Impeachment complaint vs Tancangco headed for the graveyard?

The impeachment complaint against Commissioner Luzviminda Tancangco of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) appears headed for the graveyard.

Supporters of the embattled Comelec official in the House justice committee, which is hearing her case, would have won over her opponents yesterday had the panel proceeded with voting on the substance of the complaint.

It was clear that the pro-Tancangco group had the majority among the 24 committee members who attended yesterday‘s hearing.

Sensing possible defeat, Rep. Monico Puentebella (Lakas, Bacolod City), who spearheads the move to impeach the election commissioner, presented a motion to defer the vote for the next hearing.

Tancangco’s supporters agreed to the postponement, confident that they would eventually win the voting anyway.

Rep. Prospero Nograles (Lakas, Davao City), a member of the justice committee, said he would vote for throwing out the complaint.

"I believe that there is no sufficient basis to impeach Commissioner Tancangco," he said.

He said the Comelec official’s critics cannot blame her for the aborted voter registration and information system (VRIS) project because it was the entire poll body that voted on it.

As for the charges of illegal hiring and incurring unliquidated cash advances, Nograles said these should not be the basis for an impeachment complaint.

"They should have brought these charges to the attention of the Commission on Audit and the Civil Service Commission," he added.

The impeachment case against Tancangco was filed by several organizations led by the National Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel), whose chairman, businessman Jose Concepcion Jr., has been carrying on a continual word war with the embattled poll commissioner.

It was endorsed by Puentebella and 66 other House members.

Meanwhile, Deputy Majority Leader Allan Peter Cayetano (Taguig) and House ethics committee chairman Antonio Abaya (Isabela) expressed reservations over the decision by fellow members of the House committee on justice for a vote on whether the impeachment complaint against Tancangco has substance.

Cayetano said the decision to hold a referendum may leave the proceedings open to influence from both sides and make the committee even more late in meeting its mandated deadline to endorse a report to the House Plenary.

On the other hand, Abaya said the decision to hold a referendum on the issue of the impeachment complaint’s sufficiency in substance seemed to be a departure from the committee’s behavior in earlier similar cases.

Cayetano said the 25 justice committee members present should have directly voted on the issue of sufficiency of substance in the impeachment complaint, a proposal supported by 11 congressmen.

But acting on a motion by Nograles, 14 congressmen, including Puentebella, voted to hold a referendum with the results to be announced in a subsequent committee meeting.