MANILA—President Arroyo’s dominant allies in the House of Representatives yesterday dismissed the fourth impeachment complaint filed against her in as many years.
Voting 42-8, members of the Lower House’s Justice Committee said the complaint was “insufficient in substance” to impeach the president, committee chair Matias Defensor Jr. (3rd district, Quezon City) said.
“The committee on justice, by virtue of the vote just taken, has declared to dismiss the complaint against President Gloria Arroyo,” Defensor said, as he declared the proceedings over.
Pro-Arroyo Rep. Edcel Lagman (1st district, Albay) said the opposition had only resurrected old allegations.
“The hearse of exhumed carcasses must be led back to the graveyard,” Lagman told the committee.
Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita welcomed the dismissal and urged the country to respect it.
It was the fourth impeachment attempt against the president in the past four years. Arroyo is to end her six-year term in 2010 having also survived two coup attempts.
Opposition leaders, however, vowed to try to impeach the President again in 2009-–a year before her term ends—and some warned of other options, including a nonviolent “people power” revolt, to remove her from office.
“Our day will come,” Rep. Ronaldo Zamora (San Juan) said after resting the opposition’s case, which accused Arroyo of corruption, abuse of power and violations of the constitution and human rights.
Rep. Jose de Venecia (4th district, Pangasinan), the main endorser of the nearly 400-page complaint, said the political opposition would file an appeal with the Supreme Court.
“We suffered a temporary defeat for truth and justice, but the fight will carry on,” a haggard-looking de Venecia told reporters after the vote.
Archbishop Angel Lagdameo, who heads the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, told a church-run radio station that the dismissal of the impeachment complaint “should not mean that we should give up our hope to know the truth.” He did not elaborate.
The complaint stemmed from allegations that Arroyo and her husband were directly involved in a 329-million-dollar national Internet broadband deal with Chinese firm ZTE Corp. in 2006.
The deal has since been scrapped by Arroyo amid allegations of massive corruption.
The complaint also accused her of diverting millions of dollars in agricultural funds to her election campaign in 2004 and of tacitly backing hundreds of unsolved political killings blamed on the military.
Just before the vote, Gabriel party-list Rep. Liza Maza-Largoza alleged some members of the justice committee had received up to P500,000 in bribes on Tuesday night from the government to dump the impeachment bid. (AP/AFP)
