MANILA: Beating the filing of what they call sham impeachment complaints, anti-Arroyo critics have filed another, the fourth one seeking the ouster of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. The case was filed at 7:40 a.m. yesterday before director Ricardo Roque, the officer-in-charge at the Secretary General’s office at the House of Representatives, although the complainants were at the House as early as 6 a.m.
Present were Joey de Venecia III, son of former Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr., Iloilo Vice Governor Rolex Suplico, Josefina Lichauco, former official of the Department of Transportation and Communication; lawyer Harry Roque; and representatives from civil society - Renato Constantino, Jr., Henri Kahn, Francisco Alcuaz, Rez Cortez, Virgilio Eustaquio, Jose Luis Alcuaz, Leah Navarro, Danilo Ramos, Concepcion Empeño, Elmer Labog, Armando Albarillo, Roneo Clamor and Bebu Bulchand.
De Venecia III and other complainants tried but failed to file the 97-page impeachment complaint late Saturday at the House because its secretary-general, Marilyn Yap, who receives such complaints, had gone on a foreign trip.
The law allows only one impeachment bid each year against the president and the previous one-year period lapsed last weekend, De Venecia said. Unlike last year’s two-page impeachment case by lawyer Roel Pulido, the complaint filed yesterday was “strong” and “would be able to hold its own based on merits and evidence,” said De Venecia III.
The complainants raised the national broadband network agreement with China, human rights violations, the Northrail project, the Mt. Diwalwal project, fertilizer fund scam, alleged bribery of members of the House, the swine scam under the Rural Credit Guarantee Corporation, and electoral fraud in the 2004 election as among the impeachable offenses committed by Arroyo.
They decided to withdraw however the memorandum of agreement on ancestral domain (MOA-AD) from the list amid objections by some lawmakers.
Lawyer Roque said that most of the corruption charges made against the President were backed by conclusive reports from the Commission on Audit while the allegations of human rights violations were supported by an investigation report by the United Nations special rapporteur Philip Alston.
“This impeachment complaint in the House is the real deal unlike the first three, the House members have no choice but to look, accept it or reject it, based on merits rather than technicalities as they did in the past years,” said Roque. Bayan Muna partylist Representatives Satur Ocampo and Teodoro Casiño and Gabriela Representative Liza Maza endorsed the complaint. Former Speaker De Venecia Jr. did not endorse the case, which his son said he would discuss with him and ask him to back it.
In the document, the complainants said they wanted to impeach and bring to trial Arroyo “for her (alleged) betrayal of public trust, culpable violation of the Constitution, bribery, graft and corruption and other high crimes.”
Suplico, one of the officials who exposed the alleged irregularities in the NBN contract with China’s ZTE Corp., said it was time for the president to be held accountable for the anomalies in her government. “This is a simple message to the president, you cannot kill, you cannot steal and get away with it,” he said. De Venecia III, a key witness in the scandal, said congressmen should go through the complaint carefully to see that there was strong evidence to impeach the president.
He dismissed speculations that the move was politically-motivated amid his alleged plans to run for senator in 2010. “People from Malacañang are becoming fortune-tellers. They’re saying there would be an election in 2010, I don’t think there will be an election in 2010. There’s nothing political about this,” he said.
