Drilon rejects proposal to amend Blue Ribbon rules

Senate President Franklin M. Drilon today said he was not inclined to amend the rules of the Blue Ribbon Committee as suggested by former Senator Joker Arroyo who claimed that the Senate's investigation into the alleged overpriced Makati Parking Building as "one-sided."

"First of all, the rules are proven to work. We must remember that the Blue Ribbon Committee is not a judicial proceeding, nor is it a criminal investigation. It is primarily in aid of legislation and in seeking the truth. The rules have been there, and they work well, and they continue to work well," Drilon emphasized.

"The present rules being applied by the current Blue Ribbon committee are the same rules that our former colleague, Joker, used when he was the chair of the Blue Ribbon Committee," said Drilon.

He said that the present setup served well in uncovering a wide range of anomalies which the Blue Ribbon committee had investigated in the past.

"These are the rules that enabled the Blue Ribbon Committee to find out the truth with the Philippine International Air Terminals Co. (Piatco) deal, to discover the anomalies in the North Rail Project, and the ones used in the Fertilizer Scam," pointed out Drilon.

With this, the Senate chief said he was not in favor of amending the present rules as they are proven to be effective in uncovering the truth and exposing government frailties.

"Those rules have been there for a long time, and I am not in favor of amending the rules," he stressed.