'Diskarte nila yan': Ortega vents frustration over delay in Senate impeachment trial
At A Glance
- As if throwing his hands up in the air, La Union 1st district Rep. Paolo Ortega said that all the House of Representatives can do is to wait for the Senate to do its job.
La Union 1st district Rep. Paolo Ortega V (left), Senate President Francis "Chiz" Escudero (MANILA BULLETIN, Facebook)
As if throwing his hands up in the air, La Union 1st district Rep. Paolo Ortega said that all the House of Representatives can do is to wait for the Senate to do its job.
“So, kung hindi pa nagagawa ‘yung trabaho, eh hihintayin natin kasi diskarte nila ‘yan. Ganun lang kasimple, it’s a leadership call (So, if the job hasn't been accomplished yet, then we'll just wait because that's how they do things. It's that simple, it's a leadership call),” Ortega, a House deputy majority leader, said in a virtual press conference Friday, Feb. 28.
Ortega was reacting to Senate President Francis "Chiz" Escudero's timeline for Vice President Sara Duterte's impeachment trial, which the Senate leader said would start on July 30.
This will have been five whole months after the House submitted its impeachment complaint against the Vice President to the Senate. Ortega is among the more vocal supporters of the impeachment against the controversial Duterte.
Although nobody has been saying it out loud, there has been palpable frustration among House members amid the delay in starting the impeachment trial.
“Leadership call. It’s very plain and very simple. It’s a leadership call,” Ortega repeatedly said, without mentioning anybody.
When asked if there had been a failure of leadership in the Senate as far as starting Duterte’s trial is concerned, Ortega didn't answer directly.
"That's a good question," he told this reporter.
Escudero has also apparently shot down a proposal for the 23 senators to hold a caucus in order to get the true sense of the chamber on the matter of the impeachment trial. He claimed that some senators were abroad amid the ongoing recess, or were simple uninterested about such meeting.
To this, Ortega gave another tongue-in-cheek response: "Baka mas masipag ako (Maybe I'm more industrious)."
A total of 215 out of the 306 House members signed on for Vice President Duterte's impeachment.