Representatives leader said.
House Assistant Majority Leader and Tingog Party-list Rep. Jude Acidre said invoking executive privilege to excuse Cabinet officials from a Senate inquiry from legislative inquiries is a legal and long-standing practice that has been used by past administrations, including Duterte’s.
“It’s very clear in the Constitution that invoking executive privilege is allowed.
We respect that practice, not only under President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. but also under previous presidents. Even former President Duterte previously barred his Cabinet members and executive officials from appearing before the Senate,” he pointed out.
Acidre was referring to a 2021 memorandum from Duterte ordering Executive Department officials to stop attending the Senate Blue Ribbon committee hearings on the alleged overpriced procurement of medical supplies against the coronavirus disease 2019.
The memo said the probe was politically driven and interfered with government officials’ pandemic response duties.
Several Cabinet officials skipped Thursday’s second Senate hearing, led by Senator Imee Marcos, regarding the circumstances surrounding the arrest of Duterte, as Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin invoked executive privilege.
Acidre said the executive’s decision deserves the same respect that the House has shown the Senate through inter-parliamentary courtesy. He recalled that the House did not compel Senator Ronald dela Rosa, Duterte’s former police chief and a central figure in the administration’s war on drugs, to testify in the quad committee hearings on the alleged extrajudicial killings linked to the previous administration’s drug war.
“It would’ve been good if he had faced the quad committee but out of courtesy, we didn’t insist,” he said and warned that disregarding executive privilege could undermine the balance among co-equal branches of government.
It’s unfair if, now, the Senate criticizes a co-equal branch for invoking executive privilege,” Acidre pointed out.
Presidential Communications Office Undersecretary and Palace Press Officer Claire Castro, meanwhile, pointed to jurisprudence supporting the Executive’s right to withhold information under certain conditions, such as the “deliberative process privilege, presidential communications privilege, and state secrets privilege.” (PNA)