Senator Leila de Lima on Thursday chided Senator Richard Gordon for saying that he wants Senator Antonio Trillanes IV to be expelled from the Senate.
In a statement, De Lima said the Senate will be acting like a “mob” if it decides to expel a member merely for speaking out on his observations on the actions of a Senate committee.
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Gordon earlier filed an ethics complaint against Trillanes after the latter remarked that the Senate blue ribbon panel is turning into a “committee de abswelto.”
Trillanes made the statement after Gordon, chairman of the committee, shrugged off Trillanes’ accusations against President Rodrigo Duterte’s son and son-in-law that they were involved in smuggling.
Gordon’s ethics complaint has been found by sufficient in form and substance earlier this week. In a television interview Tuesday, Gordon said Trillanes does not belong in the Senate.
But De Lima believes otherwise.
“If a Senator is going to be expelled for uttering his observations as to the implications of a Senate committee’s refusal to act – what kind of Senate are we even talking about?” De Lima said.
“What we will have is a mob. Mob rule: where the majority can silence the voice of dissent, the voice of the minority; and, with it, can drive another nail into the coffin of our democracy,” she added.
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De Lima said Gordon’s ethics complaint was not to protest unparliamentary remarks, but merely to “silence dissent.”
Both Trillanes and De Lima, staunch critics of the President, are members of the Senate minority bloc.