House Justice Committee Junks Impeachment Raps vs. PNoy

Manila (PNA) — The House committee on Justice on Tuesday junked with finality the three impeachment complaints against President Benigno Aquino III when majority of its members voted insufficiency in substance.

Voting 54-4 with no abstention in all three impeachment complaints, Justice committee chairman and Iloilo Rep. Niel Tupas Jr., declared dismiss the impeachment raps against the President.

It took only two hearings to decide on the three complaints after a lengthy debates and discussion on the second day of the merits of the complaints.

Tupas reminded his colleagues that they will vote on three complaints separately based on the ground rules they approved before putting the complaints into votes.

“The committee has decided to dismiss the three impeachment complaints against the president. We will now prepare the committee report for plenary. In the plenary all the 290 members will vote to know if they will sustain the decision of the committee on justice, or they will over rule the committee. This is a reflection of vote of sentiment of the entire House,” Tupas told reporters after the hearing.

He said that all the opportunity were given to the complainants and to the endorsers. The same standard were used by the committee on Ombudsman [Merceditas] Gutierrez impeachment complaint.

The complaints filed by Makabayan bloc where culpable violation of the Constitution and betrayal of public trust in connection with his implementation of the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP). The Supreme Court has declared the DAP partially unconstitutional.

The third complaint also alleged culpable violation of the Constitution with regard to the Aquino administration’s signing of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) with the US. EDCA is now being questioned before the Supreme Court.

Last Tuesday, the panel voted to the three complaints separately on sufficiency in form which to the recollection of Tupas never lost in the impeachment complaint in past.

Iloilo Rep. Jerry Trenas said that the dismissal of the impeachment case against President Aquino was inevitable primarily because all the complaints are premature and furthermore insufficient in substance.

“These impeachment complaints filed against President Aquino is nothing more than a harassment case and a clear case of a political demolition job. It is too obvious that the sole purpose of the petitioners and their handful of supporters is to discredit the president and his unprecedented accomplishments in carrying out all the reforms needed to fight corruption and defeat poverty. They want him to fail and Congress should not be any part of this evil scheme,” Trenas said.

Eastern Samar Rep. Ben Evardone said during the hearing that there is no basis for Congress to even proceed in discussing the merits of the impeachment complaint because for one, the Supreme Court ruling on DAP, which was used as the primary basis of the complaint, is still under review following the filing of a motion for reconsideration by government lawyers.

“This is the same case with the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), which was entered into by the Philippines and the United States,” Evardone pointed out.

For his part, ACT-CIS party-list Rep. Samuel Pagdilao said all three complaints are premature since at the time of filing, no final and executory decision of the SC on the DAP and the EDCA.

“There is no culpable violation of the Constitution since there was no conscious and deliberate intention to violate the constitution,” Pagdilao stressed.

According to the neophyte solon, the President’s action on the DAP is in line with the provisions of the Administrative Code of 1987 and the funds were properly used for programs and projects that benefited the people and on this basis alone, Congress is bound to dismiss the impeachment complaint even without going through the merits.

“Why should we impeach President Aquino when we know for a fact that all the funds in the DAP were used for public good? The dismissal of the impeachment complaints against the president is inevitable,” Marikina City Rep. Miro Quimbo said.

“Besides, the provisions of the Administrative Code that was the basis of the DAP have never been questioned and have not been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. The complaints are premature and absolutely baseless,” he added. (PNA) CTB/SFM