MANILA, 28 June 2006 — Filipino civil society groups are falling all over themselves to file impeachment cases against President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo before the House of Representatives in hopes that these will eventually make it to trial. Similar cases filed against her last year failed to make her relinquish the post she allegedly holds illegally.
Former Vice President Teofisto Guingona Jr. and 17 other complainants filed yesterday morning the second impeachment case against the president.
The first, the “Citizens Impeachment Case versus Gloria Macapagal Arroyo,” was filed by Zenaida Quezon-Avanceña and 200 other supporters who held a vigil at the House of Representatives so that they could file the 25-page case at the office of House Secretary General Roberto Nazareno the moment it opened.
A television station said Arroyo will face at least three more impeachment complaints on top of the two other raps already filed against her.
Lawyer Neri Colmenares, spokesman for the Committee for the Defense of Lawyers (Codal), said civil society representatives decided to file additional complaints on June 27, 28, and July 24 “to avoid any technicality” that would nullify their impeachment bid.
“It will be the same complaint with different complainants. We wanted to play safe,” he said in a television interview.
The first and second complaints were endorsed by members of the House of Representatives as required by law. The first by House Minority Leader Francis Escudero and San Juan Rep. Ronaldo Zamora and the second by Rep. Teofisto Guingona III, son of the former vice president.
The older Guingona, who quit as Arroyo’s vice president in 2002 over policy differences, said that he filed the impeachment complaint as a representative of the Citizens Congress for Truth and Accountability (CCTA), which held a series of “hearings” on alleged anomalies and electoral crimes that implicated Arroyo.
The CCTA had earlier found the president ‘guilty’ of “lying, cheating and stealing” in the May 2004 elections, among other accusations.
Opposition Rep. Allan Peter Cayetano earlier said the new complaint centered around graft and corruption and human rights violations allegedly committed or ordered by Arroyo, including media oppression and the spate of killings of journalists and activists.
He earlier said the P728-million fertilizer fund scam would be included in the complaint. Other issues included were the president’s implementation of Executive Order 464, Presidential Proclamation 1017 and the calibrated preemptive response policy, which is being used by the police to stop protests in public places.
“It’s a citizen-led complaint and we, in the Congress, are also endorsers and watchdogs of the complaint,” Cayetano said.
The third complaint to be filed today by a group of militant government employees in the Confederation for the Unity, Recognition and Advancement of Government Employees (Courage).
Although the basis of the complaint, like the first two, will be the graft charges against Arroyo, Courage president Ferdinand Gaite said “she should explain the P2 billion her office got from the Government Service Insurance System in 2004 and 2005.”
Gaite was referring to GSIS management’s reportedly giving a P2-billion dividend share to Malacañang while the optional dividend shares of members was delayed for almost a year.
Arroyo’s lawyer Romulo Macalintal scoffed at the new complaint labeling it an exercise in futility. He said there was nothing new with the impeachment raps filed before the House of Representatives on Monday morning.
Interviewed on another television station, Macalintal said “it is very clear” that the three impeachment cases filed against the president last year were still alive since the Supreme Court had yet to rule on their legality. “Since these cases are still alive, no new impeachment could be filed against the president, no new impeachment could be heard by the House of Representatives without violating the one-impeachment (per year) rule provision of our constitution,” he said.
Macalintal said it was clear that the endorsers of the complaint were only creating noise as he believed the charges will come up short before any court. He said the new impeachment bid would be immediately junked.
House Speaker Jose de Venecia also expressed confidence that the opposition would fail to get the 79 votes needed to automatically transmit the complaint to the Senate.
Pro-administration congressmen junked an impeachment bid against Arroyo last year after voting 158-51, with six abstentions.
