MANILA, 26 August 2006 — Former Vice President Teofisto Guingona has rejected President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s reconciliation offer and instead called for civil disobedience, a day after Arroyo’s allies in the House of Representatives killed the impeachment case against her.

Arroyo yesterday renewed her appeal for the opposition to stop their attacks and instead support her government. On Thursday, the House of Representatives voted 173-32 to junk the impeachment complaint against Arroyo due to a technicality.

“We must close ranks and face the most compelling demands of national stability and growth,” she said. “I call for a tearing down of partisan fences, a consolidation of voices and a welding of national heart and will to fight poverty, stop conflict and heal the nation.”

But Guingona, who served as Arroyo’s first vice president and secretary of foreign affairs, rejected the president’s call with a “resounding no,” saying he cannot accept reconciliation “without justice, transparency, and accountability.”

“Our answer to calls for reconciliation is a resounding no because reconciliation with no justice, with no transparency, with no accountability is no reconciliation at all,” he said at the weekly Bishops-People’s forum in Quezon City yesterday.

The opposition have also vowed not abandon efforts to oust Arroyo, who was accused of vote-rigging, human rights abuses, corruption and violations of the constitution in the defeated impeachment complaint.

While denying all the charges of wrongdoing, Arroyo and her allies opted to defeat the impeachment complaint by sheer number rather than letting the evidence out and refuting them.

Guingona prodded the people to “do nothing” or join a civil disobedience campaign, which he said they had employed during the time of the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos. “That is what we should do,” he said, adding, “We will have civil disobedience in this land because civil disobedience is the only recourse left.”

Guingona joined a caravan by pro-impeachment groups that paraded seven boxes purportedly containing evidence against the president to the University of the Philippines in Quezon City where they would be stored for safekeeping.

Guingona said the “seven boxes of sins” symbolized the injustices and suppression which must be resisted by the people.

Guingona was a key player in the country’s two “people power,” including the first that led to the downfall of dictator Marcos in February 1986 and the second one that toppled then President Joseph Estrada in January 2001. Arroyo, who was Estrada’s vice president, named Guingona as her vice president when she took over the presidency. But Guingona resigned later over policy differences. (With reports from Inquirer News Service & agencies)