BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat.com
The House Committee on Justice, by a majority vote of its members, today threw out seven of the eight impeachment complaints filed this year against President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
Eight impeachment complaints were filed against Arroyo at the House of Representatives from June 26 to July 26 this year. Though exactly the same in form and content, these were separately filed by different groups of concerned citizens and people’s organizations.
In a committee hearing this afternoon, opposition congressmen Francis Escudero, Satur Ocampo, and Allan Peter Cayetano argued for the consolidation of all eight complaints. “This is one complaint with different sets of complainants,” Ocampo, deputy minority leader and Bayan Muna (People First) representative, said.
But administration representatives ignored the arguments of opposition representatives and based their position on the constitutional provision barring the initiation of more than one impeachment complaint against the President within a one-year period.
“The end of the prohibition period starts one year from the date when the previous impeachment complaint was deemed to have been initiated,” said Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman (Aksyon Demokratiko), vice chairman of the House Committee on Justice.
Lawyer Oliver Lozano filed on June 27, 2005 an impeachment complaint against Arroyo for electoral fraud. It was endorsed by Alagad Rep. Rodante Marcoleta two days later and was referred to the Committee on Justice on July 25, 2005. Lagman has previously argued that the first complaint was deemed to have been initiated on the date it was referred to the Committee on Justice.
“You cannot consolidate prohibited complaints with a valid complaint,” Lagman added.
With a vote of 54-24, the House Committee on Justice disregarded the first seven complaints and considered the eighth one for determination of sufficiency in form and substance.
The eighth impeachment complaint is similar in form and content to the seven earlier ones and was filed by former Social Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman and the Black and White Movement. Bulatlat
