Solons to decide on impeach move

The fate of the impeachment complaint against President Arroyo is expected to be known this week.

Congressmen who were requested last Wednesday by the prospective impeachment petitioners to endorse their complaint asked for a week to study it and decide on its fate.

So far, no member of the House of Representatives has agreed to endorse the petition.

The prospective complainants, led by Linda Montayre of the People’s Consultative Assembly, trooped to the House last week and tried to file their complaint, but Roberto Nazareno, the chamber’s secretary general, refused to accept it.

"I’m sorry. Without an endorser, I cannot accept your complaint," Nazareno told Montayre’s group.

The planned petition listed former senator Juan Ponce Enrile as the No. 1 petitioner. However, Enrile was not with the group that went to Nazareno’s office.

Failing to file their complaint, Montayre and her colleagues sought out congressmen whom they thought would take up their cause.

They met with opposition Representatives Didagen Dilangalen of Maguindanao and Ronaldo Zamora of San Juan, who are both staunch allies of ousted President Joseph Estrada. They also sent copies of their petition to Representatives Satur Ocampo, Crispin Beltran and Liza Maza of the leftist group Bayan Muna.

Zamora, who was Estrada’s first executive secretary, did not want to have anything to do with the complaint.

He thinks it is weak and the charges leveled against Mrs. Arroyo are not valid grounds for impeachment.

Dilangalen told the Montayre group he would study the petition. He has been designated by opposition congressmen led by Minority Leader Carlos Padilla to receive the complaint for the minority and make an assessment.

Hinting that his group would make a collective decision, Padilla said they would take into account the larger national interest.

Bayan Muna’s Beltran indicated that they might yet endorse the planned complaint.

He said the militant labor group Kilusang Mayo Uno, which he heads, and other leftist organizations share the objective of Montayre’s group to remove Mrs. Arroyo from office.

However, he said the petition requires serious study.

Rep. Juan Miguel Zubiri (Lakas, Bukidnon) confidently predicted that the Lakas-dominated House will throw out the complaint in the event the complainants find an endorser among his more than 200 colleagues.

It will be killed in the committee on justice, he said.