The bullies are Senators Antonio Trillanes 4th and Alan Cayetano, as well as the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee itself. It should be more appropriately named the Yellow Ribbon Committee, since under this Administration, it has acted merely as President Aquino’ demolition crew.

That ‘somebody’ is Vice President Jejomar Binay, who had refused to let himself be humiliated by a modern version of the Spanish Inquisition, where one is presumed guilty, and where there is even no clear procedure for proving one’s innocence.

Binay correctly refused to be fooled by the argument that he must prove his innocence by following the Senate’s order for him to appear at the hearings. Do that in a kangaroo court?

And as the public has gone tired of the hearings, getting sick of a heavily-indebted gambler’s accusations, and irritated at the arrogance of the two brash senators, the Committee appears to have blinked, with its chairman, Teofisto Guingona 3rd, saying two days ago that he would no longer “invite” the Vice President to the hearing.

An Ernesto Mercado, who has admitted stealing hundreds of millions of pesos when he was Makati vice-mayor, hurls accusations against the vice president who had stopped dead the ex-vice mayor’s political career because of his graft, and there is no procedure for cross-examining him by the accused representatives? Huge video screens are used to label the Vice President a thief, and this is called a hearing “in aid of legislation?”

The bullies are Senators Antonio Trillanes 4th and Alan Cayetano, as well as the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee itself. It should be more appropriately named the Yellow Ribbon Committee, since under this Administration, it has acted merely as President Aquino’ demolition crew.

That ‘somebody’ is Vice President Jejomar Binay, who had refused to let himself be humiliated by a modern version of the Spanish Inquisition, where one is presumed guilty, and where there is even no clear procedure for proving one’s innocence.

Binay correctly refused to be fooled by the argument that he must prove his innocence by following the Senate’s order for him to appear at the hearings. Do that in a kangaroo court?

And as the public has gone tired of the hearings, getting sick of a heavily-indebted gambler’s accusations, and irritated at the arrogance of the two brash senators, the Committee appears to have blinked, with its chairman, Teofisto Guingona 3rd, saying two days ago that he would no longer “invite” the Vice President to the hearing.

An Ernesto Mercado, who has admitted stealing hundreds of millions of pesos when he was Makati vice-mayor, hurls accusations against the vice president who had stopped dead the ex-vice mayor’s political career because of his graft, and there is no procedure for cross-examining him by the accused representatives? Huge video screens are used to label the Vice President a thief, and this is called a hearing “in aid of legislation?”