Former Surigao del Norte 2nd district Rep. Robert Ace Barbers assailed the June 4 Senate Blue Ribbon Committee hearing for facilitating what he described as "destabilization moves" against the Marcos administration.

“Since when did it become legal to plot destabilization moves in broad daylight using government resources, in the guise of holding a legitimate Senate hearing?” Barbers asked in a statement Saturday, June 6.

"If the assembly is illegal and aimed at attacking the government and other people, done inside a government owned infrastructure and used government funds, this becomes an affront and challenge to the legitimate government," said the former three-term congressman.

"Is this not a ground for the filing at the very least, of graft charges against the leaders and participants of this illegal, seditious, and rebellious assembly,” Barbers added.

The former overall chairman of the House quad-committee (quad-comm) then said: "I urge the NBI (National Bureau of Investigation) and the Ombudsman to investigate the matter with dispatch, prevent a repeat of the same, and immediately file the corresponding cases as warranted."

Barbers called Blue Ribbon panel hearing last June 4, which featured the 18 Marine-bagmen as resource persons, as nothing but a propaganda meeting.

He suggested that the group of senators who held the meeting no longer had any right to do so, given the events of the June 3 plenary session wherein Senator Sherwin Gatchalian effectively became the new Senate President Pro Tempore and Acting Senate President.

Another key change was Senator Erwin Tulfo's installation as new chairman of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee.

“The Senate majority of 12 can declare all seats vacant. There is no debate about it. Even the deposed ex-Senate President admitted as much in his press conference immediately after the bogus meeting," Barbers said.

"On the 3:43 mark of his presscon, he conceded that a majority of 12 can declare all positions vacant EXCEPT the positions of Senate President and the Senate President Pro Tempore," he said.

"Therefore," Barbers noted, "The Blue Ribbon Committee Chairmanship has been validly and legitimately transferred to Senator Erwin Tulfo on June 3, making the June 4 gathering unauthorized at the very least".

“With this admission, the meeting on June 4 in the Senate in the guise of a Blue Ribbon hearing is an illegal assembly and the leaders are Senators," added the Midnanaoan.

The ex-soldiers claimed during the hearing that they delivered flood control project payoffs to President Marcos and other officials in government including House of Representatives members.

Most of the lawmakers named were either designated as prosecutors in Vice President Duterte's upcoming Senate impeachment trial or were supportive of the impeachment process.

It also included Barbers, who as head of the quad-comm led investigations into the previous Duterte administration's bloody war on drugs and extra-judicial killings (EJKs).

Earlier, Batangas 2nd district Rep. Gerville "Jinky Bitrics" Luistro said the claims made during the Blue Ribbon panel hearing were designed to destroy the credibility of those pushing accountability for the previous Duterte administration and the impeachment trial of the Vice Presiderte.

Luistro said she had already taken legal action before the Senate appearance of the 18 former Marines, and added that the allegations followed the same pattern and were meant to undermine her role as lead prosecutor in the trial.

“Ever since, we vehemently deny that," the lawyer-solon said of the payoff claims during a radio interview.

“That was two weeks ago nung nag-file tayo (when I filed). When I became conscious of the fact na lead prosecutor tayo (that I'm the lead prosecutor) and we are carrying the burden on our shoulder for the interest of the Filipino people, I realized that I need to file a libel case against them para meron tayong (so that we have a) legal position about these allegations being imputed against us by these 18 Marines,” Luistro stated.

“Even during the first impeachment complaint back in the 19th Congress hanggang sa ngayon, we never changed our position. The inconsistencies in their testimony, as well as the very obvious design why they are doing that," she noted.