House opposition: Impeach rules ‘tailor-fit’ for GMA

As the House begins floor debates on the impeachment case against President Arroyo, minority members are already claiming the rules proposed by the majority bloc have been "tailor-fit" to help the embattled Chief Executive.

"It is clear that the rules have been so designed to favor Mrs. Arroyo, who is facing impeachment," Minority Leader Francisco Escudero told a news conference.

Escudero is the lead complainant and endorser of the amended impeachment complaint against the President.

He said what he and his opposition colleagues are asking for "are rules that are fair and a single standard for their application."

"What was applicable for former President Estrada should apply to Mrs. Arroyo. Creeping impeachment was allowed in 2000; it should be allowed now," he said.

"Creeping" impeachment refers to the gradual gathering of endorsers until the required 79 signatures, or one-third of all House members, are obtained to send the impeachment complaint directly to the Senate.

Escudero and his colleagues had only 42 signatures when they filed the amended petition last Monday.

Majority Leader Prospero Nograles and Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, who is the sponsor of the draft impeachment rules, have both said they would not allow a "creeping" impeachment process.

Deputy Minority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano said besides banning the gradual gathering of signatures, the President’s allies have changed another rule on the determination of the substance of a complaint by the House committee on justice.

"Under the old rules, in assessing the substance of a complaint, the complainant is allowed to present evidence to support his or her charges that have been scrapped. The basis for determining substance is now the complaint only. The introduction of evidence has been disallowed," he said.

Clearly, the rules are being bent to favor Mrs. Arroyo, Cayetano stressed.

Escudero and Cayetano said to expedite the approval of impeachment rules, they would take up the suggestion of Nograles that the House approve the rules adopted by the last Congress.

These were the rules used in the impeachment cases of former Ombudsman Aniano Desierto, former election commissioner Luzviminda Tancangco and Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr., which were all dismissed by the House.

Commenting on the opposition’s claim that the proposed rules favor Mrs. Arroyo, Nograles said it is the members of the minority who want to bend the rules to suit their case.

He reiterated that the Constitution does not allow "creeping" impeachment.

Lagman, for his part, said the Estrada precedent that the opposition is invoking "is unconstitutional and therefore void."

In November 2000, then Speaker Manuel Villar Jr. swiftly transmitted the complaint against Estrada as soon as the petitioners satisfied the 77-signature requirement without waiting for the report of the justice committee.

Commenting on Lagman’s assertion, Parañaque Rep. Roilo Golez said the sponsor of the draft impeachment rules "is playing with fire in disallowing creeping impeachment."

He said if Lagman’s logic is followed, "then the process that led to the ouster of Erap was unconstitutional and PGMA’s ascendancy to the presidency was also unconstitutional." PGMA refers to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

"Congressman Lagman is consequently tying knots around himself in sponsoring a rule change favorable to PGMA," said Golez, who has called for the President’s resignation and has signed the amended impeachment petition against her.

In a related development, other allies of Mrs. Arroyo belittled the "two rooms of evidence" against the President claimed by a lawyer of the impeachment petitioners.

In a joint statement, Representatives Monico Puentevella of Bacolod City and Eduardo Zialcita of Parañaque said the opposition’s voluminous evidence could only fit in a drawer and not two rooms.

"Please, don’t insult our intelligence and engage in psy-war tactics for the sake of hogging the headlines and unfairly conditioning the minds of the public. The guilt of the accused is not determined by the volume of the evidence but the weight of their merit and acceptability in court," they said.

They expressed confidence that whatever evidence the opposition has against Mrs. Arroyo, it can be sufficiently countered by her lawyers.