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Friday, August 25, 2006
House buries impeachment
Using their numbers, allies of Malacañang in the House of Representatives trashed the second bid to impeach President Arroyo.
By a vote of 173 to 32 with one abstention, after an 18-hour marathon debate, the House plenary adopted Committee Report 1886 of the House committee on justice chaired by Maguin-danao Rep. Simeon Datuma-nong, which rejected the impeachment case filed by the Black and White Movement for being insufficient in substance.
The House committee on justice last week ruled that the impeachment complaint against Arroyo was insufficient in substance, as it failed to meet the requirement set by the rules.
The justice committee voted 56-24 in favor of the motion dismissing it for lack of substance.
The complaint accused Arroyo of 22 violations, including rigging the 2004 presidential elections, corruption, human rights abuses, and violating the Constitution, all of which were denied by Malacañang and its allies.
The Arroyo administration and House Speaker Jose de Venecia promptly welcomed the move.
The first bid to remove the President from office last year was also decisively crushed by the House, by a vote of 158 to 51 with six abstentions. The second impeachment complaint gathered fewer votes of support than last year.
De Venecia presided at the start of the session Wednesday afternoon and stayed throughout the night until the session was adjourned at 9:55 a.m. yesterday. Voting began at 4 p.m.
Facts
In his sponsorship speech, Datumanong defended the decision taken by his committee last week.
“Although the impeachment complaint passed the initial constitutional requirement of sufficiency in form, it however failed to satisfy the required recital of facts constituting the offense charged and determinative of the jurisdiction of the committee on justice,” Datumanong said.
Under Section 4, Rule III of the Rules of Procedure in Impeachment Proceedings of the House of Representatives of the 13th Congress, Datumanong said the requirement of substance “is met if there is a recital of facts constituting the offense charged and determinative of the jurisdiction of the committee.”
Propaganda
Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, vice chairman of the committee, who also defended the committee report, said the impeachment complaint was nothing but “propaganda complexed with prevarication.”
Before the first vote was cast, House Minority Leader Francis Escudero made a last appeal to the members of the House to allow them to open the seven boxes of evidence that would prove that Arroyo “violated the 1987 Constitution, betrayed public trust and committed high crimes.”
Only 32 out of the 51 congressmen who voted for the impeachment of President Arroyo last year stood pat on their position yesterday.
One of the opposition members, Iloilo Rep. Rolex Suplico, when explaining his vote, said bribery was one of the major factors why the impeachment complaint against the President could not proceed.
Money?
He said brown envelopes, believed to contain money, were pouring out at the congressmen’s lounges when the voting was going on. Suplico had earlier accused Malacañang of bribing congressmen in exchange for junking the impeachment complaint against Arroyo.
Escudero and other members of the opposition have expressed disappointment over the results of the voting. Escudero could not say if another impeachment bid would be pursued again next year.
Ilocos Norte Rep. Ma. Imelda “Imee” Marcos, who did not vote last year, showed up and voted for the impeachment of Arroyo. In a statement after casting her vote, she said “pure terrorism” by the numbers had killed the impeachment case against the President.
With her vote supporting the impeachment, she believed that she had finally made her position clear to everyone “that I am always for the truth.”
Marcos was criticized last year not only by her colleagues but other groups that supported the impeachment for her failure to cast her vote. She said it was a “family decision” that prompted her not to vote.
De Venecia urged Arroyo’s allies to end “poisonous, disruptive politics” and concentrate on helping the President solve the country’s problems.
Remember
He said Arroyo called immediately after the vote and said she was happy that the debates were over.
The Palace thanked the House for its “judicious disposition” of the impeachment complaint and the public for being sober on the issue.
Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel, on the other hand, urged the people to remember the congressmen who voted against the impeachment complaint and not to reelect them in the 2007 elections.
Pimentel said the junking of the complaint against Arroyo “is in defiance of the strong public clamor for her to answer the allegations on graft and corruption, abuse of powers and betrayal of public trust.”
He said the congressmen who junked the impeachment complaint “deserve public reprisal because they made a decision without allowing the presentation of evidence by the complainants.”
“Watching the murder of the impeachment complaint was wasting time. The people should just remember the killers and punish them now by isolating them from good company and later by voting against them in next year’s elections,” Pimentel said. (Sunnex)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (August 25, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
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