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Saturday, July 22, 2006
New impeach case v. Arroyo 'easier to kill', says lawmaker
THE new impeachment complaint against President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, no matter how many complaints have been and will be filed this year, "is easier to kill today than that of last year".
House Majority Leader Prospero Nograles said given the fact that it is just 10 months away from the mid-term elections, more congressmen are now much focused on their re-election bid so they would want to immediately dispose of the complaints not later than August.
Nograles predicted that by the end of August, the second impeachment complaint filed against Arroyo will be disposed of.
In fact, he added, leaders and members of the House have already set a date when they would finally sentence to death the impeachment complaint.
He said the impeachment issue might meet its end by the last week of August, even if there is a schedule provided by the rules of impeachment to follow.
The Speaker has 10 session days to refer the impeachment complaint to the House committee on rules while the same committee has three session days to include the complaint to the Order of Business for it to be referred to the House committee on justice.
The justice committee, on the other hand, has 60 session days to rule on hearing the complaint.
But the administration congressman believed that the impeachment complaint against the President would not take that long.
"The Speaker might no longer use the entire 10 session days. In fact, by Monday, he could immediately refer it to the rules committee and the rules committee might as well refer it immediately to the committee on justice. And I don't think the committee on justice would spend its entire 60 session days," he said.
By Monday or when the third regular session of the 13th Congress opens, the first 10 session days of the Speaker would officially begin even if the fifth impeachment complaint is not yet formally filed at the office of the secretary-general of the House of Representatives.
So far, there are already four impeachment complaints filed against the president, and the fifth one, which bears the signatures of hundreds of private complainants from various sectors, would be filed either on Monday or Wednesday.
Noagrales, meanwhile, said aside from the elections next year, congressmen are bent on pushing more important legislative works.
In last year's impeachment process, Congress lost four months of its legislative work, which compromised important legislative agenda of the administration. (DBP/Sunnex)
(July 22, 2006 issue)
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