House minority drops bid to impeach Aquino

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

MANILA (Updated 4:07 p.m.) -- The minority bloc in the House of Representatives killed a proposal to have President Benigno Aquino III impeached, saying the allegations are baseless.

"We, in the minority, have decided not to endorse the impeachment complaint against the President by a taxpayer. In the first place, we have not yet seen evidence of an impeachable offense in this complaint, although we are conducting our own investigation," House Minority Leader and Quezon Representative Danilo Suarez told reporters in the opposition bloc's weekly news conference on Wednesday.

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Danilo Lihaylihay, president of the Philippine Association of Revenue Informers Inc., earlier asked Suarez to initiate an impeachment move against Aquino for his alleged involvement in the anomalous sale of a government lot in Baguio City to a giant mall developer.

Lihaylihay accused Aquino of "massive tax evasion, fraud and graft and corrupt practices, through conspiracy and connivance" for the sale of a 3.4-hectare property to SM Investments Corporation.

Suarez said the opposition bloc does not want to abuse the exclusive power granted by the Constitution to the House of Representatives to impeach public officials.

"More importantly, we realize that we should be able to practice what we preach. If we truly believe that impeachment should no longer be trivialized for partisan purposes, then we ought to set the example ourselves – whether or not, as in this case, our colleagues in the majority choose to persist instead with their original reckless behavior," said Suarez.

Members of the minority group have criticized their colleagues belonging to the majority bloc for pursuing an impeachment complaint against another member of the Supreme Court (SC), this time, against Associate Justice Mariano del Castillo.

Trial is ongoing on the impeachment complaint filed by the House of Representatives against SC Chief Justice Renato Corona at the Senate.

Suarez, meanwhile, said that his office was in receipt of another letter-complaint from a group of "retired officers".

The complaint alleges betrayal of public trust over Aquino's authorization for the release of a P5-million donation to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front during his meeting with the group's leader in Japan last year.

Earlier, Marcos loyalist Oliver Lozano filed an impeachment complaint against Aquino after the President refused to bury former President Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. Not one lawmaker, however, endorsed the said complaint. (Kathrina Alvarez/Sunnex)