Senator Robinhood “Robin” Padilla is being considered for the Senate Committee on Ethics and Privileges chairmanship, but the plenary has yet to make a final decision, according to Sen. Joel Villanueva.
The ethics committee is in charge of “all matters relating to the conduct, rights, privileges, safety, dignity, integrity, and reputation of the Senate and its members,” according to the Rules of the Senate. More specifically, it handles ethics complaints against senators filed by other lawmakers, government officials, or citizens. After the complaints are screened, the committee may conduct hearings before recommending sanctions to the Senate.
One of its biggest cases in the past decade is the 2016 ethics complaint filed by lawyer Abelardo de Jesus against former Sen. Leila de Lima, on accusations of her involvement in illegal drugs. At the time, Sen. Vicente “Tito” Sotto III served as the committee chair.
Other notable senators who have held the position are former Sen. Francis Tolentino, former Sen. Manny Pacquiao, former Sen. Rene Saguisag, and Sen. Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan.
In an interview with Rappler in 2016, Saguisag said that the ethics committee chairmanship was hard to take on because the work could have jeopardized relationships with his colleagues. But he also recognized that the chairmanship could be used to protect close ties in the Senate. Pangilinan likewise told Rappler, “There will always be hesitation on the part of a sitting senator to pass judgment and impose discipline on a fellow senator.” But can Padilla overcome that?
Infractions
Since his election into the Senate in 2022, Padilla’s work as a legislator has been marred by controversy regarding various social issues.
During a Senate hearing on sexual abuse last year, Padilla asked whether husbands have “sexual rights” over their wives if the latter refuses intimacy, and said that a husband “in heat” might resort to infidelity. In 2023, he said that students can tolerate physical bullying, and that physical abuse in his childhood helped him “deal with life” as an adult. In 2022, he suggested that the Badjao and other indigenous peoples should be trained to look presentable, “‘Yong hindi parang pulubi,” and sing Christmas carols if the government can’t stop them from coming to Metro Manila to beg for alms during the holiday season.
Aside from this, the former actor has also shown himself to be a staunch ally to the Duterte clan and other members of the political party PDP-Laban (he even toured the Netherlands with a cardboard cutout of former president Rodrigo Duterte), raising concerns regarding his ability to hold his colleagues accountable.
In fact, in the past couple of years, Padilla has worked to keep the Dutertes from mechanisms of accountability, supporting efforts to quash both Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment and Rodrigo Duterte’s trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC). In 2023, he filed a resolution seeking to defend Duterte from investigation or prosecution by the ICC. In June this year, he also filed another resolution that aimed to dismiss the vice president’s impeachment case.
As of this writing, Padilla has not yet confirmed whether he seeks to lead the ethics committee chairmanship. Until the Senate makes its choice, whether the “bad boy of Philippine cinema” will use the post to uphold accountability or shield allies from it also remains uncertain.
