The Senate Committee on Ethics and Privileges will adopt a “first in, first out” approach in hearing all ethics complaint that are now pending before the panel, Senate deputy majority leader Joseph Victor “JV” Ejercito said.

Sen. Joseph Victor “JV” Ejercito proposes to have a masterplan for infrastructure and national development, underscoring its significance to the country. During Monday’s hearing, October 20, 2025, of the Finance Subcommittee A, Ejercito asked the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) to support Senate Bill No. 2 or the Masterplan for Infrastructure and National Development (MIND) Act which he authored. (Senate PRIB photo)

Ejercito, newly elected chairman of the Senate ethics committee, issued the statement after a lawyer questioned his alleged inaction on the ethics complaint he filed against Sen. Francis “Chiz” Escudero.

Last October 2, Eldrige Marvin Aceron, filed a complaint based on Escudero’s receipt of a P30 million campaign donation in 2022 from Lawrence Lubiano, the owner of a construction firm that won government projects in Bicol.

Aceron said he received no communication from the ethics panel a month after submitting complete documentation to support his complaint.

In his letter to Ejercito on November 4, Aceron asked for updates given the ethics committee’s seeming inaction, saying “I have received no acknowledgment, no case number, no communication of any kind.”

But Ejercito assured that the panel will “proceed immediately after the Committee is organized and its internal rules are adopted.”

“As the newly elected Chair, we were appointed just days before the adjournment of session. Please note that the Committee is not yet fully constituted and, therefore, cannot hold meetings or hearings,” Ejercito said in a statement on Wednesday, Nov. 5.

“Membership is yet to be manifested and completed during resumption of plenary session next week,” he stressed.

“In keeping with fairness and transparency, the Committee intends to deliberate on the four pending complaints filed against individual senators in the order they were received, following a ‘first in, first out’ approach,” the senator stressed.

“We are committed to carrying out our mandate with integrity, impartiality, and full respect for due process,” the lawmaker reiterated.

Aside from Escudero, the Senate panel also received an ethics complaint against Sen. Risa Hontiveros for alleged disorderly behavior and “witness tampering.” The complaint against her were filed by lawyers Ferdinand Topacio, Manuelito Luna, and Jacinto Paras, a former congressman.

The ethics complaint against Hontiveros included the recantation of Michael Maurillo, also known as Rene, who served as a witness in an inquiry led by Hontiveros about “abuses” in the premises of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ (KOJC), founded by televangelist Apollo Quiboloy, who is now facing cases of rape and sexual abuses.